When ringtones first arrived on the market it was treated like a craze, a short term gimmick that would eventually fade away like the Yo-yo and clangers. The industry today chalks up $4.40 billion in sales with $600 million in the US alone and has become a marketing tool for the music industry who are suffering in uncertain times as sales of Cd’s and video actually fell 7.6% in the last year. Even the electronic reproduction ringtones of original songs are making a comeback in some kind of retro kitsch movement.

Record companies are happy to sign up for revenue in a market that sees their new bands as well as their established artists being heard for ‘free’ in schools and around shopping malls as teenagers swap and listen to their friends ringtones. Its a marketing dream that is not only free for the record companies but actually brings in revenue. In fact, the market is so strong these days that even Billboard, who have tracked the fortunes of the nations most popular songs for over fifty years, is now running a chart on the popularity of the most popular ringtones.

Market Analysts do however have a note of caution for the future expansion in the industry. This points to the ever increasing supply and use of phones that can play MP3 files in the same way your ipod or music player can. They point to the diversification of use of mobile phones as a possible hindrance to further explosive growth. One thing is for sure, this is definitely no longer a craze and like all industries that mature, it will need to adapt to stay ahead of the field.

The darker side of the industry is one that has also caught the news in recent months. In Florida, the Attorney General, Bill McCollum recently agreed a settlement with ringtone promoter AzoogleAds. The settlement of $1 million was for misrepresentation on the part of AzoogleAds in that their online promotion of ringtone downloads has misled members into believing the downloads were free.

Ringtones normally come with a contract in which the telephone service provider is billed by the promoting company for a monthly subscription. This charge, which is then added to the subscribers phone bill allows the subscriber to download a fixed number of ringtones a month.

McCollum successfully argued that misleading promotion ads online had left countless subscribers paying for services that they did not know they had signed up for. McCollum heads a Cyberfraud taskforce in Florida that expects further action and is currently in talks with a number of ringtone promotion companies.

In a parallel move, service provider AT&T announced its intention to police the marketing of its affiliate promoters.

“Consumers should never be billed for services they thought were free of charge,” Attorney General Bill McCollum was quoted as saying. “Today’s agreement establishes a precedent for wireless companies accepting responsibility for the way cell phone content is advertised on the internet and the manner in which charges are passed along to consumers. AT&T should be commended for being the first wireless company in the industry to offer this reform.”

These latest developments are sure signs that an industry that started as a craze is developing into a mature industry and finally carrying the responsibility that goes with it. As for the future…give me a ring!

About the Author

Myringtoneshub.com is an ethical ringtones site where you can download ringtones. Motorola ringtones and iphone ringtones are just some of the wide variety of makes that these ringtones are suitable for

It is probably the oldest story, well maybe the second oldest, but in the age of computers it is probably the oldest. For as long as there have been computers there have been computers that have failed or have broken. The story multiplied of course when we all got one and whilst the majority of the planet is happy clicking away on their mouse, the intricacies of hardware and software are still left to the elite…and those born after 1980!

Being one of the latter, I come from an age before computers at school and whilst I spend the majority of my life these days in front of my keyboard and screen, when something goes wrong I haven’t a clue.

To rectify this situation I decided to research the subject and come up with some answers to the questions that we ask ourselves repeatedly as we bounce round the room, kicking ourselves that we did not back up our data on a more regular basis. because backing up your data is the best solution for computer failure whatever the cause. But I am guessing that if you are reading this article then that option will be remembered for next time and what you are really looking for are the alternative answers now.

Let’s assume then that your computer has failed. Let’s also assume that you last did a back up of data long enough ago for it not to be relevant and this article maybe your best last hope. Before we examine the possibilities let me just reassure you. There is a very good chance that your data can be recovered. Please read on.

The first consideration maybe the age of your computer and the way that your hard drive is configured. This is not something you may know but as part of my reassurance let me explain a little about something call RAID. You may have seen it mentioned when you bought your computer.

RAID stands for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks. It is a technology that it used to support two or more disks on your computer to enhance performance and storage of data. By splitting your hard drive into two or more sections allows it to use different disks for different tasks. Now if you have bought a Dell recently you may remember when you were clicking through the options that their was an option screen allowing you to choose to split your hard drive. If you chose this option and you have two drives, it is quite possible that most of your data is on one drive whilst your operating system, Vista, XP etc. will be installed on the other. This scenario makes recovery much easier. Even if you have just one drive all is not lost.

Data Recovery, its ease and the cost of recovery will depend on the type of computer failure you have experienced.

Failure can be caused by several things but these are the main ones.

Firmware failure: This is a failure of the software embedded on your hard drive

Electronic failure: Lightening strike, power surge are all reasons for electronic failure. Like the back up, you always meant to get that surge protector! Electronic failure usually causes a failure in the controller board so that your data is not lost but cannot be found by your operating software.

