Wednesday, December 29, 2010

IBM Reveals Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives in the Next Five Years

IBM Reveals Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives in the Next Five Years: "Innovations in computers and data centers are enabling the excessive heat and energy that they give off to do things like heat buildings in the winter and power air conditioning in the summer. Can you imagine if the energy poured into the world's data centers could in turn be recycled for a city's use?
Up to 50 percent of the energy consumed by a modern data center goes toward air cooling. Most of the heat is then wasted because it is just dumped into the atmosphere. With new technologies, such as novel on-chip water-cooling systems developed by IBM, the thermal energy from a cluster of computer processors can be efficiently recycled to provide hot water for an office or houses."

Monday, December 20, 2010

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Traffic Rankings–Part of the Picture

by Linda Mackenzie
Some guy called me up to tell me that my website statistics were wrong. So because we are a conscious business I looked at the actual site visit and page view numbers provided to me from my website provider and found that they were completely different and much, much higher. We are not signed up for any Analytics program such as Google Analytics or Quantcast so I wondered - where are these traffic rating sites getting their website numbers for my site?

I researched the site where the guy got my bogus numbers from and then many more traffic ranking sites. This is what I think I found, since most of the traffic ranking sites do not give you where they get their numbers from - by which they use to report my numbers…

Major Search Engine Companies like Google, Yahoo, Bing and others get their data and page rankings from impressions and conversion rates of people looking for or going to your site. (In Humanese this means if they type in your website name to look for your site and/or if they went to your site after they logged in to their site). However the numbers provided are only from the data from that specific search engine company. So my thoughts are:
-- Most important - they are not looking at all the actual traffic to my site
-- After a user finds my site they may not “search” for it again and can go directly to my site.
-- These numbers are not tracked by the search engine company. If they are, without my permission, there may be some privacy issues being violated here.
-- They reflect numbers only from their search engine site, not other search engine sites
-- The traffic they report is weighted pertaining to their specific criteria

The Conclusion: Search Engine Traffic Rankings are only part of the picture. They DO NOT and CAN NOT give you the whole picture of the real traffic of any website, except their own.

Major Web Analytic Companies - When you sign up for Google Analytics, Quantcast or any other web site analytics package they give you code to put on your site so they can track your website statistics. Sometimes you need to place the code on every page you want tracked. They then get their numbers for your website, not your web provider. This is slightly better but it still relies on how they weight their data and on what criteria they use to determine your data.

The Conclusion: Search Engine Traffic Analytics Rankings are only part of the picture. They MAY give you the whole picture of the real traffic of a website if the criteria is set up that way.

Alexa’s Traffic Ranks are based on the traffic data provided by Alexa Toolbar users and data collected from other, diverse sources (certainly that does not include everyone on the web). The Rankings are determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day and as far as pageviews it is determined by the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site. Multiple requests for the same URL on the same day by the same user are a single Pageview.

The Conclusion: Alexa DOES NOT and CAN NOT give you the whole picture of the real traffic of any website, except their own.

Independent Traffic Ranking & SEO Sites are either using one or more of the specific search engine statistics (which are only part of the picture) or their own analytics software which you either must sign up for or sometimes pay to use (which again is only as good as the criteria that the analytics software is set up for).

The Conclusion: Most Independent Traffic Ranking Sites DO NOT and CAN NOT give you the whole picture of real traffic on any website, except their own. The Independent Traffic Ranking sites with their own analytic packages may give you the whole picture but is dependent on whether you signed up directly with them and what criteria they use to determine traffic.


THE FINAL CONCLUSION:
So, how can someone get actual traffic of a website? Ask the owner of the site. He or she is the only one that gets the actual statistics from their web provider. Web Providers are the only Source of all real data of any site. If the web provider is reputable and honest they will provide the owner of the site with real stats. Of course we have to remember that the web site providers have their own criteria for determining actual data too.

Do website stats correlate to radio listeners on an internet radio site? As far as my radio listener stats they DO NOT come from website statistics whether it be site visits or page views. These website statistics have to do with who is coming to my site but NOT the actual numbers of listeners. Those numbers come directly from my streaming aggregator and (if provided) from our over 52 distribution channels which syndicate/simulcast HealthyLife.net Radio Network 24/7.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

THE TOUGHEST MEAT CAN BE MOST DESIRABLE



By Daena Smoller



As a radio field journalist for HealthyLife.net, I have the fantastic opportunity to cover a variety of events. One such recent blogger excursion for me was the 2010 SILVERMAN Triathlon in Southern Nevada.


SILVERMAN is hailed as the most challenging triathlon in the United States. And it’s not even a qualifying competition so no doubt, these triathlon participants are competing in SILVERMAN for the sheer thrill of it and a sense of accomplishment and self-satisfaction.


Needless to say and as I’m sure anyone would expect me to do, I had it in mind that I would write a terrific article about this grueling competition that in full, encompassed a mind-blowing 2.4 mile open water swim in a chilly mountain lake, followed by a 112 mile bike ride through the breath-taking, rugged and totally unforgiving mountain / desert terrain of the 1.5 million acre Lake Mead National Recreation Area (the nation’s first national recreation area, 1964) and an exigent 26.2 mile run.


