Internet and Technology » Explained

Monitor technology explained

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:47:28 +0000

Article by PC Monitors

CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors are a now redundant type of PC monitor which were popular even in the early years of the 21st century. A cathode ray tube contains one or more electron guns, which fire electrons through a vacuum onto phosphor “pixels”. Three colours of phosphor “pixels” are present (red, green and blue), and deflection by a magnetic field determines which ones will be lit. Although colour reproduction and contrast weres pleasing in later models of CRT monitor, modern LCD monitors (see below) are considerably thinner, lighter and more efficient – with excellent image quality. A list of now-redundant terms related to CRT monitors can be found in the final section of this PC Monitors article.

LCD screens are the current standard of display for most PC Monitors, TV screens and electronic devices such as digital cameras, mobile phones and MP3 players. LCD PC monitors usually contain two polarising filters with liquid crystal filled cells or pixels. A backlight creates light which passes through the first filter, whilst electrodes regulate a current which passes through the liquid crystals and determines their alignment. The electrodes regulate the alignment of the crystals, determining the light colour and intensity of the image. Almost all modern LCD monitors use TFT (thin-film transistor) technology, and most are of the Twisted Nematic (TN) panel type. For more information about TFT technology and TFT LCD monitors, including PVA and IPS panels; click here.

OLED (organic light emitting diode) is an emerging screen technology which is yet to make it into the PC monitor mainstream due mainly to high costs currently associated with OLED monitor manufacture. OLED monitors use the principle of electroluminescence; using materials which glow when a current is applied, rather than relying on a backlight. This means that the monitors are much thinner and lighter, have an unmatched contrast ratio, colour reproduction and response time and can even be made flexible. Although this technology isn’t currently used on PC monitors, smaller screens such as those on high-end touch screen phones, digital cameras and the beautiful 11-inch Sony XEL-1 TV (featured in the video below) feature OLED technology

For additional material about OLED and other future technology, please read our future technology article.

To learn more about the latest monitor technologies and catch up the latest articles, news, reviews and cheap monitors – visit PC Monitors today.

http://goarticles.com/article/Monitor-technology-explained/2718876/

Broadband Explained – Whats The difference Between Wireless, Cable, ADSL And Satellite Broadband

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:46:25 +0000

Generally, the term Broadband refers to the simultaneous transmission of multiple pieces of data that increases the effective rate of transmission.

Broadband technology supports a wide range of frequencies. It is available for both home and at business purposes since it facilitates high speed, high quality, low cost and is easiest to use Internet connection at home and at the office. Basically, broadband services come in three different types namely, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), Cable Broadband Service, Satellite Broadband Service and Wireless Broadband Service.

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL): ADSL is unique among other types of DSLs with its typical characteristic to transmit data in one direction than the other. It uses the primarily analogue modulation schemes where as other standards use band technology based modulation schemes like Gigabit Ethernet and others. Its instant access to any information or service modes helps you to stay always online as soon as you switch on.

Cable Broadband Service: In Cable Broadband Service the transmission is basically carried with the help of an Ethernet modem for accessing internet services through the cable. It provides a lot of broadband solutions to everyone. They allow you to have access over your phone line simultaneously, while you’re on the net, helps in saving a great deal of call costs and extra line rental and also are fast in downloading of large files.

Satellite Broadband Service: Satellite broadband service in fact, is the most reliable since it can be used almost from anywhere. Satellite connections come up in two different types i.e. in “one-way” and “two-way” connections. They help in having connection at a lower cost, higher speed, and reliable links to the Internet directly on to your PC. It enables the installations of broadband service in most remote areas, keeps its customers always smiling.

Wireless Broadband Service: A wireless broadband service uses an arrangement of fixed antennas that allows the users to have access with high speed Internet wirelessly over the air. It delivers fast Internet access by means of radio waves as a replacement for of cables or wires.

For more details about the types of broadband services go through our product pages and learn more about them!

Search Engine Marketing Explained

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:01:33 +0000

This article has been prepared by Tug. Tug, is a Search Engine Marketing specialist agency, based in Shoreditch, London.

Search Engines have evolved into a new consumer, communications and marketing channel. Google, Yahoo and MSN serve 213 million searches a day.

In fact, 9 out of 10 internet surfers use a Search Engine to start their internet journey. Therefore, if your website doesn’t have visibility in the engines, you are missing significant volumes of traffic.

Natural vs. Paid for Listings

There are essentially two listings within a Search Engine Results Page (SERP): the Natural listings (on the left) and the Paid for listing (on top and on the right).

Natural listings are the results the engine believes to be the most relevant sites to your search. The natural listings consistently receive over 70% of consumer clicks. Paid for listings are the ads served by Advertisers, who have bid on the term searched for by the consumer.

The Natural listings therefore list all available websites in the World Wide Web, while the Paid for listings only serve links by relevant Advertisers willing to pay for their spot, and thus high visibility in the engines.

To increase Reach, advertisers can pay for ads on the Search Engines themselves, as well as their local listings, mobile listings and their Content Network of websites.

