Old Li2-Crystals

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After over a year of playing around with video editing and special effects, I've decided that it's time to *DO* something constructive with it.

If you've a picture that you'd like to take a person or object from the foreground of that picture and place on a different background, or want a light saber effect added to a prop then you'll be interested in a low cost ($5.00 usd per edit) service.

I also add effects to video clips; Star Trek TOS and TNG style transporter effects, Stargate SG-1 "Asgard Beaming" effect, gunshots & muzzle flashes, as well as light saber fight sequences and more.

For full details check this post "Pimp Your Pic Or Video - Have Quality Special Visual Effects Added Cheaply" and have a look at the video below.

Technorati Tags: visual effects, phaser, photo editing, light saber, muzzle flash, transporter, beaming, explosion, filmmaking, video editing

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If your desktop is set to display a wallpaper graphic, there will still be a border around the captions for your icons that is the color of the solid background. Here's a quick way to remove the border.

In Windows XP:

Open the Control Panel and choose "System Properties" then choose the Advanced tab. Click the Performance section and choose "Settings". Enable the Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop and click Ok.

Two utilities that allow you to change the text color, configure custom icons, and change other aspects of Windows are MicroAngelo (v5.5 or later) and WindowFX.

In Windows 2000

You'll need the "Transparent" utility. You can also use the "On Display" feature of MicroAngelo which includes several other features as well.

In Windows 95, 98, Me

You'll need the "Disappear" utility (4 kb). You will also need "VB40032.DLL" (381 kb) if it's not alread on your system and of course, there is the "On Display" feature of MicroAngelo.

[Tags]transparent background, icons, desktop icons, windows tip[/tagsw

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For anyone looking for web hosting for their site, webhostingchoice is a good place to get some input. It starts out with a top ten list but there's actually quite a bit more to the site than just the top ten list.

The site has a clean, easy to follow layout. Although there is a large, empty right sidebar when the site is viewed in any resolution higher than 800 x 600. I would have expected to find help or informational content there but perhaps the site is undergoing some changes and something will be there later.

The links in the learning center in the left sidebar are both helpful and informative. It includes an FAQ page, a page about some common web hosting scams, a quick start guide and more. There's an advanced search facility that allows you to search for a hosting service based on which features you require.

It's also possible to submit information about a web hosting company to add hosts to their directory that aren't already there.

The resources page has a good collection of links to sites useful to webmasters ranging from webmaster forums, sites specializing in search engine optimization information and tips as well as a couple of links to sites that discuss making money online.

Anyone searching for web hosting would definitely find it worth their while to spend some time on webhostingchoice.com

Technorati Tags: review, web hosting, website, web host directory, webhost, directory

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I was recently asked how could a suspicious email be deleted safely. The question arose of of the fact that when an email is clicked on to delete it, the email in question opens up and the user was concerned that if that happens anything in it could start executing right away.

The first thing to do is prevent the loading of remote images in the email. In OE, the way to do this is to click on the "Views" menu and select "Layout". On the box that appears, look in the lower part of it and UN-Check "Show preview pane" and click Ok.

This setting will allow clicking on an email to select it without loading and showing the email. To actually open it, you'll have to double click and it will open in it's own window.

Thunderbird users have it easier, since loading remote images is turned off by default.

I'll also say that if your circumstance will allow it, the best thing to do would be to migrate your email to Thunderbird. It's a free download and it has the ability to import all of your mail and address book entries from OE.

Regardless of what email client you choose, make sure that you've got an anti-virus solution installed, AVG and Avast are a couple of good free packages.

Technorati Tags: suspicious emails, delete malware, email safety, email, remote images, delete suspicious email

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Ebooks are all the rage today as is evidenced by the fact that nearly everybody and his brother is publishing them. A large number of them are free and many more are sold every day. An ebook is one of the way that anybody can self publish online. You write your material in either text, html or pdf format and then compile the finished product into an ebook.

An ebook compiler converts your text, html or pdf page into a single ebook. Some ebooks are executable (.exe) stand alone programs and others (most of them I think) these days are PDF type ebooks that work on any platform that supports a PDF viewer.

You can use software such as Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver to create an html file that uses your text and graphics. To make this into an ebook you need an html ebook Compiler. Using this type of compiler does require at least a basic working nowledge of html tags and css

Chooseing an eBook Compiler

There's a lot of ebook Compilers being sold, all have glowing sales pages and various levels of tech details. Here's a few things to consider when deciding what ebook compiler to buy:

1. What format did you use to create your source pages, html or pdf? There's a lot more for html, but there is still plenty of perfectly good compilers for converting pdf files into an ebook.

2. How easy is the program to use and how thorough is it's instruction manual. Check to see if the one you're considering offers a free trial version so that you can use it for a while and see if it's right for your needs.

3. Security features. If you're planing to sell the ebook, be sure to check out the security features carefully. Security features need to include: keeping the reader from changing text, only alow access to the pages they've paid for by entering a password.

4. Scripting support. What scripting does it support. Scripting suport lets you create special effects, fancy menus, Etc. You'll also want features like being able to include graphics, search dialogs, forms, surveys, hyperlinks, etc.

5. Pricing. The highest priced are not always the best choice. Choose your ebook compiler based on what you require in the ebooks you create with it.

