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New Types of Antibiotics in the Treatment of Strep Throat

2010-09-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

Strep throat is inflammation and swelling of the throat, tonsils and lymph nodes due to infection with group A streptococcus bacteria. Strep throat is very contagious and the bacteria responsible for causing the illness can be easily acquired by entering in contact with contaminated people. Streptococcus bacteria are airborne and they can be transmitted through droplets of mucus produced by cough or sneezing. The incubation period of strep throat is around three days and most symptoms of the illness emerge after this period of time. Strep throat usually generates symptoms such as cough, throat inflammation and pain, nausea, fatigue, weakness, headache and moderate to high fever. In order to prevent the occurrence of complications, doctors recommend treating the illness with antibiotics.

Although they have been used in strep throat treatments for decades, some old-fashioned antibiotics such as penicillin and amoxicillin seem to be less effective in overcoming the illness these days. Doctors claim that bacterial strains have mutated and evolved considerably lately, rendering some forms of treatment ineffective in fighting infections. The primary cause for the increased resistance of bacteria to penicillin and amoxicillin is inappropriate treatment. Physicians explain that the misuse of antibiotics allows bacteria to adapt and even become immune to various types of medications.

While in the past penicillin and amoxicillin could successfully cure strep throat, nowadays more and more patients experience a recurrence of the illness soon after the treatment is completed. Recently conducted research results estimate that around 30 percent of patients who are prescribed penicillin or amoxicillin experience a relapse of the illness. Due to their decreased potency in fighting bacteria, physicians strongly recommend not to use penicillin and amoxicillin-based antibiotics any more.

Modern medicine has quickly come up with more reliable replacements for penicillin and amoxicillin. The age of antibiotics has provided us with a wide range of new, more effective drugs such as cephalosporins. Doctors claim that cephalosporins are nowadays the best alternative to old-fashioned antibiotics. Cephalosporins are stronger, more reliable and safer than penicillin and amoxicillin and they can completely overcome strep throat in a shorter amount of time. Physicians state that cephalosporins can cure bacterial infections in 4 to 5 days of treatment, instead of 10, as in the case of other antibiotics. Also, patients who are prescribed cephalosporins in the treatment for strep throat are less likely to experience a relapse of the infection.

Cephalosporins are available under the form of tablets or capsules and they can be purchased from any drugstore. However, just like other antibiotics, cephalosporins are only released with medical prescription and they shouldn't be used without the doctor's recommendation.

Easy Profits With Pay Per Click

2010-09-05T07:54:00.000-07:00

PPC is one of the four basic types of Search Engines. PPC is also one of the most cost-effective ways of targeted internet advertising. According to Forbes magazine, PPC or Pay Per Click, accounts to 2 billion dollars a year and is expected to increase to around 8 billion dollars by the year 2008.

Let us take a quick look at how PPC Search Engines work.

These engines create listings and rate them based on a bid amount the website owner is willing to pay for each click from that search engine. Advertisers bid against each other to receive higher ranking for a specific keyword or phrase.

The highest bidder for a certain keyword or phrase will then have the site ranked as number 1 in the PPC Search Engines followed by the second and third highest bidder, up to the last number that have placed a bid on the same keyword or phrase. Your ads then will appear prominently on the results pages based on the dollar amount bid you will agree to pay per click.

How do you make money by using PPC into your affiliate marketing business?

Most affiliate programs only pay when a sale is made or a lead delivered after a visitor has clickthrough your site. Your earnings will not always be the same as they will be dependent on the web site content and the traffic market.

The reason why you should incorporate PPC into your affiliate marketing program is that earnings are easier to make than in any other kind of affiliate program not using PPC. This way, you will be making profit based from the clickthroughs that your visitor will make on the advertiser's site. Unlike some programs, you are not paid per sale or action.

PPC can be very resourceful of your website. With PPC Search Engines incorporated into your affiliate program, you will be able to profit from the visitor's who are not interested in your products or services. The same ones who leave your site and never comes back.

You will not only get commissions not only from those who are just searching the web and finding the products and services that they wanted but you will be able to build your site's recognition as a valuable resource. The visitors who have found what they needed from you site are likely to come back and review what you are offering more closely. Then they will eventually come back to search the web for other products.

This kind of affiliate program is also an easy way for you to generate some more additional revenues. For example, when a visitor on your site does a search in the PPC Search Engine and clicks on the advertiser bided listings, the advertisers' account will then be deducted because of that click. With this, you will be compensated 30% to 80% of the advertisers' bid amount.

PPC is not only a source of generating easy profits; it can also help you promote your own site. Most of the programs allow the commissions received to be spent for advertising with them instantly and with no minimum earning requirement. This is one of the more effective ways to exchange your raw visitors for targeted surfers who has more tendencies to purchase your products and services.

What will happen if you when you integrate PPC into your affiliate program?

PPC usually have ready-to-use affiliate tools that can be easily integrated into your website. The most common tools are search boxes, banners, text links and some 404-error pages. Most search engines utilize custom solutions and can provide you with a white-label affiliate program. This enables you, using only a few lines of code, to integrate remotely-hosted co-branded search engine into your website.

The key benefits? Not only more money generated but also some extra money on the side. Plus a lifetime commissions once you have referred some webmaster friends to the engine.

Think about it. Where can you get all these benefits while already generating some income for your site? Knowing some of the more useful tools you can use for your affiliate program is not a waste of time. They are rather a means of earning within an earning.

Best know more about how you can use PPC search engines into your affiliate program than miss out on a great opportunity to earn more profits.

Article Written By J. Foley

http://inovatrek.beatadword.hop.clickbank.net

Choosing a Television Set

2010-09-04T06:15:00.000-07:00

Nowadays the problem isn't just what to watch on TV, but the kind of TV you want to watch it with. There is just a huge variety available in the market today-

not just brands, but product categories. Here are some things to consider as you make your choice.

Direct-View televisions have amazing picture quality, while still being less expensive than flat panel types. Screens come as small as 9 inches, and as big as 40 inches-imagine how fun it would be to play the Playstation 3 on that! Because of the shape of the screen, you have a good view from nearly any angle in the room. Unfortunately, many people say that it doesn't give quite the "immersive" experience that you can get from other types of televisions.

Rear Projection televisions also give excellent image quality, and can be considered to be better than some of the newer technologies. It has the richest and subtlest blacks, and are very very affordable. Unfortunately, they're bulky. Some models are 30 inches deep, making it difficult to put it into a standard TV cabinet. (And because of its weight, it's hard to move around.) And they require to be finetuned by an expert to maintain optimum image quality. Some complain that the image starts to dim when viewed from certain angles.

Microdisplays are smaller rear projection TV's. They have very sharp images, and have no rainbow effect. But it's difficult to watch comfortably from a short distance (some people describe it as something like watching TV through a screen door), so you need a big viewing room.

LP rear projections have good black levels, and smooth pictures, but there's some "noise"-sparkles in some areas of the screen-and can occasionally have rainbow effects, especially when you move your eyes quickly.

LCO's have excellent resolutions, some as high as 1080x1920. Prices are high, too, and you may have some problems getting the really rich black colors.

Flat Panel TVs, the new big thing to hit TV, are being praised not only for their high resolution but their form factor. They can sit elegantly in a living room, almost as sleek as a sculpture, and the handy shape also means that they don't take up valuable space (ideal for those in small city apartments). Disadvantages include burning in of static images. LCD Flat panels don't have the burn in problem, but may be difficult to view at wide angles.

As you can probably see, choosing the right tTV for you involves many different factors. These include, of course, your budget. How much are you willing to spend on your television? Of course, prices are affected not only by the type of television, but the size. Also look at the set-up of your room. Certain types of televisions are best viewed from some angles, or have blind spots. Where is your sofa located? Where will people be seated when they watch? Consider that when you choose a model.

Innovation: the #1 Skill for Success

2010-08-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

Successful people come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Have you ever taken a good look your "business heroes?" They might look like they just stepped off the runway of a modeling agency, or they might look like a windstorm dropped them in a rumpled and mismatched heap.

Appearances and personalities don't define the perfectly successful businessman, but there are a few things they all have in common. One of the most out standing characteristics that I've noticed is innovation.

What exactly is innovation? There are a lot of different ideas of exactly what innovation means, but since I'm writing this article we'll go with mine… the ability and guts to come up with a brand new idea, develop it, and make it sell.

Now, just to get your imagination in working order, let's go to "the land of let's pretend" for a moment. Somewhere out there a young princess realized that there were a lot of lonely princesses and a shortage of handsome young princes.

This enterprising young lady brainstormed and came up with the idea that if she kissed a frog he'd turn into a dashing prince to dance the night away with. How many frogs did she kiss before she found the perfect species? Who knows! Maybe she analyzed species and counted warts before she found one that actually worked.

Then she sold the idea to the young princesses of the surrounding kingdoms. She must've done a heck of a good job at marketing the idea, because it's still being printed today.

Okay, it's a bit corny I know, but innovation is more than a fairytale skill. It truly does work in today's market place. Unfortunately there's no magic wand that will give you instant innovative skills. It must be practiced, and developed with painstaking care and diligence.

Why Work at Developing Innovation?

1. To Recognize Market Needs and Opportunities
How many gaps in the market have gone unfilled for generations? At first you might scratch your head and say, "No way, everything that can be marketed has been." The best place to start is with you. Take a look at things that you wish you could change. Brainstorm different ways to meet those needs and ways to market them to others who are just like you.

2. To Capture Potential Value
You might be surprised at what putting a brand new spin on a "ho-hum" product can do. A few examples are: artists using saw blades to create rustic paintings, or even the Vietnamese using thrown away rubber tires to create sandals.

3. To Develop New Products and Services
A sharp eye for undeveloped customer needs might put you on point for a brand new product or service that will put money in your pocket.

4. To Gain Market Share from Competitors
Anything new is exciting, and Americans have to try it out. Whether it turns out to be a passing fad or a market that will make a permanent place in society, there's a buck to be made. Don't forget that passing fads make a comeback. I've recently noticed that Cabbage Patch dolls and Strawberry Shortcake are on the rebound.

Developing innovation and getting your creative juices flowing may take some time and energy, but the payoff could just be your pot of gold.

Online Backup Services Provider

2010-08-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

This article outlines the final criteria of a methodology to determine the online backup services provider for offsite backup.

In my earlier article, we discussed a two-stage methodology to help you determine the online backup services provider for your offsite backup needs.