Pay per Click (PPC). Pay only for Visitors

Unlike other marketing channels where you pay for the number of people who see your ad, in pay per click advertising (PPC) you only pay when someone clicks on your ads and is driven through to your site.

• 75% of users search for goods and services through a Search Engine.

• PPC has the lowest cost per lead compared to other Direct Marketing methods.

• Pay per click advertising is relevant to what the individual is searching for – targeting them at the right moment and mood.

• Pay per click is 100% accountable.

• Advertisers can know the cost of each conversion in real-time, and campaigns can be instantly optimised for maximum ROI.

To get visibility in the paid for listings you can set up a PPC campaign for your website yourself, or by commissioning a specialist Search Engine Marketing agency like Tug.

To get visibility in the Natural listings you need to optimise your website – this is called Search Engine Optimisation. Again this is where you need to commission a specialist agency like Tug.

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

Search engine Optimisation, or SEO as it’s commonly known as, is an online marketing strategy that involves designing, writing and coding your entire website with the intention of enabling search engines to index your site easily and efficiently. The sole aim and objective is for it to rank higher for keywords relevant to your business. Optimising a website is critical to gaining visibility on the organic or natural (left hand side) search results (SERP’s) of search engines.

SEO, is done in two stages, known primarily as on page and off page. On page involves the website itself and fundamentally evolves around the design, build and copy laid out within the actual site. Off page relates to ongoing SEO development and includes link building campaigns, news and article submissions, paid directory submissions and joining discussion forums that relate to your chosen industry. The latter is basically about gaining 3rd party exposure of your website.

On Page Factors

• Keyword mining

• Keyword density checks

• Credible copywriting

• Meta tags scripting

• Clean and valid mark-up (HTML)

• Link management

Off Page Factors

• Free / paid directory submission

• Article and news submission

• Press release distribution

• Reciprocal link marketing

• Inbound link building

• Digital signatures

Using Search Engine Marketing to meet your Communication Objectives

Consumers using a Search Engine are primarily in two sets of mind: ‘Research’ mode and ‘Ready to act/buy/sign up’ mode. From a marketer’s point of view they are at different stages of the Purchase Cycle.

PPC campaigns should be set up with this in mind. Different campaigns can be geared for different objectives – for example one for Awareness and one for Sales. The Awareness campaign should be optimized for Reach, concentrating on the highest number of clicks at the cheapest possible price. The Sales campaign conversely should be optimized for sales volume and cheapest Cost per Acquisition (CPA).

Search Engine Optimisation will primarily meet your Awareness and Traffic objectives, as the campaign usually concentrates on fewer, broader keyterms. But keep in mind that this broader Search might ultimately lead to a sale as the Searcher moves through the Purchase Cycle. Remember to optimize your Meta Descriptions (the description in the SERP) with the consumer in mind.

Search Engine Marketing Case Studies:

Search Engine Optimisation Case Study: UK Business Properties. http://ukbusinessproperties.com

Problem

• UK Business Properties launched a new Commercial Property directory in 2006

• While the agency that built the site assured them it was SEO friendly, they were languishing on page 3 on Google for the most important keyword: ‘Commercial Property’

Solution

• Tug developed an SEO strategy that emphasised the keyword ‘Commercial Property’

• Review and editing of website content – addition of content pages for all UK regions

• Review and editing of Meta

• Review and editing of code to make more spider friendly

• Directory and site map submission

• A bespoke link building campaign where we submitted to directories, article websites and actively exchange links with high PageRank sites in parallel business verticals

Results

• Within 6 weeks the website was listed #3 on Page 1 of Google.co.uk

• The keyword ‘Commercial Property’ now drives 65% of traffic to the site

• They are now #1 on Google and we are now optimising and link building for new relevant keywords

Pay per Click Case Study: Truffle Shuffle http://www.truffleshuffle.co.uk

Problem

• Truffle Shuffle is an online retailer competing in a tight margin business, against small t-shirt retailers and huge online retailers like ASOS.

Solution

• PPC campaign on Google and Yahoo.

• Avoid Broad keywords even if they can drive sales volume.

• Use only very specific product related keywords.

• Use bid management software to set strict Position and ROI rules.

• Develop specific, relevant ad Creative for every available t-shirt.

• Weekly coordination with PR efforts.

• Concentrate only on keywords that convert under £5.25.

• Measure revenue and work with exact margins to measure profit on every keyword weekly.

Results

• In November 07, Tug drove 1,949 sales (1 or more t-shirts) at an average cost per conversion of £1.39.

• We delivered a 24:1 ROI (revenue generated/ad spend).

Google Sitemaps Explained – How To Use Google Sitemaps

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:01:45 +0000

Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult,
Hard, And Easy]

Google has recently implemented a program where any webmaster
can create a Sitemap of their site and submit it for indexing by
Google. It is a quick and easy way for you to keep your site
constantly indexed and updated in Google.

The program is appropriately called Google Sitemaps.

