Category Archives: ECourses

The Evolution Of Digital Downloads

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History Of Digital Downloads

Libraries, art galleries, museums, universities, schools and government, initially saw digitalisation as:

  • A way of using the it to preserve artifacts, documents and treasures. Limiting access to the originals but expanding access by dissemination of the images and information associated with an item.
  • A way of quickly disseminating information to the general public, or particular groups of people, interest groups and employees. For example the introduction of new company or departmental policies or the introduction of new laws or rules.

That quickly changed. All of the above institutions and businesses plus a whole lot of new players started to see tremendous opportunities. How bypassing the machinery of conventional publishing could get information into the hands of people more efficiently and cheaply.

The Information Age

Information, software and scripts, music, video, audio and art; all became available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. For a few dollars you could purchase something that would have cost four or five times as much in a hard copy. For much of the material of new creators, most of it never published before the value was even greater as they had no track record to recommend them.

The quality of the information published in those early days was variable to say the least, and many people lost money to the false information or dubious strategies, but equally so many benefitted from the information they purchased. The same variability applies today, because as soon as a protection is built into the industry, along comes a strategy to circumvent it.

The Shady Side Of Internet Marketing

Someone once compared the worst of Internet Marketers with Used Car Salesmen and the Used Car Salesmen were offended. Yes it’s very true that the underbelly of our industry is not very savory.

Disclaimers

For example the regulators require us to put a disclaimer, that says:
“The Seller” can’t guarantee you the same results as “they” or people providing testimonials to the product, because “they” don’t know your work habits, ability to follow instructions consistently, and any number of other factors that could affect your ability to duplicate the system “they” use.

Now that is a fair disclaimer; one that shows a commitment to develop a mutual relationship.

Unfortunately the unscrupulous have used the disclaimer as a shield to protect outlandish claims.

So for a prospective buyer the text says:

  • Become a millionaire.
  • In a week.
  • Takes 20 minutes work per day.
  • Anyone can do it.
  • No experience necessary.
  • No skills required.
  • No discipline needed.

The Devil’s Disclaimer

While the small print, “the disclaimer” says to the new owner:

  • The author does not warrant at any time that the contents are accurate. (not even at the time of writing)
  • The author assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein. (What about a simple mention on the sales page that these could exist)>
  • Any perceived slights of specific persons, peoples, or organizations other published materials are unintentional and used solely for educational purposes. (So why not say the guys think differently, check them out before you decide.) /li

    It Continues

  • No representation is made or implied that the reader will do as well from using the suggested techniques, strategies, methods, systems, or ideas; rather it is presented for news value only. (How come the copy says differently.)
  • The author does not assume any responsibility or liability whatsoever for what you choose to do with this information. (In the sales letter you say the method, if followed as you say, is legal and safe, suddenly it’s not!)
  • Any perceived remark, comment or use of organizations, people mentioned and any resemblance to characters living, dead or otherwise, real or fictitious does not mean that they support this content in any way. ( Why name drop unless those people will stand behind the product)
  • There are no guarantees of income made, traffic delivered or other promises of any kind. (Can understand the first two, but why make promises you can’t stand behind.)
  • By reading any document, the reader agrees that under no circumstances is the author responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, that are incurred as a result of use of the information contained within this document, including – but not limited to errors, omissions, or inaccuracies. (Why are these things mention in the main text of the sales letter)

Why would you buy from the purveyor of this product, who is saying in the final analysis you can’t have any faith in anything “he or she” says, or any course of action “they” recommend.

These are the highlights not the whole thing, from a real disclaimer.

How Come These Type Of Disclaimers Are Not Challenged

Because there are two groups of people that enable this unethical behavior to continue, two groups that make up most of those interested in Online Marketing:

  • Those attracted to opportunities with the lure of big dollars fast, with no work, and no credentials are often desperate rather than enthusiastic. They are likely to read the small print but still decide to take the gamble. Which is often why they are desperate in the first place.
  • The rest see the headlines and the bullet points and it seems to make sense, so they don’t bother to even read the disclaimer, because they don’t want to spoil their enthusiasm with negatives. They want to become independent of the “job” and are sure they will make it work somehow.

Take Action

Read every disclaimer and don’t buy products with disclaimers like the one above.

The niches where these abuses most frequently occur are the “Internet Marketing”, “Making Money Online”, and “Home Business”. Avoiding these niches is one option, due diligence is another, while a combination of the two makes a third.