In that article, Stage 1 of the methodology - compiling a short list - was covered in detail.

Today, we will talk about Stage 2 where you will assess those on the short-list against the final set of criteria to determine the top rated vendor.

I have listed the final criteria in the order of importance.

1. Around-The-Clock Phone Support

Remember that data recovery is not an activity that is done frequently.

Yet, when the need arises and especially when an entire server is down, the recovery has to be done correctly and quickly to minimise downtime.

This is best done by having the online backup services provider guiding you over the phone (or at the minimum using live chat) while the data restoration is being carried out.

Having a single number to call makes it easier for you to remember instead of calling separate numbers depending on the day or time.

2. Enhanced Restore Feature

The downtime can be reduced further if you can find an offsite backup services provider that provides enhanced recovery capabilities for restoration to be completed quicker.

3. Optimised Backup Feature

Scheduled backups happen regularly and if not optimised can drain your resources in terms of time and storage requirements.

You will therefore want to check whether there are additional capabilities that can reduce the amount of offsite data storage and backup time.

4. Service Provider Redundancy

Do make sure that your vendor has incorporated redundancy in its data centre premises. Redundancy should include servers, power, internet connection / bandwidth etc.

In addition to redundancy at the premise, you will find a few leading services providers even have mirrored data centres. And each of these mirrored data centres has its own set of redundant facilities. To be most secured, these mirrored data centres should be as far apart as possible.

5. Easy To Use Online Resources

This serves as a very useful source of reference to help you get things done quicker without the need of calling the vendor's support centre. Also, with easy-to-use online resources, you may even learn to carry out data restorations by yourself, expediting matters when you need most!

By evaluating the short-listed vendors against this final set of criteria, you will be able to determine the online backup services provider that can meet your business offsite backup needs.

Antioxidante, Free Radicals and Sports Nutrition

2010-08-29T07:35:00.000-07:00

As you know, I am a physician. It's part of my profession to keep abreast of what's happening in medical /health research. Being retired helps, because doctors simply do not generally have the "extra time" to devote to the scientific literature.

But I do. And I love it. I am one of those individuals who really enjoys …brace yourself…chemistry. When I'm done here, you should be excited too, especially if you are interested in sports nutrition and antioxidants, though not necessarily in that order.

Sports nutrition is a vast industry with emphasis on optimizing PERFORMANCE. Off hand, I can think of quite a few categories involving sports nutrition:

" sports nutrition and supplements for athletes,
" sports nutrition and athletic performance,
" sports nutrition and body building,
" sports nutrition and endurance training,
" sports nutrition and special diets in a variety of sports,
" sports nutrition and strength training,
" sports nutrition for running, jogging, walking, skiing, swimming
" There's even Rocky Mountain sports nutrition
" …the list is endless.

So far, no surprises, huh? Well, here's one for you. Did you know that when you exercise intensively you INCREASE the free radical burden in your body? If you're a serious sports enthusiast, you should know that.

But…the real news is what science is now finding out about that free radical burden of yours. You should pay close attention here.

Suddenly, chemistry gets real personal.

Everyone of us has, what may be called, our antioxidant protective capacity. That means our bodies normally utilize antioxidants to protect us against the harmful impact of free radicals.

First of all, what are antioxidants? They are molecular substances which offset free radical damage to the body. Antioxidants, "quench" free radicals (for lack of a better metaphor) neutralizing their damaging effects on the cells of the body.

" Antioxidants are found in foods such as cranberries, green tea and even chocolate.

" Antioxidants are found in vitamins such vitamin C and E.

" Antioxidants are found in carotenoids such as beta-carotene.

" Antioxidants are found in many substances supplied by the body such as glutathione.

" Antioxidants are found in many herbs and enzymes.

The impact of antioxidants is boosted by glyconutrients to offset free radicals in your body…and, as a result of your athletic exertions.

Antioxidant capacity must be provided in your sports nutrition regimen or you could be "robbing Peter to pay Paul" with your workouts. As you will see, without a glyconutrional presence in your sports nutrition, the healthful gains made by your physical workouts will be offset by your own free radical burden.

Free radicals, sports and sports nutrition

Free radicals are those chemical species which contain one or more unpaired electrons, capable of independent existence. They form in the body due to a variety of reasons as offshoots of cellular activity or as products introduced to the body from the outside.

As an analogy, think of running a car engine as the cellular production
and the car emissions a the free radical production. The engine produces products which cannot stay inside the car without further damage. They simply must be neutralized and expelled.

Free radicals form and cause damage by reacting with many substances in your body. It is estimated that upwards of 200,000 free radical attacks occur in our bodies daily.

When free radical damage is done, the body can remove the compounds formed by its cellular repair system. However, if the body cannot handle the free radicals (with antioxidants for example), nor remove the compounds, then disease can be the result.

Contrary to popular opinion, free radicals do not circulate throughout the body. The half-life of most free radicals varies in a range of a few nanoseconds to about 7 seconds duration. That means they will react within the "neighborhood" (a few Angstroms or microns near where the increase in free radicals occurred) …organs, connective tissue, circulatory or nerve tissue, bone or lymphatic material are all candidates for free radical attack.

Wherever they form, they will damage the surrounding areas, unless prevented by the body…So the body does NOT have the luxury of just filtering away any circulatory fluids to find the free radicals. The body's defense systems must be…well…fairly omnipresent to neutralize the effects of free radicals. The antioxidant protective system must be healthy.

Since they are highly reactive substances, they react with all sorts of cell elements readily. But, when they do react with your body cells, they can damage the cells and even kill them. Often, the damage from free radicals can CHANGE the cellular structure enough to cause DISEASE such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and a host of others.

The type of disease that occurs is dependent upon which of the free radical defenses in the body weren't functioning properly and where the free radical attacks occur.

The body has pretty sophisticated antioxidant defense systems. But, the body CAN get overwhelmed in its antioxidant protections against such free radicals…

Indeed, unless antioxidant enhanced sports nutrition (with glyconutrients) are used to offset the increased free radical burden, the BODY will suffer as a result of intensive sports training, stress, and competition.

Glyconutrients VITAL to sports nutrition …

Studies comparing marathon runners who did and did not take glyconutritional sports nutrition supplements were undertaken. The results were reported by the Proceedings of the Fisher Institute For Medical Research ( August 2003, vol.3, no.1). The results "demonstrated strikingly different patterns." Antioxidant protection appeared to be powerfully enhanced against free radicals with glyconutritional supplementation. Thus, the body was protected for several days after the marathon run.

However, when glyconutritional sports nutrition was NOT used, the damaging effects of the free radical burden appeared to remain in the body for about five days. Thus, the subject "consistently excreted higher concentrations of free radical byproducts…" as compared to that of the glyconutritional subject. It should be emphasized that the subject studied WAS TAKING other antioxidants, though not glyconutrition. Despite that fact, the above cited results were obtained.

That's another way of saying that when glyconutritional supplements were not used, the free radical burden upon the body was not lifted. Antioxidant protection does appear to be (significantly) strengthened with glyconutritional sports nutrition. Such antioxidant protection appears to be of benefit for athletes overall, including training, stress, competition and dietary issues.

The glyconutrional revolution in sports nutrition and therapy is just beginning. More studies are being done. More results are coming in concerning free radicals and the capacity of the glyconutrients to boost antioxidant affect against free radicals.

Sports nutrition is about to see a new revolution…

Better still. I believe that it is quite probable that, with glyconutrition, sports PERFORMANCE is about to see a revolution in al fields.

Maximize Your Article

2010-08-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

ou are ready to kick off your article marketing campaign. You have some great aricles put together and you've located the best directories to promote your articles. But stop!

There are still a few steps you will need to complete before you are really ready to begin submitting your articles to publishers and directories.

1. Make Your Article As Attractive As Possible

Is your article formatted so it is easy to read and/or scan with short paragraphs, subheadings, and bullet points? Are you using plain text and only plain text in your article?

2. Clean Up Your Act

Have you checked for spelling, grammar, and other surface errors? You will lose credibility with a lot of mistakes. Read your article out loud. You will be surprised how many mistakes you can catch with this method not to mention how many awkward sentences you can locate for revision.

3. Offer Useful Information

If you article offers an useful tip or a solution to a problem then make sure you highlight this in your headline and summary. Don't try to sell with your article. Sell yourself, your information, your expertise, and your experience, but not your products. In the long run you will gain far more exposure by selling your knowledge.

4. Keep It Short

The ideal length (studied by many experts in the field) is a word count of 250-500 words. If your article is twice this length then try to break it into two articles (and so on). If a 500-word article performs the same as a 5,000-word article why give readers more than they can absorb in an easy read.

5. Create Your Resource Box

A resource box is a small paragraph (directory and site requirements vary so keep it as short as possible) with your name, the name of your business, a short tagline, and most important the link to your website (in url form: http://YourSite.com). Don't get too lengthy but you might add at the end a one-three sentence pitch for your site that can easily be trimmed off if some directories have a low character count for the resource box. Don't forget to include a call to action here. For example, Find more advice from Deanna Mascle by clicking here... You an also include an anchor url related to one keyword or keyword phrase that you want to build backlinks for. Do not abuse or overuse this strategy. Rule of thumb for resource box is that it be no longer than 1/5 the length of your article. If this balance shifts too much it will affect your credibility.

. Write A Summary

Many directories will ask you for a summary of your article so it easier to have this prepared before you begin submitting. Keep it short and succint. Usually just a few sentences.

7. Generate Your Keywords

Many directories will ask you for a list of keywords or key phrases for your article so it is easier to have this prepared before you begin submitting. I would prepare a list of 10-20 words (comma separated) with the most important first working down to the least important.

Once you've completed these seven steps you are ready to submit. Taking a few moments to complete these steps BEFORE you begin submitting will save you time and stress as you work through the submission process -- not to mention allow you to craft the most effective resource box and summary possible.

Ways to Market Your Business through Business Cards

2010-08-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

So let's say you were able to create an attractive and stunning business card. The problem now is what will you do with it?

Business cards are one of the most cost effective marketing tools for your business. Keeping them in the box or in your drawer would do you no good. You need to get them into the hands of your potential customers. Keep in mind that your business card is like a mini-billboard for your business so you need people to see it in order for it to be effective. How can you possibly do this?

First off, you need to always keep them in your purse, pocket, wallet or briefcase or at the reception area of your office. It is important that you have them on hand so that when you need them you can easily take hold of it and introduce yourself to a customer. Second, you can always place the cards in libraries, supermarkets, local restaurants or bulletin boards. Whenever there is an opportunity for you to post or leave your card in, go ahead. Somebody important might see it and contact you.