In order for you to best use Sitemaps, you must have an XML
generated file on your site that will transmit or send any
updates, changes, and data to Google. XML (Extensible Markup
Language)is everywhere these days, you have probably seen the
orange XML logo on many web sites and its often associated with
Blogging because Blogs use XML/RSS feeds to syndicate their
content.

Today RSS is known mostly as ‘Really Simple Syndication’ but its
original acronym stood for ‘Rich Site Summary’. XML is only
simple code like HTML and it is used to syndicate your content
to all interested parties.

And the interested party in this case is Google. By creating
Sitemaps, Google is really asking webmasters to take charge of
the indexing and updating of their sites. Basically, doing the
Googlebot’s job!

This is a ‘Good’ thing! With the steady influx of new web sites
growing rapidly, indexing all this material will become a
challenge, even with the resources of Google. With Sitemaps,
websmasters can now take charge and make sure their site is
crawled and indexed.

Please note, indexing your site with Sitemaps WON’T improve your
rankings in Google. You will still be competing with the other
sites in Google for top positions. But with Sitemaps you can
make sure all your pages are crawled and indexed quickly by
Google.

There are some other big advantages of using Google’s Sitemaps -
mainly you have control over a few key variables, attributes or
tags. To explain this as simply as possible, your XML powered
sitemap file will have this simple code for each page of your
site:

http://www.yoursite.com/ 1.0 2005-07-03T16:18:09+00:00 daily

Along with ‘urlset’ tags at the beginning and end of your code,
and an XML version indication – that’s basically your XML file!
File size will depend on the number of webpages you have.

Taking a closer look at this XML file:

location – http://www.yoursite.com – name of your webpage

priority – you set the priority you want Google to place on that
page in your site. You can prioritize your pages: 0.0 being the
least, 1.0 being the highest, 0.5 is in the middle. This is ONLY
relative to your site. It will not affect your rankings. Why is
this important? You have certain pages on your site that are
more important than others, (home page, high profit page, opt-in
page, etc.) by placing high priority on these pages, you will
increase their importance in Google.

last modified – when you last modified that page, this timestamp
allows crawlers to avoid recrawling pages that haven’t changed.

change frequency – you can tell Google how often you change that
particular page. Never, weekly, daily, hourly, and so on – if
you frequently update your page this could be extremely
important.

Why do I need a XML Generator?

In order for this XML sitemap file on your site to be constantly
updated, you need a Generator that will spider your site, list
all the urls and automatically feed them to Google. Thus
constantly updating your site in Google’s massive index or
database. Keep in mind, Google also gives you the option of
submitting a simple text file with all your URLs.

Now there is already a flood of these generators popping up!
Different ways of generating your XML powered sitemap file. More
are probably appearing as you read this. For your convenience,
three ways to generate your XML Sitemaps file are listed below:

Difficult – Google’s Python Generator

That’s a relative term, if you know your server like the back of
your hand and installing scripts doesn’t scare the bejesus out
of you, you’re probably smiling at the word difficult. Google
supplies a link to a generator which you can download and set up
on your server. It will cough up your sitemap XML file and
automatically feed it to Google. Google XML Generator

https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-

generator.html

In order for this Generator to work, Python version 2.2 must be
installed on your web server – many servers don’t have this. If
you know what you’re doing, this will probably be a good choice.

You don’t need a Google Account to use Sitemaps but it’s
encouraged because you can track your sitemap’s progress and
view diagnostic information. If you already have another Google
Account gmail, Google Alerts, etc. just use that one to sign in
and follow directions from there.

To submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request, issue your request
to the following URL:

www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url

Hard – A PHP Code Generator

This is a php generator that you can place on your server. This
generator will spider your site, and produce your XML sitemap
file. Download the phpSitemapNG and upload it to your server.
Run the generator to get your XML sitemap file and send it to
Google. PHP Generator http://enarion.net/google/

Again, this is only hard to do if you don’t know your way around
PHP files or scripts.

Easy – Free Online Generator

These Generators are popping up everywhere, and Google now keeps
a list of these ‘third party suppliers’ of generators on their
site. Find them here: http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html

One of the easiest to use is http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ and
you can index up to 500 pages with this online Generator very
quickly and it will give you the sitemap XML file Google needs
to index your site. It will go into your site, spider it and
index all your pages into an XML sitemap of your site. You can
download this file, Compressed or Non- compressed and make minor
changes such as setting the priority, changing frequency, etc.

Then upload this file to your site as sitemap.xml to the root
directory of your server i.e. where you have your homepage. Then
notify Google Sitemaps of your XML file and you’re in business.

Of course, the only drawback, if you constantly add pages to
your site you will need to also add these pages to your XML
sitemap file. This won’t be much of a problem unless you’re
daily adding pages to your site – then you will need something
like the PHP or Python generator to do all this for you
automatically.

Google is still the major search engine on the web so getting
your pages indexed and updated quickly is the major reason to
use Google Sitemaps. If you want your site to remain competitive
it’s probably the wisest route to take.