My Experience

Now I am over 70, I have been around marketing and on the internet for 26 years and still have not found any way that you can be fabulously rich without doing any work. It is ridiculous to believe that the “four hour workweek” can be achieved next week, next month or next year.

Working online has shown me that I do need some knowledge to begin an online business and that I will need to keep on learning, until I quit working online.

Presuming you have a decent computer and an internet connection of some kind with the best speed you can afford. There are some things you need on the internet to run a viable business, that includes a website with a product, niche or brand domain name and email.

Where Are We With Digital Products In the Second Decade Of The 21st Century

Software

Consumer
It used to come boxed with paper manuals so thick you could get a hernia lifting them, now more and more software even from the mainstream publishers like Microsoft and Adobe is now delivered via your computer. Saving the planet’s resources and your shelf space. The sophistication of many of these software offerings is utterly astounding and they now usually come with a try before you buy option, never available in the days of manuals and disks.

Automation
Some of the task integration and automation systems that have been been developed in the last five years, can certainly reduce the soul destroying repetitive tasks associated with this endeavor and allow the non techie person to build pages, and construct funnels.

Utilities
Including Virii and Malware detectors and destroyers, registry cleaners continue to provide an important level of security to individual and networked computers.

Themes Plugins and Training For CMS’s such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal seem to be never ending.

The perception that software has more value than other digital products keeps this sector vibrant. The fact that simple software is within the grasp of most computer users, make it a great choice for anyone with development aspirations.

Books

Written on every subject known to man are now sold digitally at the rate of 2 for every 1 sold using paper, the advent of iPad, Kindle and other book readers has driven this rapid expansion.

The quality is variable as the big players let the market decide what is good, based on the levels of satisfaction from those who have already purchased.

Audio Recordings

Of both music and the spoken word are now more frequently downloaded than purchased in a music store, and the quality of the recording does not deteriorate even over long period of time. Your MP3 player might get scratched,  but not the recording and your entire CD collection can be kept on an one iPod or similar. Add to that that many Kindle readers have an audio component with either computerised or human voices available.

Video

Video and Audio combine to invade almost every other media. Training videos are a great OTO for a eBook, for software, as an addition to musical audios.

Maps

Static maps that can be printed have been around for a time but software that enables a GPS receiver to function are much more recent and these can now be obtained for most major cities and countries around the world, great if you plan to drive on your holiday, trip, or even around your own town.

Art

In recent times Artists are selling their work as high definition digital downloads that can be printed by the purchaser and framed. Print runs are limited in number to maintain value and the purchaser can save huge amounts in freight and insurance. Should the picture be damaged there are secure ways that the legitimate owner can get it reprinted.

Hopefully we can develop a relationship with you that will help you establish yourself as a creator or affiliate for one or more of these types of digital material.

Or maybe you have another plan and are looking for the best digital products to operationalise it.

Our aim is to give you the best help advice and fit for your needs.

Earn Money Taking Photos, Yes, Maybe, or No?

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You have probably heard of people making money selling photos online and figured you could do it too. Well, in this case, you are absolutely right!

I myself was just like you a couple of years ago. I had a good job, but I couldn’t say no to some extra cash every month. So when I got myself my first digital camera, I started taking photos of the things I found interesting. Then, I begun to submit my photos to specialized websites, waiting for the miracle to happen.

Well, it wasn’t a real miracle, but I managed to make a couple hundred dollars during my first month in business. I didn’t see this as a business opportunity, so I kept taking photos just when I was in a certain mood, let’s call it “inspirational”.

It was not until I went on a trip to Thailand that I discovered its true potential. During the 2 weeks spent abroad, I filled the 8 GB memory card I had in my digital camera: almost 4000 photos!

When I got home, I uploaded them to the websites I was working with, expecting some kind of success. But what happened was truly unexpected! During the next 2 months, I made a profit of a little more than $10.000! And I am still getting some residual income from those photos (I get paid every time someone downloads one of my pictures).

The kind of money you can expect to get for a single photo submitted to these specialized websites can be anywhere around $2 to $7, depending on the size and quality of the picture.

Earning $2 every time someone downloads one of your pictures may not seem like much, but if you managed to take a couple hundred pictures every month, it would certainly sum up. And how long could it take you to shoot 200 photos? Two, three hours? That means a profit of about $400 for only a few hours’ work!

And the best part is that you don’t need to be an expert photographer to achieve this. All you need is a digital camera and an Internet connection!