Third, include your business card in all your correspondence. If you ship products you can include a card in every package. You can also include your contact information in your email signature. It serves as an electronic business card. Fourth, keep you cards in a nice holder so they won't get bent or wet. Storing your cards in a stylish case creates a better presentation. If you are also receiving someone else's card treat them well. You won't impress the person by mishandling their business card.

Fifth, give people a reason to hold your card. You can print something unique and different at the back such as a calendar, list of important events or anything relevant to your business. Lastly, use the business card to introduce yourself. However, don't be too pushy. Make sure that the time is appropriate when you hand them. You can ask first for the other person's card. This way they will also ask you for your card in return.

Business cards can do more than just provide your contact information. You can use them as marketing materials to help you bring in more business. So, don't just leave them to sit in a box collecting dust. They are inexpensive enough to print by the thousands, so hand them out so they can serve their purpose.

5 ways how to be successful by selling online

2010-08-24T10:14:00.000-07:00

Are you selling online? You are maybe looking for some solutions how to succeed in your business. There are several ways how to get more clients and earn more money. In this article I will introduce you some of them.

1. Affiliate marketing:
Affiliate marketing consist in relationship between web site owners and merchant. Web site owners put merchants advertisement (usually text link or banner) on their page and merchant pays commission from each deal to the site owner. The advantage of this promotion method is the fact that you can never loose your money for inefficient advertising because you pay only in case you earn some money. If you want to start your own affiliate program you can buy one of many available scripts or use some of affiliate networks like Link Share or Commission Junction.

2. Search engine optimization (SEO):
Search engine optimization is one of the most effective (and one of the hardest) ways how to get the large number of very good targeted customers. If you are a search engine optimization specialist, make a SEO analysis and optimize your web site for some effective keywords. If you know nothing about SEO try to find some basic information on Internet and optimize for easy keywords or hire some SEO company. The advantage of search engine optimization is the fact that you get the visitors who want to buy the goods (or services) which you offer. The disadvantage is the long time necessary for successful optimization.

3. Pay per click (PPC):
There are several search engines offering pay per click program. Advertiser choose the keyword and the bid. If the visitor search for this keyword, advertisements targeted for this keyword are displayed. If more advertisers select the same keyword the advertisements are sorted by the bid (except google AdWords, there the advertisement position depends on the bid and click rate). The big advantage of pay per click system is the fact that you can start your campaign during a few minutes.

4. Banner exchanges:
You include a HTML code to your web site and each time somebody visits the site where the HTML code is placed a banner will be displayed and you get some credits (usually 1/2 - 1 credit depending on the exchange ratio). For each credit you "earn" your banner will be displayed on another banner exchange members page. This type of promotion is good for branding but it will increase your traffic just about 0,1 - 1 % only (depending on click rate of your banner) so always combine this method with another strategies.

5. Promotional coupon codes:
Everybody is happy for a free gift or some discount and a lot of online marketers take advantage of this fact. So why don't make your customers happy too? There are many promotional coupon code directories on Internet. Put your coupon code to most of these web sites. Try combination of promotional coupon codes strategy and affiliate marketing. Give away to your publishers promo codes or special affiliate link. If the visitor click this link he gets some discount, free gift, free shipping or another benefits.

Prepare Healthy Meals In Minutes

2010-08-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

Obesity is one of the most talked about health issues today. Since 1980, overweight rates have doubled among adults and children and tripled among adolescents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Regular exercise and good nutrition are at the heart of staying healthy, reducing the risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity. But eating right can be a challenge in today's fast-paced world.

With a bit of creativity and professional-style equipment, preparing healthy, delicious food is faster and easier than it may seem. Here are tips for using blenders in the Vita-Mix Professional Series to easily create flavorful, nutritious meals and snacks:

* Fresh fruits are an essential part of a healthy diet, and they're easy to incorporate into your daily routine. Make a fresh fruit smoothie for breakfast instead of a sweet roll, or try a smoothie for an evening snack instead of ice cream, cookies or chips.

* Soup made with fresh ingredients can make a light but satisfying entrée. Using a commercial-grade blender, you can create a variety of recipes in minutes - from a heart-healthy tomato soup to a delicious squash soup - and add more vegetables to your diet.

* The USDA food pyramid recommends 5 to 8 ounces of grains per day, with an emphasis on whole grains. The Vita-Mix Professional Series cracks whole grains into flour for creating delicious cereals, pancakes and healthy homemade breads.

* With childhood obesity a growing concern, parents can prepare baby food at home using fresh, flavorful and healthy ingredients. When you make it yourself, you know exactly what is in it.

* Offer fresh and healthy appetizer options at a party. Salsa or red pepper hummus on summer squash rounds are tasty ways to celebrate any occasion.

4 Ways To Build Lists For Your Internet Marketing

2010-08-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

While you may think that having your own website is all that's essential if your home based business is to succeed, any successful Internet marketing email home based business needs another asset just as much. What is it?

If you have a mailing list of people who have purchased a product or provided a response to one of your ads, with verifiable email addresses, you are in possession of something that will make you the envy of many Internet marketers. But it will take a while for you to build it. What are your best methods for getting a list big enough to set you up with a profitable Internet marketing email home based business?

1. Article Directories

If you want to build a list of email addresses genuinely interested in whatever your home base business is selling, write, or pay to have written, articles on your product. Then submit hem to article directories, where you'll be given a resource box at the end of each article. Use the resource box to include a newsletter signup, and if your article were good, you'll get the email addresses of readers who'd like to follow up.

2. Free Reports

Most people can't pass up a free offer related to something in which they are interested, so by writing and offering free reports about your products to those who join your mailing list you'll be following in the footsteps of some very savvy Internet entrepreneurs. Just make sure the information in your free reports is current and accurate, because they may be the first impression you give to potential customers. You certainly don't want them to be the last!

3. List Building Sites

List building sites are matrix programs which require you to refer people to join after you. The referrals of your referrals become your second level referrals, and you can send your mails to them and everyone whom they refer. It's typical matrix stuff, and works fine as long as you get in near the top and have referrals who are willing to share their lists of referrals.

Listbandit.com has a twist in that every twenty-four hours it randomly flips the positioning in the matrix so that some days you have a lot of email addresses to which you can send your mailings, and other days you're on the bottom of the list. You have to be prepared to do your mailings on the good days, and that's not the most efficient way to promote a business!

4. Become a Blogger

You almost have to have a blog if you want to succeed at marketing, because a blog gives you an opportunity to build real rapport with your prospective customers. You can place sign up forms for your free reports on each page of your blog, and if your readers are impressed with your blog's contents, they will probably sign up to learn more.

There are plenty of other ways to begin building a list for your Internet marketing email home based business, but whichever method you choose, it's key to build trust with your customers by keeping their information private and by making sure that you give them quality information!

Their Healings Power

2010-08-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

In today's polluted society is very taxing on the body. While the body benefits exceptionally from fruit and vegetables, to cope with all the chemicals around us the body needs specific supplements.

Most supplements turn into very expensive urine. This is a very important point. Carbon dioxide, exhaust fumes, putrid invisible gases and boron (a chemical that leaks into buildings from bricks) poison our bodies on a daily basis. We need extra support to counter this.

Want to know how to counteract all the wastes the body has to take in? Chlorophyll is the substance that causes the green coloration in plants and vegetables. It is similar to hemoglobin in the blood except for one molecule. Green vegetables, especially leafy greens, shoot the highest energetic nutrients into the body.

There is one supplement that has high concentrated source of chlorophyll. This supplement also contains Vitamins A, C, E, K and B including B12 and B17 (these two are particularly significant because it's been suggested that it's not easy to get vitamin B12 on a vegetarian diet. B17 is significant because of the latest research that suggests possible benefits it provides on specific types of cancers). It also contains every single known mineral, in organic form (on Day 2 we talked about the importance of getting organic minerals). That's every single known mineral needed by the body. Some of these are extremely hard to get. It also has every known trace mineral. A true phenomenon. It considered a wonder food. It is tasteless in a glass of fruit juice. It's much better than its name suggests. This is Wheatgrass. Don't be mistaken, this is far different from wheat – the most important point is that Wheatgrass does not contain gluten

Have you ever seen or come across the latest craze for Omega 3 Fats? They are also known as Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids. If you haven't seen it yet, you will very soon. Many scientists are linking them with everything your body needs, everything from weight loss to skin shine. One challenge is that the body can't store Omega 3 Fatty Acids. Omega 3 is made from a substance called ALA (alpha-lipoic acid). ALA can be stored by the body. Linseed is packed full of ALA, or basically the building blocks of essential good fats. These fats are good fats, as opposed to the excess weight which comes from bad fats. Scientists are now finding that good fats will push out bad fats from the body. Linseed is not green; however it's very powerful, so we've included it here.

Remember you get most of your nutrients from fruits and vegetables.

Get rid of it ASAP

2010-08-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

n continuation of the article titled above, you by now may have realized why it is of uttermost important to have a clean and free flowing colon by avoiding the causes of chronic constipation. I will now go over the possible solutions of its symptoms for your edification.

Solutions for Chronic Constipation: Introduction

In some cases, there are residues in the body (gall stones, impacted fecal matter, etc) that are "stuck". Intestinal residue may have to be assisted mechanically via a raw fruit and vegetable diet (for a while, if you don't want to go the route of being 80% or more raw) and regular fasts.

Every change of diet for the better should start with a 1-2 day fast. Of course, you must get the body prepared gradually for this with the proper transition diet which is also issued in the text. Before this 24-48 hour fast, ensure to observe the following menu suggestion.

Solutions for Chronic Constipation: Suggested Diet Menu

Breakfast: Fresh Juice

Lunch: One or two seasonal juicy fruits

Supper: Vegetables: Cooked, Raw or a combination.

Never drink during a meal. The more liquids you consume while eating, the more difficult it is to digest the foods, as the liquids tend to dilute the digestive juices.

Also ensure to chew each mouthful of your meals thoroughly. This is known as Fletcherism: A process which involves you chewing each mouthful to a liquid or semi-solid pulp, by consciously masticating a mouthful of food over and over, ensuring to mix it with your saliva. Between each mouthful swallowed, purposely have between 4-6 seconds of a brief pause as well. When you observe this, it not only allows your stomach and intestines to rest as in a fast and this consequently promotes elimination that hereby enables the vital organs to recuperate. By 'fletcherizing' mono-meals of fruit say Melons in summer or Apples in fall, this can used as a form of a preparatory stage for a fast.