Mechanical failure: Your hard drive has moving parts that break from time to time. In the words of ‘Armageddon’ ‘It’s not if it is going to happen, but when is it going to happen’

Logic Errors: These are a software failure and can usually be rectified by a system restore . Use caution though, as until you know the type of failure you have experienced your actions could in fact make the problem worse and hinder the recovery of important data.

So now you know the possible causes of your failure the next thing is to identify which has befallen you. If you are a complete novice your next step is to get some expert help. Differential analysis of your problem should be left to some-one who knows how to identify your problem without making it worse. You should be able to find advice for free and depending on the importance of your data and the cost of recovery you can make an informed choice as to how to proceed.

Next time you will remember to back up and get that surge protector..I know because I have been there. Good Luck!

About the Author

Disk Doctors specialize in Data Recovery including Raid Recovery Whatever you computer failure you will find help from the 24/7 service they provide including all RAID levels of Data Recovery and data recovery software for lesser problems

When you read about SEO. Thats Search Engine Optimization for the uninitiated or the profession of trying to put a website at the top of the organic search results for any given keyword.
Having just read the first line of this article I have realized just how much jargon we use in this industry and that for the novice, and we were all novices once, it must be somewhat confusing.

So let me simplify. If you have a website it is normally because you have a product or service that you wish to sell to the public. To achieve sales you need people to visit your website. Your visitors are called traffic. The best way to gain traffic is to appear in the organic search results of Google, (and other Search Engines) for search terms that are relevant to your business. For Eample I own a website for Estate Agents in Spain to list their property on a MLS. The Biggest search term for this industry is Spanish Property, which receives about 10x as much traffic as any other search term. Therefore in a perfect world my aim eventually is to reach No 1 position for this keyword. In the interim you must aim to reach a Page 1 position for smaller traffic keywords which are less competitive and more easily achieved. Think of your keyword goals as a Christmas tree with the most competitive as the fairy on the top. The least competitive and most easy to achieve are at the bottom of the tree. There are many more of them to choose from so be selective, but a wide base of keyword terms that bring you a visitor a day is easier to achieve than trying to rank for one term that will bring you a 100 visitors.

Now most articles that you will read will start to talk about the fact that to rank for any given keyword you need to build links pointing at your site from other sites with the keyword you are trying to rank for in the anchor text of your link, (thats the clickable part of the text that sends the visitor to your site) . This is all true. You will read about the need for Directory submissions, writing articles, reciprocal linking strategies and many more ways to gain links from your piers so that you may build your link popularity and get your deserved place on the first page of results for the keywords you have chosen.

I will leave all those noble strategies to other for now and focus on a method of obtaing as many links as you want for yourself without going outside the remit of your own website. Do not get me wrong. All that you read about in-linking is bona-fide and should be pursued as part of a multi faceted approach that is necessary for successful placement in the Search Engines. This article is designed however to highlight the importance of internal linking strategy of your own site that can make a great effect on your Search Engine position. It is an overlooked subject and often missed by many site owners. It is often the key to out ranking your competition but also should not be confused with a tradition of spamming the content of your web pages to gain position by stuffing the content with meaningless keywords and links.

Those strategies have pretty much been taken care of by the Search Engines in their algorithms.

When linking your pages internally there are some guidelines to consider.
These include,
The percentage of links pointing at any given page with the same keyword anchor text. If the percentage is too high it may be deemed to be spamming, so always keep your link texts varied leaving the most important keyword links coming from the most important pages of your site.

Use your footer to carry links to your most important pages. That way you are linking your most important pages from every page on your site. These can also be used as a baseline link for a generic keyword creating a good number of links to an important page. If you then link in content links with a more specific target keyword from an internal page you will gain good points for the important keyword along with recognition for the baseline links in your footer.

A final example as this subject will need to be extended later.

If you create a hundred pages of quality content about your site subject or product and you have 1 link in the footer to your homepage. Lets say its a site selling property and your footer link is property homepage. In the text you carry a link for Spanish Property for Sale also to the homepage. You now have 200 links pointing at your homepage with 50% of them targeted at your keyword.

If the assumption is correct that Google allows and reads up to 100 internal links on any given page without penalty then you can see that by interlinking your pages in an intelligent manner you could end up in our example with 10 000 links from a 100 good pages of content.

Whilst it is by no means the only thing to consider, it makes a good start.

About the Author (HTML)

Neil Ebsworth is co-founder of AMLAspain.com, TheSpanish property MLS and Villa Rentals Spain. A portal for Rental Properties

When you think of car hire you probably remember the experience of that summer vacation where you spent an hour after getting off the plane trying to find the little mobile van so that you could retrieve the keys to something that resembled a fridge on wheels, before spluttering out of the airport in a foreign country…on the wrong side of the road with one eye on the map and the other trying to remember how to change gear with your right hand.