Now before you rush off and buy a Digital Camera, with a huge memory card and start snapping, be aware of some of the difficulties. It is fine to photograph scenes and edifices to your hearts content, but be aware that these photographs are very common and have to be strikingly different to make you sales. What does sell is pictures of people doing unusual and therefore interesting things, and once you include other identifiable people in the photograph you need to get release forms signed by each person in the photo. These need to be kept on file and made available to purchasers if required, usually corporates and larger firms will require evidence of your possession of these documents, Google “photograph release forms” to get some examples and carry them in your camera bag. Signing this form give you express permission to do with that image, anything you wish, without the person or people in the image having any further claim. This can increase the cost of obtaining photographs as many people will not sign without some form of payment, because they know you are thinking of getting some payment. It used to be that picture taken overseas were not as vigorously checked for compliance, but in this age of the internet and global communications, most of the people you take pictures of could find out that you are selling them, even if it is just by chance. The other difficulty with this requirement is that often the best shots are spontaneous, and by the time the picture is taken the person has gone and finding them in a huge metropolis is almost impossible; or your picture is of multiple subjects some who willingly give the release and others who resist. So be warned, it is easy to take the photograph but not necessarily easy to meet all the legal requirements associated with making money from your images.

Just for reading this post I would like to offer you a free book.
You can download it right here. Get Paid to Take Digital Photos

Virtual Private Networks, Internet TV and Other Things

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VPN, or Virtual Private Networks, are networks that make use of the internet to offer secure access to a network. What it does is summarize transfers of data between two (or more) networked devices so that the data that is transferred can remain private. VPN is therefore an ideal platform for viewing international television.

When using a VPN with an internet TV channel provider, a wide variety of different television channels from the US, UK and Canada are accessible online which were previously only available to residents of that country. It allows for expatriates globally to watch broadcasts from their computers via the internet. This is a very unique and useful system. And here’s why:

How a VPN works is as follows: only a personal computer and internet connection can be used. An account must then be opened with an internet TV channel provider, and within minutes, the VPN can be activated. This system allows for access to the internet without any restrictions or circumventing blocks that make it difficult to make international calls via Skype or MSN, and eliminates internet censorship in places like the Middle East, Dubai and China by making previously blocked and censored channels, web sites and blogs available.

To set up a VPN is easy! You don’t need to be an IT technician to enable this; all you need is a quality internet TV provider and a working internet connection.

Other advantages of having a VPN service  are having protection when using wireless hotspots, complete anonymity as your IP address cannot be tracked, and being able to access online gambling sites, which are now restricted in many countries.

All that said, however, perhaps the biggest advantage of having a VPN is the fact that it is one of its sidebar features is free long-distance phone calls, which can be a major factor despite the existence of Skype and Yahoo.

A word of caution, watching TV over a VPN does require an Internet connection with a speed of at least 1mbps so it’s critical, that you check anticipated speed, not theoretical speed before signing up to any package offering TV over the Internet, most users need a connection speed between 1.5 and 2 MB to guarantee live TV streaming without any interruptions. At peak times, download speeds usually by up to half, making viewing impossible.

There are several types of VPN’s:

PPTP VPN (point-to-point), which is a simple method of software-based VPN systems which makes use of an already existing internet connections. It essentially creates a “tunnel” between two users.

Similarly, STS (site to-site) VPN makes use of each site with its own internet connection, which doesn’t necessarily have to be the same.

MPLS is an IPS-tuned VPN that needs two or more sites connected by the same ISP. It stands for Multi-Protocol Label Switching.

Some VPNs are hardware-based, others software-based, and certain VPNs are Firewall-based.

E-commerce Explained

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E-Commerce is way of doing business transactions electronically.  The word electronically in this context means that in E-Commerce business transactions gets completed via electronic medium. This electronic medium mostly uses computers on Internet. The transaction may also be done through a mobile device, smartphone, iPad, Kindle, Android Tablet then it is mobile commerce. Mobile commerce is a subset of E-Commerce.

Several simple example of E-Commerce includes:
An individual purchases a book on Internet
An individual withdraws funds from ATM
A retailer orders merchandise using an EDI network or suppliers extranet
An individual or business calls a toll free number and orders the requirements using the seller’s interactive telephone system.
A manager orders office supplies for his office using Internet on a commercial website set-up for the seller.
An individual reserves a travel ticket or a room in a hotel using the Internet by surfing the related website using a few clicks of mouse.