Furthermore, thoroughly masticating your meals helps to curb your appetite so you don't over eat even the best foods as assimilation is greatly enhanced through this discipline.
Moreover, this (besides a fast of course) is one sure-fire method of avoiding chronic constipation.

Chronic Constipation: Exercise also Matters.

Another way in which both mild and chronic constipation can be avoided will be by engaging in physical exercise. This acts as a stimulant for peristalsis, the wave-like motion in the visceral organs that induces a natural relief from constipation. However, on this subject, perhaps the best form of exercise for chronic constipation relief will be the incomparable Yoga. Let me take this time to introduce you to some effective yoga poses that combat constipation effectively.

Chronic Constipation: Yoga Poses that Could Help

1. The Bow Pose
2. The Shoulder Stand
3. The Peacock Pose
4. The Abdominal Lifts
5. The Breathing Exercises.

These poses specifically target the abdominal region of the body and in executing them; one finds a natural remedy for constipation. Adequate information on these poses can be found on several Yoga sites online or you can fire up your favorite search engine and get the information on them. However for interested parties, I have ensured to describe in detail the execution of these poses to combat chronic constipation in my book.

Remember, the human body before all other physiological considerations is an air-gas engine constructed in its entirety-with the exception of the bones-from a rubber like, very elastic, spongy material, called flesh and tissues. For this mechanism to work most efficiently, obstruction in these tissues needs to be eliminated. With the methods listed above you too can naturally be free of chronic constipation and well on your way to improved health, vigor and vitality.

Foras Aje is an independent researcher and author of Fitness: Inside and out, a book on improving physical and mental health naturally. For more information on natural health and safe weight loss, visit http://www.bodyhealthsoul.com

Naturopathy has proven that ALL diseases have their roots in constipation, a clogging up of the human bodily tissues. To combat this enemy of health, you must take some steps to succeed. Read more for your edification.

For Big Profits By David Mason

2010-08-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have no idea how many books are crammed onto bookshelves all about the subject of marketing, there must be many millions. It is a subject well understood, how do you make someone buy your Widget as opposed to the other guys Widget? Marketing is the answer, but, marketing comes at a price. How much can you afford?

I have a friend who is a retired BBDO exec, and in his mind, marketing that widget should cost the same as the national debt of a small country. Most small businesses can hardly manage to pay the rent and other expenses, never mind a TV spot on The Superbowl.

David Mason has done a very fine job of encapsulating the important aspects of marketing into a very short read. While I am not sure that he has introduced anything new, he has put it on paper that even the most book 'resistant' company owner could manage, at a scant 121 pages this should not scare even the skittish book reader.

Of course there is a downside with using such a short format, in a word 'lists.' My wife knows me very well, and she always has stuff for me to do. But she also knows that giving me a long 'To Do' list makes my eyes glaze over. If the list has less than than 5 items, the chances are good that I will at least attempt a few of them. David Mason prefers longer lists, I believe one was 16 items long! That I found a little of a turn-off, my wife knows better than to try a list that long on me!

On the plus side, he makes very convincing arguments. Arguments that make sense. It is important that every business has a 'slogan,' David Mason calls it the USP (Unique Selling Proposition), but slogan or banner is what we are talking about.

How do you attract customers? You have your slogan, but if it only exists on your computer or in your head, who is going to hear the message? Many people have small companies, some sell niche products, some sell niche services, how do you sell your idea? Newspaper Ads might work, but only for the day, a Magazine might work for a month, radio and TV spots last for seconds! How about the internet?

David Mason explores all of the potentials, all of the advertising mediums have their up's and down's, cost, effectiveness, even the number of eyeballs that you get your message in front of are important considerations.

The last part of the book I found really helpful, he has included some samples of headlines and opening lines that the small business owner could use in his advertising campaign, and some simple worksheets to assist in customizing the slogans to your own specific needs.

Marketing You Small Business For Big Profits is small enough to be a quick and easy read, but large enough to contain the vital elements important to run an effective advertising program. The author also takes a very down to earth approach in offering advice on implementing the strategies. 'You don't have to do them all, just start with one and see what happens.' In other words you don't have to do everything, just do something.

Watch the feedback

2010-08-24T08:17:00.000-07:00

Amazon does it, so does ebay and hundreds of other online businesses – now brick and mortar stores are finding online feedback to be an incredible tool in quickly locating the products that perform well along with products that may need to be pulled from the shelf.

By allowing customers the opportunity to provide instant feedback in product reviews companies are gaining a much better picture of consumer buying habits than simply waiting to see if consumers returned for a repeat purchase of a product.

Online business is learning a great deal from customers as to products that exceed expectations and others that have inherent flaws the company had no knowledge of.

At first blush it may seem that such an open invitation to feedback may be detrimental to the success of your company, especially if the feedback is negative. However, since business has been used to learning of customer's likes or dislikes by hearing from them first-hand, the use of feedback can seem a bit frightening. However, for the customer it feels like a safe, third party means of letting your voice be heard.

Sure, others will see the product review and it may negatively affect their purchasing decision, but it may be a quick way for a business to come to terms with the lack of performance and quality of a product you may have been considering restocking.

Your response to the customer's feedback allows the customer to feel their voice was important and their opinions did count in how you do business and what offerings you make available online.

When you allow independent reviews to be posted online you will likely discover increased sales. Why? Because the majority of online customers tend to place a higher value on the opinions of people who do not work for the company. They've spent so many hours listening to a variety of sales pitches that to have an actual customer provide a glowing recommendation means more than a well crafted sales pitch.

When negative product reviews come in early and often you may have discovered a flawed product that can be submarined before it becomes a problem product. By releasing the tools needed to empower your customer with a voice, you may well find that the voice is largely positive. In turn, that largely positive voice can became a rather inexpensive sales tool. Finally, that inexpensive sales tool may result in a long-term customer relationship because you listened to customer concerns and addressed the issues quickly.

3 Innovative Ways To Build An Optin Email List

2010-08-24T08:06:00.000-07:00

With so many optin email lists out there, your really need to come up with a hook to attractive subscribers. It needs to have something special or different. It could be something you offer inside every newsletter issue, like interviews with experts. Or the hook could be a unique incentive that website vistors can take advantage of immediately when they sign up.

Here are 3 ideas you can use for your own sites, or use as inspiration to get you thinking a little outside of the box:

-- Build an Optin Email List by Creating a Private Members Only Site or Section --

Create a private web site and have people sign up to get free, immediate access. For example, you could say, "Subscribe to our free e-zine and get free access to our private membership web site!" You can choose to have them receive a username and password every time they want to login, or you can just provide a link to the site in your welcome email.

Your private members only site can be as big or as small as you want. Some of the things you can include inside are: reports, software, articles, ebooks, etc. Inside the site, you can advertise your affiliate programs, as well. And you can follow-up to let them know about updates, new products they might be interested in, the latest news in your industry, etc.

-- Build an Optin Email List By Giving Subscribers a Free, Tangible Gift --

Instead of offering a free ebook (or a whole package of them) like most everybody else, promise to give your visitors something they can hold in their hands if they give you their contact information.

For example, you could say "Subscribe today and get our new report mailed to you via First Class." You could print out your report on standard 8 x 11 sheets of paper, fold it up, put it inside an envelope, and mail it off.

Or you can offer a tips booklet and mail it to new subscribers. Or you can create your own CD full of information targeted toward your market and mail that. Or if you have a wholesale supply of a product of interest to your subscribers, then you can send one to each new subscriber. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

Follow-up possibilities include: articles (your own or written by others), tips you pick up, news in your niche, reviews of products or other interested, related websites, etc.

-- Build an Optin Email List Through a Contest or Sweepstakes --

Hold a free contest or sweepstakes at your website where they must give their contact information, including their email address, to enter. Make the prize something that your niche market will be interested in. Otherwise, they'll never want to enter.

If you already have an ezine up and running, you could offer free automatic entry for new subscribers. For example, you could say, "Subscribe to our free newsletter and get automatic entry into our contest." You'll also want to retroactively include current subscribers.

You can announce the winner(s) at the end, as well as send any new contest announcements or product announcements. Or you can make this an ongoing contest, where you give away the same thing to one (or more) lucky people every month. That way you'll entice many subscribers to stay on your list.

You can find niche products to give away through wholesalers or dropshippers. Or you can create it yourself. One of my favorite ways to do this is create a CD-Rom with a guide or report (or sometimes several) that my niche market will find interesting.

Once again, you can follow-up with tips, articles, news, new product announcements, or just an announcement of each monthly winner(s).

Hopefully, now I've inspired you to take some action or encouraged ideas of your own with these tips. Any idea, the more popular it gets, requires you to think outside the box every now and then in order to be effective. Building an optin email list is no different. And with newsletters and ezines saturating the Internet day by day, you need to offer something a little different to make them want to sign up to yours. Or you'll just end up getting left behind.

Social Bookmarking Can Really Boost Your Web

2010-08-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of talk about social bookmarking when it comes to research engine optimization, and it's sometimes hard to see via the haze of marketing towards the true facts.

Basically, interpersonal book marking services go to websites for example Digg, Stubmleupon, Reddit, Delicious and create hyperlinks to your website, tag it and share it with the world.

This can assist drive visitors to your website in two methods. First, if you have a novel or fascinating site, people will normally be drawn to it and follow the links for your doorstep. People spend hours on interpersonal ebook marking websites and use it to find the majority of their info. Should you send readers to an interesting article or valuable assistance, they will naturally send a link to their friends, and their friends will do the same. Secondly, each among the links provided by a social ebook marking service will deliver "link juice" to your website.

"Link juice" is jargon for site believability in the eyes of search engines. Social book marking websites use a significant of believability, and with every hyperlink it provides your website a bit of that credibility. So even if nobody looks at the social bookmark on Digg, the site will assist your website a small a lot more credibility.

The way this functions is that when the bots from Google or Bing search your site, they discover back hyperlinks to sites having a significant of credibility. So even if it's just a blank hyperlink, those research spiders will assume that there's a reason for the hyperlink, thus believing that your site has credible information within.

There's a downside to social bookmarking providers though, there are lots of disreputable businesses that may take your money then spam interpersonal ebook marking websites with garbage -- and that garbage is directly connected to your site. The social bookmarking sites don't like it and nor does Google, utilizing a dirt cheap interpersonal book marking service is an easy way to get your website kicked out of search engine rankings completely.