Make sure the compiler you choose works with your OS. You don't want to find yourself trying to run a linux version on windows. It just ain't gonna happen. This kind of mistake can easily occur when a company sells versions of the same thing for XP, Vista, Linux, mac & so on.

Vendor support. Is there any? How good is it?

You should make certain you can access tech support and get problems dealt with quickly. At three in the morning this can get VERY important. Be sure to check what forms of free tech support they offer.

How long has the compiler has been around. The version number can give you a clue. The higher the version number, the longer it's been around and that means more bugs have been worked out.

When choosing an ebook compiler, don't just jump on whatever incredible promises and fancy sales copy. Do your homework, and then consider all of these factors before committing to buy.

Technorati Tags: chooosing ebook compiler, Text Html, Html Compiler, Macromedia, Dreamweaver, Microsoft Frontpage, Security Features, Scripting, Menus, Ebook Compilers

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Placement targeting is a way to make the most out of an Adsense campaign by driving lots of traffic for the best possible price. The placement targeting system also allows you to run a CPM campaign to get you click-throughs at a much lower rate than you'd be paying for a CPC campaign.

The trick is finding sites to advertise on. You want to find sites that are rank top 10 positions on Google for "high traffic" keywords that are appropriate to your niche. This way you're sure that your ads get seen by targeted prospects and are on sites that you know get good traffic.

AdwordsDigger is a very powerful free tool that makes this job a LOT easier. You enter your list of relevant, high traffic keywords it finds the top ranking sites in Google's index that have AdSense on them for each of your keywords. Then simply take the resulting list of urls and add them to your AdWords campaign and you've got low cost extremely targeted ads.

Download AdWordsDigger 100% free today and make the most of your Adwords campaign.

There's no catch, no nag screens and it doesn't stop working after a while and tell you to pay for the full version. This IS the full version with no strings attached and it's totally free.

Get AdwordsDigger now and see the difference it can make in your Adwords campaigns.

Technorati Tags: top 10 positions, web marketing strategies, tools for marketing, targeting system, small business marketing, paid search marketing, click throughs, marketing plan outline, freetool, freeware adwords tool

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The 100,000th page load since installing statcounter code back in Nov, 2006 has JUST now happened.

Yes, because it was so close, I sat here reloading the statcounter page every few minutes watching for it.

As of 07:26:58 AM Central time, the 100,000th page load was recorded by statcounter.

Today.......Yesterday.......This Month.......Total
232...........212...............8,348..............100,000

I realize that to the "big dogs" out there this isn't really all that big a deal, but it's the first of mine to cross that 100K line. Now I'm aiming for a million. wonder how long it'll take.

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I's going to happen to this blog sometime this morning.

Back in Nov, 2006 I added Statcounter tracking to this blog because I had discovered that it gave much better stats than the sitemeter I had been using.

Sometime this morning, Statcounter will record the 100,000th page load since I installed the statcounter code. As I write this post, at 7:00 am Central time the stats are :

Today.......Yesterday.......This Month......Total
216...........212...............8,332.............99,984

Now is that cool or what?!?

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No longer are we required to watch tv ON the tv. More and more sites are popping up all over the place that make it possible to watch just about anything online. Offerings range from full episodes of popular shows, movie clips, full length movies, news and more.

Even if you prefer going to the other room to watch the tv with it's larger screen, there's always the episode that you missed because Aunt Blabby just had to call and talk your ear off while it was on.

Fortunately, there's a lot of sites where you can find and watch that episode. Here's a listing of eight of them to get started with.

1) Hulu From their site description: "Legally download full episodes and video clips of your favorite network shows and major motion films"

2) Sling They have a lot of popular channels like CBS, NBC, FOX, and SciFi. There's an impressive variety of stuff there and full length episodes are marked with TV icon next to the title.

3) SurfTheChannel Has links to tv episodes and movies hosted on other sites

4) TV-Video.net Tv shows and movies (low resolution, registration required for movies)

5) Sidereel.com (registration required) Appears to have lots of stuff.

6) AnimeCrunch Anime Vidoes from major video sharing websites (site had a popup appear even though I have popup blocking turned on.)

7 LiveStation News and tv programs. Download required (site had a popup appear even though I have popup blocking turned on.)

8) TVChannelsFree.com broadband internet TV stations, live streaming tv. news and video

Technorati Tags: streaming movies, movies, news, video on demand, live video, watch movies online, streaming tv shows, watch tv online

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One of the features that I really appreciate about Firefox and other modern browsers is their password managers. They take a lot of hassle out of username & password entry fields, saving you the trouble of having to open and decrypt your "just in case" password file (you DO keep it encrypted, Right? If not, you should.).

The only problem is that there's a lot of sites that have been rigged by their designers to defeat this very handy feature. Oh, I know they're doing it in the name of security but it's still really annoying whenever I run into it.

Then sometime last year I found a solution (I don't remember where or I'd give credit for it) in the form of a javascript bookmarklet. All you need to do is drag this link onto your bookmarks toolbar and drop it there.

Then, anytime you come to a page that disables the auto-complete, just click on that bookmarklet before you do anything. It will re-write the code to make it possible for auto complete to work again. Now all you need to do is type the first few characters of the username and the rest will fill right in for you.

I use it all the time now without even thinking about it and it's saved me a lot of aggravation

Technorati Tags: fix auto complete, javascript, fix disabled autocomplete, bookmarklet, auto complete

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