A Complex examples could be:
A student visits the website of a bookstore on Internet and makes inquiries about the availability of an out of stock book. The bookstore employee receives the the enquiry and sources a digital copy of the book and responds to the enquiry with the  option and costs. The student agrees and uses a payment processor to pay for download and the book store employee gives the student a key to download the digital book. The bookstore employee harvests the students contact details and areas of interest and adds to a database which will email customers when books of possible interest arrive in the store or are put on sale.

E-Commerce transactions are great for small business as well as large because payment is made before goods are made available for digital download. The only things you should be aware of is:

a) Ensuring that your payment processor links are set-up properly

b) Ensuring that your server for the sales page and downloads is not going to crash because of  bandwidth or data transfer issues with your hosting company, or limitations in your own server set-up.

c) Ensuring that money back guarantee’s are honoured in a timely and friendly manner.

Remember, when you enter the world of digital downloads and E-Commerce that you expose yourself to the wiles of hackers and internet criminals. Ensure you have updated, anti-virus and malware plus I recommend the Avast Internet Security Suite, they have a free program if you want to check it out here http://www.avast.com/index, but any of the numerous anti-virus programs out there will provide you with protection, if you keep it up to date.  This precaution will help protect your financial information from others, who have no right to it. You can play your part as well by changing your passwords to critical accounts and sites.

To facilitate E-Commerce requires you to possess  an attitude that is open to change, innovation etc. Security of information is good if you take the precautions mentioned above and the quality of the product can usually be ascertained by going to forums that discuss the product or products of that type.

 

Rocket Piano Review

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Rocket Piano is both a piano lesson software and an online product. Previously, it was only available in software form but at a great savings you can now download everything they have to offer from their website.

Rock Star Recipes is the team that brings you this product, but Ruth Searle is the team leader providing video instructions and weekly newsletters. Although a classically trained pianist, she has extensive experience in multiple genres that include Jazz, Pop, Rock, and Gospel. Her composition expertise is manifest through her creative work on the Rocket Piano program. Ruth states on her website that ‘you can discover an amazing, new piano learning method that will teach you how to play virtually any piano song you hear, with the timing, rhythm and magic of a professional’.

Rocket Piano’s easy to use program is quite versatile, and includes a number of great supplementary features, helping them standout from alternative choices, and making it a very credible budget option.

Lesson Coverage:
Not sure if Rocket Piano is for you? Try six free beginner lessons available when you sign up on their website. These are surprisingly comprehensive in nature and cover posture, hand position, notation, and more.

Once you purchase the product you download eBooks, Audio files, Video lessons, and bonus software from the website. Download them all at once or download as you learn each lesson. There are seven eBooks covering beginning through advanced, fingering, Jazz, Gospel, and advanced techniques for the piano. Easy to follow instructions and tips are given with each lesson plus the sheet music. You can read these from a computer screen or even better, print them off and take to your keyboard.

Features:
Rocket Piano is always on the go, sending out free weekly newsletters covering various musical topics. A recent newsletter discussed how to play with a band or another musician, a tricky rhythm feat at best. Currently, Ruth Searle is developing two new eBooks that will cover playing-by-ear and an updated theory book that complements the concepts already discussed in the lessons. Audio tracks and Video lessons are a key component to the quality lessons produced by Rocket Piano.

Practice Tools:
It is hard to beat the amazing price of the digital Rocket Piano, so it is surprising to find that you get games and a metronome as bonuses with your purchase. Jayde Musica Pro is a notation game and Chordinator is a speed test game concentrating on chords. Each eBook has a progress tracking page where you can note the skill you’ve learned plus the date it was accomplished.

Ease of Use:
Rocket Piano is an easy product to use. The downloads are quick and easy to implement partially due to the fact you’re not trying to download everything at once, just the lessons, media, and bonus features as you need them. Video lessons are available by streaming, or you can download them to your computer to view in a larger window. The quality of the audio tracks and video lessons are clear and concise, making viewing easy on the eyes. If you prefer hard copies – printed books, CDs, and DVDs – you may purchase these as well, but the price jumps significantly for this option.

Help/Support:
A FAQs section should answer most questions pertaining to product use, downloading, and web access but if it doesn’t, the answer is just an email away. And response time is quick, a plus when you have an irritating problem while trying to use a product.

If you want to give this product a try take a look here:

http://403b8mxb240xwwcg47qawt6x34.hop.clickbank.net/