How To Choose A HDTV

2010-08-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

HDTV (high Definition TV) sets are becoming a type of a television normal in many places, and although it's in all probability going to a take just a few extra years , but HDTV is unquestionably on its way to becoming a business standard. If you are on the market and looking for a new television it is best to consider getting a HDTV that can suit your wants within the near future.

It's normal for us to be at first attracted to the big names in the trade, the brand title has its affect and most of us are trapped in a loop that is going around shopping for one of the big name HDTV sets. This does have some logic behind it, since big corporations normally have excellent customer service and the guarantee guarantees that they provide are, most of time, outstanding. Additionally, you will find that large names cost big cash, and you can all the time cut prices of digital equipment by going to the lesser recognized company, or a no identify company, but in this case of in search of a HDTV you will need to consider your choices carefully, just because this know-how isn't yet available on the really mass manufactured level.

There are a few things that would make your choice procedure slightly more complicated, you will need to give up your impulsive feeling and the rush to purchase if you want to make this buy a reasonable one, and many assume that this can be a method to save some huge cash, and avoid many mistakes.

So once you begin in search of a HDTV think about a couple of retailers that you could visit and see among the HDTV models, take into consideration locations that have these TV's on display and that they're plugged into cable or satellite so you possibly can really see how the HDTV appears to be like whereas a real HDTV present is on. In anyplace that you will search for HDTV you will want to take a couple of minutes and easily watch the screen, so be prepared to politely ask the sales people to present you some space, and allow you to just watch the TV does the show.

There isn't any actual need for all of the technical details that usually less then 10% of the consumers really comprehend, and there is even much less require so that you can inquire the person telling you concerning the technical details what does he mean, since you may all the time go back home, log into the internet and find the true answer from somebody who's much less biased about your next purchase.

While you watch the TV you may ask if the shop has any DVD's you could see, since that is virtually surely the highest quality obtainable and a very good strategy to see the ultimate quality of the HDTV set. In case you are fascinated by a few models and the store has those on the floor, ask to look at the identical DVD in all the models you are interested in. Remember that these outlets are designed for television sets to look pretty much as good as possible, so this won't be the case in your living room, but if all things are equal you'll stand a superb chance of watching with your own eyes which HDTV you like best.

Android (operating system)

2010-07-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

Android is Google's Linux operating system for mobile devices. It is a competitor to the Symbian platform, Apple's iOS for the iPhone, Blackberry OS, WebOS, Maemo and Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone for mobile devices all based on ARM architecture.

Technologically, Android includes middleware and key applications,[4] and uses the Linux kernel and other GNU software.[5][6][7] It was initially developed by Android Inc., a firm later purchased by Google, and lately by the Open Handset Alliance.[8] It allows developers to write managed code in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries.[9]

The Android operating system software stack consists of Java applications running on a Java based object oriented application framework on top of Java core libraries running on a Dalvik virtual machine featuring JIT compilation. Libraries written in C include the surface manager, OpenCore[10] media framework, SQLite relational database management system, OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics API, WebKit layout engine, SGL graphics engine, SSL, and Bionic libc. The Android operating system consists of 12 million lines of code including 3 million lines of XML, 2.8 million lines of C, and 2.1 million lines of Java.[11]

The unveiling of the Android distribution on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 71 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.[12][13] Google released most of the Android code under the Apache License, a free software and open source license.[14]

According to NPD Group, unit sales for Android OS smartphones ranked second among all smartphone OS handsets sold in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2010.[15][16] BlackBerry OS and iOS ranked first and third respectively.[17] A Nielsen report for the same quarter placed Android in fourth place with 9% of the market.[18]

In July 2005, Google acquired Android, Inc., a small startup company based in Palo Alto, California, USA.[19] Android's co-founders who went to work at Google included Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger),[20] Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc.),[21] Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile),[22] and Chris White (headed design and interface development at WebTV).[23] At the time, little was known about the functions of Android, Inc. other than that they made software for mobile phones.[19] This began rumors that Google was planning to enter the mobile phone market.

At Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform powered by the Linux kernel which they marketed to handset makers and carriers on the premise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system. It was reported that Google had already lined up a series of hardware component and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation on their part.[24][25][26] More speculation that Google would be entering the mobile-phone market came in December 2006.[27] Reports from the BBC and The Wall Street Journal noted that Google wanted its search and applications on mobile phones and it was working hard to deliver that. Print and online media outlets soon reported rumors that Google was developing a Google-branded handset.[28] More speculation followed reporting that as Google was defining technical specifications, it was showing prototypes to cell phone manufacturers and network operators.

In September 2007, InformationWeek covered an Evalueserve study reporting that Google had filed several patent applications in the area of mobile telephony.[29][30]

On 5 November 2007, the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of several companies which include Texas Instruments, Broadcom Corporation, Google, HTC, Intel, LG, Marvell Technology Group, Motorola, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile was unveiled with the goal to develop open standards for mobile devices.[8] Along with the formation of the Open Handset Alliance, the OHA also unveiled their first product, Android, a mobile device platform built on the Linux kernel version 2.6.[8]

On 9 December 2008, it was announced that 14 new members would be joining the Android project, including PacketVideo, ARM Holdings, Atheros Communications, Asustek Computer Inc, Garmin Ltd, Softbank, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba Corp, and Vodafone Group Plc.[31][32]

With the exception of brief update periods, Android has been available as open source since 21 October 2008. Google opened the entire source code (including network and telephony stacks[33]) under an Apache License.[34]

With the Apache License, vendors can add proprietary extensions without submitting those back to the open source community.

Android has seen a number of updates since its original release. These updates to the base operating system typically fix bugs and add new features.
1.1
Released 9 February 2009
1.5 (Cupcake)
Based on Linux Kernel 2.6.27 On 30 April 2009, the official 1.5 (Cupcake) update for Android was released.[35][36] There were several new features and UI updates included in the 1.5 update:[37]

* Ability to record and watch videos through camcorder mode
* Uploading videos to YouTube and pictures to Picasa directly from the phone
* A new soft-keyboard with text-prediction
* Bluetooth A2DP and AVRCP support
* Ability to automatically connect to a Bluetooth headset within a certain distance
* New widgets and folders that can populate the Home screens
* Animated screen transitions

1.6 (Donut)
Based on Linux Kernel 2.6.29[38] On 15 September 2009, the 1.6 (Donut) SDK was released.[39][40] Included in the update were:[38]

* An improved Android Market experience
* An integrated camera, camcorder, and gallery interface
* Gallery now enables users to select multiple photos for deletion
* Updated Voice Search, with faster response and deeper integration with native applications, including the ability to dial contacts
* Updated search experience to allow searching bookmarks, history, contacts, and the web from the home screen
* Updated technology support for CDMA/EVDO, 802.1x, VPNs, and a text-to-speech engine
* Support for WVGA screen resolutions
* Speed improvements in searching and camera applications
* Gesture framework and GestureBuilder development tool

2.0/2.1 (Eclair)
Based on Linux Kernel 2.6.29[41] On 26 October 2009 the 2.0 (Eclair) SDK was released.[42] Among the changes were:[43]

* Optimized hardware speed
* Support for more screen sizes and resolutions
* Revamped UI
* New Browser UI and HTML5 support
* New contact lists
* Better white-black ratio for backgrounds
* Improved Google Maps 3.1.2
* Microsoft Exchange support
* Built in flash support for Camera
* Digital Zoom
* MotionEvent class enhanced to track multi-touch events[44]
* Improved virtual keyboard
* Bluetooth 2.1
* Live Wallpapers

The 2.0.1 SDK was released on 3 December 2009.[45]

The 2.1 SDK was released on 12 January 2010.[46]
2.2 (Froyo)[47]
Based on Linux Kernel 2.6.32[48] On 20 May 2010 the 2.2 (Froyo) SDK was released.[2] Changes included:[49]

* General Android OS speed, memory, and performance optimizations[50]
* Additional application speed improvements courtesy of JIT implementation[51]
* Integration of Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine into the Browser application
* Increased Microsoft Exchange support (security policies, auto-discovery, GAL look-up, calendar synchronization, remote wipe)
* Improved application launcher with shortcuts to Phone and Browser applications
* USB tethering and WiFi hotspot functionality
* Added an option to disable data access over mobile network
* Updated Market application with batch and automatic update features[50]
* Quick switching between multiple keyboard languages and their dictionaries
* Voice dialing and contact sharing over Bluetooth
* Support for numeric and alphanumeric passwords
* Support for file upload fields in the Browser application[52]
* Support for installing applications to the expandable memory[53]
* Adobe Flash 10.1 support[54]

Gingerbread
Based on Linux Kernel 2.6.33 or 34[48] Tentatively scheduled for Q4 2010 launch. Confirmed new features:

* Support for WebM video playback[55]
* Improved copy–paste functionalities[56]

Unconfirmed new features:

* Android Market music store[57]
* Media streaming from PC library[57]
* Revamped UI[58]
* Support for bigger screens with up to Wide XGA (1366×768) resolution [59]

Features
The Android Emulator default home screen (v1.5).

Current features and specifications:[60][61][62]
Handset layouts The platform is adaptable to larger, VGA, 2D graphics library, 3D graphics library based on OpenGL ES 2.0 specifications, and traditional smartphone layouts.

Storage SQLite, a lightweight relational database, is used for data storage purposes

Connectivity Android supports connectivity technologies including GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and WiMAX.

Messaging SMS and MMS are available forms of messaging, including threaded text messaging and now Android Cloud to Device Messaging Framework(C2DM) is also a part of Android Push Messaging service.

Web browser The web browser available in Android is based on the open-source WebKit layout engine, coupled with Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. The browser scores a 93/100 on the Acid3 Test.

Java support While Android applications are written in Java, there's no Java Virtual Machine in the platform and Java byte code is not executed. Java classes get recompiled into Dalvik executable and run on Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik is a specialized virtual machine designed specifically for Android and optimized for battery-powered mobile devices with limited memory and CPU. Android does not support J2ME, like some other mobile operating systems.

Media support Android supports the following audio/video/still media formats: H.263, H.264 (in 3GP or MP4 container), MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB (in 3GP container), AAC, HE-AAC (in MP4 or 3GP container), MP3, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP.[62]

Additional hardware support Android can use video/still cameras, touchscreens, GPS, accelerometers, magnetometers, accelerated 2D bit blits (with hardware orientation, scaling, pixel format conversion) and accelerated 3D graphics.