However, my best intentions of writing a sports-minded article literally exploded into a billion little pieces when I arrived on-site during the day of SILVERMAN registration. Why? Because this was a single woman’s WONDERLAND! Thousands of hard male bodies were everywhere with the majority clad in colorful spandex suitable for long bike rides that truly eliminates any real work for the imagination. Simply put, no “easy-fit” jeans being sported here!


So here’s what I'd really like to share about covering SILVERMAN:


To those women searching out a cool means of meeting men outside of traditional ‘meat’ markets, consider planning your next vacation around a competitive event such as SILVERMAN. But don’t attend just as a spectator, volunteer! Sure! You can volunteer at most competitions like assisting with registration (a perfect opportunity introductory face-to-face time) or volunteer at an AID station (physical contact may actually occur while a biker or runner is reaching out to grab the bottle of water or other sustenance that you’re offering). And don’t forget to take advantage of attending the additional events surrounding the competition, too (great opportunity to show off your social skills).


If you need motivation, check out these photos of the awe-inspiring landscapes and of course, some of the fine competitors of SILVERMAN 2010, HERE.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Being the Change Through Social Media and Internet Radio

by James Bean

People using sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Care2, and countless other social networking venues of the web are roughly divided into two categories:"whisperers", and "broadcasters".

Whisperers basically just want to be left alone. They have a small circle of close friends they desire to keep in touch with, and that's it. They aren't necessarily out to add hundreds of Internet "friends" from far away exotic lands such as Outer Mongolia and Tuva.

Social networking broadcasters however, have much in common with those inhabiting the world of internet radio. They are seeking good ratings, a growing audience tuning in, more subscribers, an expanding coverage map, more downloads, hits and page views. They have messages to communicate. Adding new friends from Mongolia or Madagascar is perfectly acceptable! They might seek to "be the change", perhaps are involved with a cause they passionately wish to promote across the globe. Mahatma Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Though amplified by electronic equipment including the hubs of the worldwide web these days, the concept of creating networks of communication, new ideas, education, and social reformation, is at least as ancient as Mongolian Yurts, Tuvan Throat Singing, Babylonian Ziggurats, the Pyramids of Giza and those of Central America. A couple of decades before the Internet revolution, the late Robert Muller (1923-2010), Former Assistant Secretary General to the United Nations, and Laureate of the UNESCO Prize 1989 for Peace Education, wrote the following visionary poem about the power of networking.

‘Decide to Network. Use every letter you write, Every conversation you have,
Every meeting you attend, To express your fundamental beliefs and dreams.
Affirm to others the vision of the world you want. Network through thought. Network through action. Network through love. Network through the spirit.
You are the center of a network. You are the center of the world. You are a free, immensely powerful source of life and goodness. Affirm it. Spread it. Radiate it. Think day and night about it. And you will see a miracle happen: the Greatness of your own life, In a world of big powers, media, and monopolies, But of six billion individuals Networking is the new freedom, the new democracy, A new form of happiness.’

I continue to be inspired every time I read those words. Muller was also Chancellor Emeritus of the University for Peace (UPEACE or UPAZ) based in Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica, which, once-upon-a-time, was the home of Radio For Peace International, a community radio station broadcasting to the Americas and the world via shortwave radio.

It was great to be able to share my program, Spiritual Awakening, via RFPI for most of the years the station was on the air. Someone told me that Robert Muller tuned in one day and actually heard me read from a booklet called Ambassadors For Peace, featuring a dialogue about world peace between Robert Muller and Sant Darshan Singh, presenting some very positive visions of a Golden Age. Now as I broadcast Spiritual Awakening on HealthyLife.net Radio Network who knows who I am reaching within the millions of people who tune in monthly, sharing my messages.

In conclusion, we not only transmit messages to the world via radio, Twitter, Facebook updates or Blogging but on a subtle level, even our very thoughts are like radio waves escaping into the ethers, and those thoughts have a effect as well.

As Spiritual Master Shivbrat Lal puts it:“The human body is a kin to a radio broadcasting station. It transmits into the ethers subtle and mental waves of what the mind thinks. Mental thought-forces and spiritual currents go out in the atmosphere according to the disposition of one's mental and spiritual make up. The human body system is also a radio receiver.” And from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "A man is what he thinks all day long."

It’s Amazing to realize that the totality of that thought-life during this earth-walk adds up to become our legacy here. Not only akashic records, magnetic tape, or a digital format, indeed, all our thoughts, words, and deeds become a factor, a part of the grand equation of the collective thoughts, words and deeds of the earth, slightly moving humanity in one direction or another, here in what Guru Nanak called "Dharm Khand", (The Realm of Action, Karma, Dharma: Moral or Ethical Activities).

In Decide to Be a Global Citizen, By Robert Muller he says, “A good inhabitant of planet Earth. A member of the great human family. Pray, think, act, feel and love globally, And you will aggrandize yourself to the outer limits of being. Know this planet. Love this planet. Care for this planet. For you come from Mother Earth And you will return to Mother Earth. You are made of her elements. You are the Earth, become conscious of herself. You are her eyes, her ears, her voice, her mind and her heart. Save your Mother Earth from her matricidal children who destroy her, who divide her, who spike her with nuclear arms, who hold their territories to be greater than the globe and their groups, greater than humanity. Unite, global citizens, to save and heal planet Earth and to make our Mother bloom again as the most beautiful planet in the universe.”

Check out James Bean's Show Spiritual Awakening Tuesdays 12 noon Pacific Time on http://www.healthylife.net