Car Hire is the last place you would think, in this day of global warming and computer technologies, that would be leading the forefront of technologies to reduce green-house gases and such things but in a few cases around the globe it is the Car Hire firms that are taking technology by the scruff of the neck and producing some real results.

The obvious technologies that are being introduced are hybrid fuel cars. Whist these are greener in terms of green house emissions, there are still questions as to how green they really are. The cost of making the hybrid fuel ethanol has already led to corn production impinging on wheat fields leading to a spike in the price of wheat and the many foodstuffs that it goes into, bread, pasta etc. The case that we cannot afford to turn over our arable land in the pursuit of producing enough ethanol from corn to replace gasoline is a strong one. But as an issue putting carbon emission in front of the consumer, it currently is all we have. When we start complaining about the $10 loaf of bread we will know it has gone too far!

The lesser known technologies now being introduced however show forefront thinking. A firm in Boston is now providing a 24/7 car hire system called Zipcar where consumers effectively give up their car for a rental based on hourly use. Once the customer has signed up he can book a car by the hour and using a credit card style key has only to travel a short distance to pick up a car in his immediate location. The car is equipped with GRPS and black-box technologies which not only control the ignition but also allow the car to be tracked via satellite reducing fraud and theft. The company says that for every car that they employ up to 20 cars are taken off the road thus reducing congestion and overall fuel emissions.

In the UK, Car- Hire firms in association with the local police are requiring bio-metric identification in the form of a fingerprint before you can register for your car. Whilst there have been some complaints by customers, the idea that has seriously reduced theft and fraud is the same argument being put forward for full bio-metric ID cards in that the innocent have nothing to fear and it is only those who have something they wish to hide that are being thwarted.

With many of us now thinking about our summer vacations to France, Italy and beyond it is good to know that at least one of the industries involved in getting us to our destination is thinking about our carbon footprint. It may be some time before we can vacation completely conscience free these days, but who would have thought that those companies that put us in those little deathtraps and sent us on our way into the abyss would be the fore-runners of the new technologies.

About the Author

AnyCarHire is a website provider of Car Hire around the Globe. They have a policy of guarantee-ing that there are no additional surchages to prices that you find quoted on their website. They provide Car Hire France and Car Hire Italy as well as 5000 additional destinations worldwide. AnycarHire offers many makes and models and supports new technologies in the fight against global carbon emissions

It is an undisputed fact that the dollar is weak. The trade deficit run up by the Bush Administration in financing the war in Iraq and the sub-prime mortgage crisis are just two of the factors that have driven investors from the dollar to its baby sister, the Euro. The resulting effect has been to see a rise in the price of oil above 100 dollars a barrel as the race for commodities in the markets has left currecy traders trampled under the rush to get out of the way. Oil, gold, even wheat seems preferable.
The US economy is brinking on recession, although we have yet to see one quarter of negative growth ( the definition of recession is two quarters of negative growth).

Definitions aside, you can feel the mood of anticipation when you talk to realtors in some parts of the country. In South Carolina, a real estate market that has not been hit by as large a correction, as say, California, realtors in Mount Pleasant tell an all too familiar story when they say that they are finding buyers sitting on the fence in a waiting game to see how prices will jump before committing to a purchase.
The mortgage crisis which burst the bubble in the US was quick to spread and the tightening of secondary lending soon put UK mortgage lender Northern Rock Bank in a liquidity crisis that needed a government bailout. In a matter of a month the virus had crossed the atlantic and the UK property market caught the same cold as its never ending climb stalled under a realization that prices were not a never ending staircase. This was something that had not been seen for nearly a generation of home-owners and was 1989 since the fears of mortgage debt being higher than property value had reared their ugly head.
The virus continued to spread. Spanish developers who had been building as fast as they could were soon realising that they had more units than they could sell and the holiday property industry in the Spanish Costas fell victim to the same indecision found in the UK. (Unsurprising really as up to 65% of Spanish Property on the coastline of Spain was bought by UK residents looking to invest in a place in sun.

So whilst the world coughs and splutters towards global recession could it be that the Euro could hold the key to releasing the pressure and will we have to wait until the recession bites into European economies before the European Central Bank cuts interests rates?
It is certainly no forgone conclusion that a cut in base rates in Europe would take the pressure off the dollar. Certainly the election result in November could see McCain having to fund an even longer exit strategy in Iraq that would push the deficit to epic proportions. Hopefully voters may have to suffer $4 a gallon at the petrol pumps this summer to alight them to the fact that a Democrat may be a better choice than more of the same.

A Democrat win in November and a cut in European interest rates however may produce a combined effect that would ease pressure on the dollar. The good will feeling normally felt following any election would stimulate the economy in the states and combined with falling oil and gas prices it may be all the economy needs to stave off the recession everyone is feeling.

About the Author (HTML)

Neil Ebsworth is co-founder of AMLAspain.com, The MLS for Property in Spain MLS and Mount Pleasant SC Real Estate.