Development environment Includes a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE.

Market Like many phone-based application stores, the Android Market is a catalog of applications that can be downloaded and installed to target hardware over-the-air, without the use of a PC. Originally only free applications were supported. Paid-for applications have been available on the Android Market in the United States since 19 February 2009.[63] The Android Market has been expanding rapidly. As of April 30, 2010, it had over 50,000 Android applications for download.[64]

Multi-touch Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made available in handsets such as the HTC Hero. The feature was originally disabled at the kernel level (possibly to avoid infringing Apple's patents on touch-screen technology).[65] Google has since released an update for the Nexus One and the Motorola Droid which enables multi-touch natively.[66]

Bluetooth Support for A2DP and AVRCP were added in version 1.5;[37] sending files (OPP) and accessing the phone book (PBAP) were added in version 2.0;[43] and voice dialing and sending contacts between phones were added in version 2.2.[49]

Videocalling Not supported by default but as seen with the HTC Evo 4G, handset manufacturers can build front-facing cameras into their phones, so Qik, a software from the Android Market can use it for video-calling. [citation needed]

Multitasking Multitasking of applications is available.[67]

The early feedback on developing applications for the Android platform was mixed.[69] Issues cited include bugs, lack of documentation, inadequate QA infrastructure, and no public issue-tracking system. (Google announced an issue tracker on 18 January 2008.)[70] In December 2007, MergeLab mobile startup founder Adam MacBeth stated, "Functionality is not there, is poorly documented or just doesn't work... It's clearly not ready for prime time."[71] Despite this, Android-targeted applications began to appear the week after the platform was announced. The first publicly available application was the Snake game.[72][73] The Android Dev Phone is a SIM-unlocked and hardware-unlocked device that is designed for advanced developers. While developers can use regular consumer devices purchased at retail to test and use their applications, some developers may choose not to use a retail device, preferring an unlocked or no-contract device.

The Android SDK includes a comprehensive set of development tools.[74] These include a debugger, libraries, a handset emulator (based on QEMU), documentation, sample code, and tutorials. Currently supported development platforms include x86-architecture computers running Linux (any modern desktop Linux distribution), Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later, Windows XP or Vista. Requirements also include Java Development Kit, Apache Ant, and Python 2.2 or later. The officially supported integrated development environment (IDE) is Eclipse (3.2 or later) using the Android Development Tools (ADT) Plugin, though developers may use any text editor to edit Java and XML files then use command line tools to create, build and debug Android applications as well as control attached Android devices (e.g., triggering a reboot, installing software package(s) remotely).[75]

A preview release of the Android software development kit (SDK) was released on 12 November 2007. On 15 July 2008, the Android Developer Challenge Team accidentally sent an email to all entrants in the Android Developer Challenge announcing that a new release of the SDK was available in a "private" download area. The email was intended for winners of the first round of the Android Developer Challenge. The revelation that Google was supplying new SDK releases to some developers and not others (and keeping this arrangement private) has led to widely reported frustration within the Android developer community.[76]

On 18 August 2008 the Android 0.9 SDK beta was released. This release provided an updated and extended API, improved development tools and an updated design for the home screen. Detailed instructions for upgrading are available to those already working with an earlier release.[77] On 23 September 2008 the Android 1.0 SDK (Release 1) was released.[78] According to the release notes, it included "mainly bug fixes, although some smaller features were added". It also included several API changes from the 0.9 version.

On 9 March 2009, Google released version 1.1 for the Android dev phone. While there are a few aesthetic updates, a few crucial updates include support for "search by voice, priced applications, alarm clock fixes, sending gmail freeze fix, fixes mail notifications and refreshing intervals, and now the maps show business reviews". Another important update is that Dev phones can now access paid applications and developers can now see them on the Android Market.[79]

In the middle of May 2009, Google released version 1.5 (Cupcake) of the Android OS and SDK. This update included many new features including video recording, support for the stereo bluetooth profile, a customizable onscreen keyboard system and voice recognition. This release also opened up the AppWidget framework to third party developers allowing anyone to create their own home screen widgets.[80]

In September 2009 the "Donut" version (1.6) was released which featured better search, battery usage indicator and VPN control applet. New platform technologies included Text to Speech engine (not available on all phones), Gestures & Accessibility framework.[81]

Android Applications are packaged in .apk format and stored under /data/app folder on the Android OS. The user can run the command adb root to access this folder as only the root has permissions to access this folder.

On July 12, 2010 Google announced the availability of App Inventor for Android, a Web-based visual development environment for novice programmers, based on MIT's Open Blocks Java library and providing access to Android devices' GPS, accelerometer and orientation data, phone functions, text messaging, speech-to-text conversion, contact data, persistent storage, and Web services, initially including Amazon and Twitter. [82] "We could only have done this because Android’s architecture is so open," said the project director, MIT's Hal Abelson.[83] Under development for over a year[84], the block-editing tool has been taught to non-majors in computer science at Harvard, MIT, Wellsley, and the University of San Francisco, where professor David Wolber developed an introductory computer science course and tutorial book for non-computer science students based on App Inventor for Android.[85][86]

The Android Developer Challenge was a competition for the most innovative application for Android. Google offered prizes totaling 10 million US dollars, distributed between ADC I and ADC II. ADC I accepted submissions from 2 January to 14 April 2008. The 50 most promising entries, announced on 12 May 2008, each received a $25,000 award to fund further development.[87][88] It ended in early September with the announcement of ten teams that received $275,000 each, and ten teams that received $100,000 each.[89] ADC II was announced on 27 May 2009.[90] The first round of the ADC II closed on 6 October 2009.[91] The first-round winners of ADC II comprising the top 200 applications were announced on 5 November 2009. Voting for the second round also opened on the same day and ended on November 25. Google announced the top winners of ADC II on November 30, with SweetDreams, What the Doodle!? and WaveSecure being nominated the overall winners of the challenge.[92][93]

Google has also participated in the Android Market by offering several applications for its services. These applications include Google Voice for the Google Voice service, Sky Map for watching stars, Finance for their finance service, Maps Editor for their MyMaps service, Places Directory for their Local Search, Google Goggles that searches by image, Google Translate, Google Shopper, Listen for podcasts and My Tracks, a jogging application.

With the growing number of Android handsets, there has also been an increased interest by third party developers to port their applications to the Android operating system. Famous applications that have been converted to the Android operating system include Shazam, Backgrounds, and WeatherBug.

The Android operating system has also been considered important enough by a lot of the most popular internet sites and services to create native applications. These include MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.

As of 15th July 2010, the Android Marketplace had over 100,000 applications, with over 1 billion downloads.[94][95]

Libraries written in C and other languages can be compiled to ARM native code and installed using the Android Native Development Kit. Native classes can be called from Java code running under the Dalvik VM using the System.loadLibrary call, which is part of the standard Android Java classes.[96][97]

Complete applications can be compiled and installed using traditional development tools.[98] The ADB debugger gives a root shell under the Android Emulator which allows native ARM code to be uploaded and executed. ARM code can be compiled using GCC on a standard PC.[98] Running native code is complicated by the fact that Android uses a non-standard C library (known as Bionic). The underlying graphics device is available as a framebuffer at /dev/graphics/fb0.[99] The graphics library that Android uses to arbitrate and control access to this device is called the Skia Graphics Library (SGL), and it has been released under an open source license.[100] Skia has backends for both win32 and Unix, allowing the development of cross-platform applications, and it is the graphics engine underlying the Google Chrome web browser.[101]

There is a community of open-source enthusiasts that build and share Android-based firmware with a number of customizations and additional features, such as FLAC lossless audio support and the ability to store downloaded applications on the microSD card.[102] This usually involves rooting the device. Rooting lets users load modified firmwares allowing users of older phones to use applications available only on newer releases.[103]

Those firmware packages are updated frequently, incorporate elements of Android functionality that haven't yet been officially released within a carrier-sanctioned firmware, and tend to have fewer limitations. CyanogenMod is one such firmware.

On 24 September 2009, Google issued a cease and desist letter[104] to the modder Cyanogen, citing issues with the re-distribution of Google's closed-source applications[105] within the custom firmware. Even though Android OS is open source, phones come packaged with closed-source Google applications for functionality such as the application store and GPS navigation. Google has asserted that these applications can only be provided through approved distribution channels by licensed distributors. Cyanogen has complied with Google's wishes and is continuing to distribute this mod without the proprietary software. He has provided a method to back up licensed Google applications during the mod's install process and restore them when it is complete.[106]

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109. ^ "Android Brand Guidelines". Android. 23 March 2009. http://www.android.com/branding.html. Retrieved 10 April 2010.
110. ^ "Canalys: iPhone outsold all Windows Mobile phones in Q2 2009". AppleInsider. 21 August 2009. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/08/21/canalys_iphone_outsold_all_windows_mobile_phones_in_q2_2009.html. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
111. ^ "Canalys Q3 2009: iPhone, RIM taking over smartphone market". AppleInsider. 3 November 2009. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/03/canalys_q3_2009_iphone_rim_taking_over_smartphone_market.html. Retrieved 3 November 2009.
112. ^ "Top smarthphone platforms, 3 mos. ending 2/10". Bloomberg Television. comScore MobiLens. April 2010. http://www.mycomscore.net/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/4/comScore_Reports_February_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share. Retrieved April 19, 2010. "RIM, 42.1%; Apple, 25.4%; Microsoft, 15.1%; Google (Android), 9.0%; Palm, 5.4%; others, 3.0%"
113. ^ http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/7/comScore_Reports_May_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share
114. ^ "Android to grab No. 2 spot by 2012, says Gartner". ComputerWorld. 6 October 2009. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139026/Android_to_grab_No._2_spot_by_2012_says_Gartner.
115. ^ "Droid Sales and the Android Explosion". PC World. 17 November 2009. http://www.pcworld.com/article/182310/droid_sales_and_the_android_explosion.html.
116. ^ "Android's Market Share Surpasses iPhone's, NPD Says". MarketWatch. 10 May 2010. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/android-market-share-passes-iphones-npd-data-2010-05-10.
117. ^ Arthur, Charles (2010-06-25). "Eric Schmidt's dog whistle to mobile developers: abandon Windows Phone". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jun/25/android-schmidt-mobile-platform.
118. ^ "Issues - android". Google Code. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list. Retrieved 15 January 2010.
119. ^ Androidology - Part 1 of 3 - Architecture Overview. [Video]. YouTube. 2008-09-06. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBGfUs9mQYY. Retrieved 2007-11-07.
120. ^ Paul, Ryan (23 February 2009). "Dream(sheep++): A developer's introduction to Google Android". Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2009/02/an-introduction-to-google-android-for-developers.ars. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "In fact, during a presentation at the Google IO conference, Google engineer Patrick Brady stated unambiguously that Android is not Linux. (...) The problem with Google's approach is that it makes Android an island. The highly insular nature of the platform prevents Android users and developers from taking advantage of the rich ecosystem of existing third-party Linux applications. Android doesn't officially support native C programs at all, so it won't be possible to port your favorite GTK+ or Qt applications to Android"
121. ^ "Android versus Linux?". www.h-online.com. 9 February 2010. http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Android-versus-Linux-924563.html. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
122. ^ "DiBona: Google will hire two Android coders to work with kernel.org". www.zdnet.com. 15 April 2010. http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=6274. Retrieved 2010-04-29.
123. ^ Issue 1273, first reported 12 November 2008, unreviewed as of June 2010.
124. ^ Issue 1386, first reported 28 November 2008, unreviewed as of June 2010.
125. ^ Issue 3902, first reported 15 September 2009, unreviewed as of June 2010.
126. ^ Issue 82, first reported 24 January 2008, given status "reviewed" on 25 January 2008.
127. ^ van Gurp, Jilles (13 November 2007). "Google Android: Initial Impressions and Criticism". Javalobby. http://www.javalobby.org/nl/archive/jlnews_20071113o.html. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "Frankly, I don't understand why Google intends to ignore the vast amount of existing implementation out there. It seems like a bad case of "not invented here" to me. Ultimately, this will slow adoption. There are already too many Java platforms for the mobile world and this is yet another one"
128. ^ "Myriad's New J2Android Converter Fuels Android Applications Gold Rush". 19 March 2010. http://www.myriadgroup.com/Media-Centre/News/Myriad-New-J2Android-Converter-Fuels-Android-Applications-Gold-Rush.aspx.
129. ^ "J2Android hopes you don't know that Android is Java-based". 23 March 2010. http://www.javaworld.com/community/node/4170. "On the other hand, you might think this is kind of a scam aimed at developers who don't really understand the nature of the platform they're targeting. My biggest complaint is that you'd think that Mikael Ricknäs, the IDG News Service reporter who wrote the first story linked to above (who toils for the same company that publishes JavaWorld), would have at least mentioned the relationship between Java and Android to make the oddness of this announcement clear."
130. ^ "Myriad CTO: J2Android moves MIDlets to "beautiful" Android framework". 31 March 2010. http://www.javaworld.com/community/?q=node/4210. "We will have to wait and see exactly how much pickup J2Android actually sees. The tool isn't actually available on the open market just yet; while Schillings spoke optimistically about "converting 1,000 MIDlets in an afternoon," at the moment they're working with a few providers to transform their back catalogs. So those of you out there hoping to avoid learning how to write Android code may have to wait a while."
131. ^ "HTC Developer center: Android Dev Phone 1". HTC Corporation. http://developer.htc.com/adp.html. Retrieved 2010-01-15. "For development, you should select the lowest possible Android platform version that meets the needs of your applications. For example, if you are working in the Android 1.1 SDK and your application is using APIs introduced in Android 1.1, then you should download the Android 1.1 system image. If you are using the Android 1.1 SDK but your application does not use Android 1.1 APIs, then using Android 1.0 image is sufficient. For testing, consider downloading all platform versions with which your application is compatible, then running your applications on those platform versions to ensure that they work as designed."
132. ^ "Android's Weakest Link". ZDNet. 2009-10-11. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Greenfield/?p=481. Retrieved 2010-01-15.
133. ^ "Complications looming for Android developers". androidandme.com. 2009-11-06. http://androidandme.com/2009/11/news/complications-looming-for-android-developers/. Retrieved 2010-01-15.
134. ^ "A Chink In Android's Armor". TechCrunch. 2009-10-11. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/11/a-chink-in-androids-armor/. Retrieved 2009-10-11. "And now they're faced with a landslide of new handsets, some running v.1.6 and some courageous souls even running android v.2.0. All those manufacturers/carriers are racing to release their phones by the 2009 holiday season, and want to ensure the hot applications will work on their phones. And here's the problem – in almost every case, we hear, there are bugs and more serious problems with the apps.[...]First of all, the compatibility between versions issue may be overblown. The reported problems have been limited to an Android developer contest[...]We haven’t heard of any major app developers complaining of backwards or forward compatibility problems. Also, I’ve now upgraded my phone from 1.5 to 1.6, and every application continues to work fine."
135. ^ "Android’s Rapid Growth Has Some Developers Worried". Wired News. 2009-11-16. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/android-fragmentation/. Retrieved 2010-02-26. "Fagan’s concerns about the fragmentation of Android is being echoed by other developers, says Sean Galligan, vice president of business development at Flurry, an mobile app analytics company(...)"You may build an app that works perfectly with all three firmwares, but then when you run it on carriers’ ROMs it completely blows up," says Fagan. "So we find ourselves having to create apps that are compatible with multiple firmwares, multiple ROMs and multiple devices with different hardware."
136. ^ "Android just reproducing Java ME's problems, now". JavaWorld. 2009-11-17. http://www.javaworld.com/community/node/3704. Retrieved 2010-02-26.
137. ^ "Android's Spread Could Become a Problem". BusinessWeek. 2009-10-15. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2009/tc20091015_626136.htm. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
138. ^ "Google Android's self-destruction derby begins". InfoWorld. 2010-02-22. http://infoworld.com/d/mobilize/google-androids-self-destruction-derby-begins-863. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
139. ^ "Platform Versions". developer.android.com. 2010-05-03. http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html. Retrieved 2010-06-27.
140. ^ "Issue 719 - android - enhanced low-level Bluetooth support". Google Code. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=719. Retrieved 19 February 2010.
141. ^ Yueh, Erin. "Reading, Writing and Arithmetic". http://i-miss-erin.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html. Retrieved 16 February 2010.
142. ^ "Transferring files to the HTC Desire and HTC Legend via Bluetooth". http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/transferring-files-htc-desire-and-htc-legend-bluetooth. Retrieved 20 June 2010.
143. ^ Kim, Ryan. "Sprint to offer Qik video chat on smart phones". http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-06-04/business/21656741_1_video-chat-video-phone-qik. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
144. ^ Community-powered support for Google
145. ^ Android Guys, Fix Google Calendar!
146. ^ Washington Post, Google Calendar's time zone weakness
147. ^ http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5892 Android Code issue 5892

Bandwidth (computing)

2010-07-17T06:35:00.000-07:00

n computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth or digital bandwidth, is a bit rate measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it (kilobits/s, megabits/s etc).

Note that in textbooks on data transmission, digital communications, wireless communications, electronics, etc, bandwidth refers to analog signal bandwidth measured in hertz - the original meaning of the term. Some computer networking authors prefer less ambiguous terms such as bit rate, channel capacity and throughput rather than bandwidth in bit/s, to avoid this confusion.

In computer networking, bandwidth in bit/s sometimes means the net bit rate (also known as peak bit rate, information rate or physical layer useful bit rate), channel capacity, or the maximum throughput of a logical or physical communication path in a digital communication system. For example, bandwidth tests measure the maximum throughput of a computer network. The reason for this usage is that according to Hartley's law, the maximum data rate of a physical communication link is proportional to its bandwidth in hertz, which is sometimes called frequency bandwidth, spectral bandwidth, RF bandwidth, signal bandwidth or analog bandwidth.

In computer networking, bandwidth in bit/s may also refer to consumed bandwidth, corresponding to achieved throughput or goodput, i.e., the average rate of successful data transfer through a communication path. This sense applies to expressions such as bandwidth shaping, bandwidth management, bandwidth throttling, bandwidth cap, bandwidth allocation (for example bandwidth allocation protocol and dynamic bandwidth allocation), etc. A bit stream's bandwidth is proportional to the average consumed signal bandwidth in Hertz (the average spectral bandwidth of the analog signal representing the bit stream) during a studied time interval.

Digital bandwidth may also refer to: multimedia bit rate or average bitrate after multimedia data compression (source coding), defined as the total amount of data divided by the playback time.

In website hosting, the term "bandwidth" is often incorrectly used to describe the amount of data transferred to or from the website or server within a prescribed period of time, for example bandwidth consumption accumulated over a month measured in gigabytes per month. The more accurate phrase used for this meaning of a maximum amount of data transfer each month or given period is monthly data transfer..

This table shows the maximum bandwidth (the physical layer net bitrate) of common Internet access technologies. For a more detailed list see list of device bandwidths, bit rate progress trends and list of bitrates in multimedia.

56 Kbit/s Modem / Dialup
1.5 Mbit/s ADSL Lite
1.544 Mbit/s T1/DS1
10 Mbit/s Ethernet
11 Mbit/s Wireless 802.11b
44.736 Mbit/s T3/DS3
54 Mbit/s Wireless 802.11g
100 Mbit/s Fast Ethernet
155 Mbit/s OC3
300 Mbit/s Wireless 802.11n
622 Mbit/s OC12
1 Gbit/s Gigabit Ethernet
2.5 Gbit/s OC48
9.6 Gbit/s OC192
10 Gbit/s 10 Gigabit Ethernet
100 Gbit/s 100 Gigabit Ethernet

QWERTY

2010-07-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

QWERTY (pronounced /ˈkwɜrti/) is the most used modern-day keyboard layout on English-language computer and typewriter keyboards. It takes its name from the first six characters seen in the far left of the keyboard's top row of letters. The QWERTY design is based on a layout designed by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1874 for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in the same year, when it first appeared in typewriters. It was designed to minimize typebar clashes,[1] became popular with the success of the Remington No. 2 and No. 3 and No. 389 of 1878,[1] and remains in use on electronic keyboards due to the network effect of a standard layout and the failure of alternatives to prove very significant advantages.[2]This layout was devised and created in the early 1870s by Christopher Latham Sholes, a newspaper editor and printer who lived in Milwaukee. With the assistance of his friends Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule he built an early writing machine for which a patent application was filed in October 1867.[3]

The first model constructed by Sholes used a piano-like keyboard with two rows of characters arranged alphabetically as follows:[4]

3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M

His "Type Writer" had two features which made jams a serious issue. Firstly, characters were mounted on metal arms or typebars, which would clash and jam if neighboring arms were depressed at the same time or in rapid succession.[1] Secondly, its printing point was located beneath the paper carriage, invisible to the operator, a so-called "up-stroke" design. Consequently, jams were especially serious, because the typist could only discover the mishap by raising the carriage to inspect what he had typed. The solution was to place commonly used letter-pairs (like "th" or "st") so that their typebars were not neighboring, avoiding jams. While it is often said that QWERTY was designed to "slow down" typists, this is incorrect – it was designed to prevent jams[1] while typing at speed, yet some of the layout decisions, such as placing only one vowel on the home row, did have the effect of hobbling more modern keyboards.[5]

Sholes struggled for the next six years to perfect his invention, making many trial-and-error rearrangements of the original machine's alphabetical key arrangement in an effort to reduce the frequency of typebar clashes, and using a study of letter-pair frequency by educator Amos Densmore, brother of the financial backer, James Densmore.[1][6] Typebars corresponding to letters in commonly occurring alphabetical pairs, such as S and T, were placed on opposite sides on the disk.[7]Eventually he arrived at a four-row, upper case keyboard approaching the modern QWERTY standard. In 1873 Sholes' backer, James Densmore, succeeded in selling manufacturing rights for the Sholes-Glidden "Type Writer" to E. Remington and Sons, and within a few months the keyboard layout was finalized by Remington's mechanics. The keyboard ultimately presented to Remington was arranged as follows:[6]
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - ,
Q W E . T Y I U O PZ S D F G H J K L M
A X & C V B N ? ; R

After it purchased the device, Remington made several adjustments which created a keyboard with what is essentially the modern QWERTY layout. Their adjustments included placing the "R" key in the place previously allotted to the full stop, thus enabling salesmen to impress customers by pecking out the brand name "TYPE WRITER" from one keyboard row.[citation needed] Vestiges of the original alphabetical layout remained in the "home row" sequence DFGHJKL.[8]

The QWERTY layout became popular with the success of the Remington No. 2 of 1878, the first typewriter to include both upper and lower case letters, via a shift key.[1]
Keys are arranged on diagonal columns, to give space for the levers.

Much less commented-on than the order of the keys is that the keys are not on a grid, but rather that each column slants diagonally; this is due to the mechanical linkages – each key being attached to a lever, and hence the offset prevents the levers from running into each other – and has been retained in most electronic keyboards.[citation needed] Some keyboards, such as the Kinesis, retain the QWERTY layout but arrange the keys in vertical columns, to reduce unnecessary lateral finger motion.[9]

The QWERTY layout depicted in Sholes' 1878 patent includes a few differences from the modern layout, most notably in the absence of the numerals 0 and 1, with each of the remaining numerals shifted one position to the left of their modern counterparts. The letter M is located at the end of the third row to the right of the letter L rather than on the fourth row to the right of the N, the letters C and X are reversed, and most punctuation marks are in different positions or are missing entirely.[10] 0 and 1 were omitted to simplify the design and reduce the manufacturing and maintenance costs; they were chosen specifically because they were "redundant" and could be recreated using other keys. Typists who learned on these machines learned the habit of using the uppercase letter I (or lowercase letter L) for the digit one, and the uppercase O for the zero.[11] The exclamation point, which shares a key with the numeral 1 on modern keyboards, could be reproduced by using a three-stroke combination of an apostrophe, a backspace, and a period. The 0 key was added and standardized in its modern position early in the history of the typewriter, but the 1 and exclamation point were left off some typewriter keyboards into the 1970s.[12]

There was no particular technological requirement for the QWERTY layout,[clarification needed] since at the time there were ways to make a typewriter without the "up-stroke" typebar mechanism that had required it to be devised. Not only were there rival machines with "down-stroke" and "frontstroke" positions that gave a visible printing point, the problem of typebar clashes could be circumvented completely: examples include Thomas Edison's 1872 electric print-wheel device which later became the basis for Teletype machines; Lucien Stephen Crandall's typewriter (the second to come onto the American market) whose type was arranged on a cylindrical sleeve; the Hammond typewriter of 1887 which used a semi-circular "type-shuttle" of hardened rubber (later light metal); and the Blickensderfer typewriter of 1893 which used a type wheel. The early Blickensderfer's "Ideal" keyboard was also non-QWERTY, instead having the sequence "DHIATENSOR" in the home row, these 10 letters being capable of composing 70% of the words in the English language.[8]

Alternating hands while typing is a desirable trait in a keyboard design, since while one hand is typing a letter, the other hand can get in position to type the next letter. Thus, a typist may fall into a steady rhythm and type quickly. However, when a string of letters is done with the same hand, the chances of stuttering are increased and a rhythm can be broken, thus decreasing speed and increasing errors and fatigue. In the QWERTY layout many more words can be spelled using only the left hand than the right hand. In fact, thousands of English words can be spelled using only the left hand, while only a couple of hundred words can be typed using only the right hand. In addition, most typing strokes are done with the left hand in the QWERTY layout. This is helpful for left-handed people but to the disadvantage of right-handed people.[13]The first computer terminals such as the Teletype were typewriters that could produce and be controlled by various computer codes. These used the QWERTY layouts, and added keys such as escape (ESC) which had special meanings to computers. Later keyboards added function keys and arrow keys. Since the standardization of PC-compatible computers and Windows after the 1980s, most full-sized computer keyboards have followed this standard (see drawing at right). This layout has a separate numeric keypad for data entry at the right, 12 function keys across the top, and a cursor section to the right and center with keys for Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down with cursor arrows in an inverted-T shape.

Different computer operating systems have methods of support for input of different languages such as Chinese, Hebrew or Arabic. QWERTY is designed for English, a language without any diacritical marks. QWERTY keyboards meet issues when having to type an accent. Until recently, no norm was defined for a standard QWERTY keyboard layout allowing the typing of accented characters, apart from the US-International layout.

Depending on the operating system and sometimes the application program being used, there are many ways to generate Latin characters with accents.

Microsoft Windows XP SP2 and above provide the UK-Extended layout that behaves exactly the same as the standard UK layout for all the characters it can generate, but can additionally generate a number of diacritical marks, useful when working with text in other languages (including Welsh - a UK language). Not all combinations work on all keyboards.

* acute accents (e.g. á) on a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,Y are generated by pressing the AltGr key together with the letter, or AltGr and apostrophe, followed by the letter (see note below);
* grave accents (e.g. è) on a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,Y are generated by pressing the backquote (`) [which is now a dead key], then the letter;
* circumflex (e.g. â) on a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,Y is generated by AltGr and 6, followed by the letter;* diaeresis (e.g. ö) on a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,Y is generated by AltGr and 2, then the letter;
* tilde (e.g. ã) on a,n,o,A,N,O is generated by AltGr and #, then the letter;
* cedilla (e.g. ç) under c,C is generated by AltGr and the letter.

These combinations are designed to be easy to remember, as the circumflex accent (e.g. â) is similar to a caret (^), printed above the 6 key; the diaeresis (e.g. ö) is similar to the double-quote (") above 2 on the UK keyboard; the tilde (~) is printed on the same key as the #.

Like US-International, UK-Extended does not cater for many languages written with Latin characters, including Romanian and Turkish, or any using different character sets such as Greek and Russian.

Notes:
* The AltGr and letter method used for acutes and cedillas does not work for applications which assign shortcut menu functions to these key combinations. For acute accents the AltGr and apostrophe method should be used.

Several alternatives to QWERTY have been developed over the years, claimed by their designers and users to be more efficient, intuitive and ergonomic. Nevertheless, none has seen widespread adoption, due partly to the sheer dominance of available keyboards and training.[14] Although studies have shown the superiority in typing speed afforded by alternative keyboard layouts[15] economists Stan Liebowitz and Stephen E Margolis have claimed that these studies are flawed and more rigorous studies are inconclusive as to whether they actually offer any real benefits.[2] The most widely used such alternative is the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard; another increasingly popular alternative is Colemak, which is based partly on QWERTY and is therefore easier for an existing QWERTY typist to learn while offering several optimisations[16]. Most modern computer operating systems support this and other alternative mappings with appropriate special mode settings, but few keyboards are manufactured with keys labeled according to this standard.

References :
1. ^ a b c d e f Rehr, Darryl, Why QWERTY was Invented, http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwert.html
2. ^ a b Liebowitz, Stan; Margolis, Stephen E. (1990), "The Fable of the Keys", Journal of Law and Economics 33 (1): 1–26, doi:10.1086/467198 .
3. ^ Sholes, C. Latham; Carlos Glidden & Samuel W. Soule, "Improvement in Type-writing Machines", US patent 79868, issued July 14, 1868
4. ^ Iles, 323
5. ^ Rehr, Darryl. "Consider QWERTY". http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwert.html. Retrieved 12 December 2009. "QWERTY's effect, by reducing those annoying clashes, was to speed up typing rather than slow it down."
6. ^ a b Utterback, 5
7. ^ Campbell-Kelly (2004), 25
8. ^ a b David, Paul A. (1985), "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY", American Economic Review (American Economic Association) 75 (2): 332–337, http://jstor.org/stable/1805621 .
9. ^ Kinesis – Ergonomic Benefits of the Contoured Keyboard – Vertical key layout
10. ^ Sholes, Christopher Latham, US patent 207559, issued August 27, 1878
11. ^ Weller, Charles Edward (1918), The early history of the typewriter, La Porte, Indiana: Chase & Shepard, printers, http://www.archive.org/details/earlyhistorytyp00wellgoog
12. ^ See for example the Olivetti Lettera 36, introduced in 1972
13. ^ Diamond, Jared (April 1997), "The Curse of QWERTY", DISCOVER Magazine, http://discovermagazine.com/1997/apr/thecurseofqwerty1099/, retrieved 2009-04-29, "More than 3,000 English words utilize QWERTY's left hand alone, and about 300 the right hand alone."
14. ^ Gould, Stephen Jay (1987) "The Panda's Thumb of Technology." Natural History 96 (1): 14-23; Reprinted in Bully for Brontosaurus. New York: W.W. Norton. 1992, pp. 59-75.
15. ^ Paul A. David, "Understanding the economics of QWERTY: the necessity of history", Economic history and the modern economist, 1986
16. ^ Krzywinski, Martin. "Colemak - Popular Alternative". Carpalx - keyboard layout optimizer. Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre. http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?colemak. Retrieved 2010-02-04.
17. ^ a b http://www.gsmarena.com/glossary.php3?term=half-qwerty-keyboard