Our site has received the Cybertech 2001 Award. This means that a number of people (probably quite a few of our readers) nominated our site as one that presents valuable information. To those of you who submitted our site, thank you.

Win $10,000! Why don't you tell your friends about our site? Each referral gets you another entry in a contest for $10,000. Just click this link and fill in your friends' email IDs. They will get an email stating that you recommended the site. When they click the link in the email, you will get even more entries into the contest.

Free Epson printer compatible cartridges! Our regular price is $15 for a set of black and color cartridges for most Epson printers. Compare this to Epson's price of over $20 a cartridge and your are saving about 60%. But the deal has gotten even better. If you have any of the following models (and ONLY the following models): 440, 480, 640, 660, 670, 750 or 1200, take advantage of this deal while it lasts. Order one color and one black ink cartridge for $15, get an extra black cartridge for free! Folks have complained that they use up the black ink faster than the color. Here's your chance to make your black ink last longer absolutely free. These cartridges are indistinguishable from the original. They look the same and work the same. Here is your chance to save more than 75% ink cartridges

Digital camera bargains This month's digital camera values: the Toshiba PDR-M81, a 4+ megapixel zoom with high quality Canon lens for $610. The Toshiba PDR-M65 (3+ megapixel zoom for $450, the Fuji Finepix 2600 (2.1 megapixel zoom for $300, shipping included) Toshiba PDR-M21 (2.1 megapixel zoom with extra 16mb card for $275, shipping included) and Agfa CL20 (1.3 megapixel camera and webcam at $145). We also have the new Kodak DX cameras at competitive prices. We have a number of liquidators and surplus merchants that we contact for closeouts. It is difficult to update the web site because these items come and go. digital cameras

Rechargeable batteries: 1500ma AA batteries and charger for $16. Battery for the Fuji MX series (NP-80), Toshiba PDR series (BT1 and BT2) and Kodak DC4800 (Klic3000) in stock at $30 for our label or $33 for the Kodak label (we pay a few dollars more for the name brand labels, though they are all the same battery.) Digital camera accessories

Charge your battery in your car. We now have chargers that let you charge your digital camera, cellphone, laptop or camcorder battery in your car. Charge any Nicad, Nimh or Li-ion battery including those designed specifically for the Kodak DC4800, Toshiba PDR-M4/M5/M70 and Fuji MX series cameras. $50 including adaptor. Kodak charger for Kodak, Toshiba, Fuji battery (does not include car adaptor) is $38. With any charger, add a battery (NP-80, BT-2, Klic3000 compatible model) and shipping is free. Universal charger

20 gigabytes for your digital camera

One of the most common complaints I get from digital camera customers is the lack of storage. Cameras typically come with 4 to 16 megabytes of media. A high resolution photograph can take over a megabyte. So you splurge and buy a larger card, as much as 128 megabytes. Now you can take about 85 photos. Then you go off on a three week vacation to Europe. You know you will be taking hundreds of pictures and you won't be bringing a computer. So what do you do? Do you buy another ten media cards at $80 each, spending $800 for something you may only use once?

Companies are now moving in to fill this need. There are portable devices that will give you the ability to transport anywhere from 3 to 20 gigabytes. The Cadillac of devices is the Terrapin Mine. Where other devices require that you remove the card from the camera and plug it into the device, the Mine allows the camera to be plugged directly into its USB port. You can keep downloading photos from the camera or files from your PC without interruption until the entire device is filled. The Mine also doubles as an MP3 player, so you can carry your entire music collection with you. The Mine attaches to many difference devices, including networks. At $600 list ($525 our price), it may sound pricey, but when you compare it to the cost of the EIGHTY 128mb cards required to get the same storage ($6400) and then add in the cost of an MP3 player, it puts the cost in perspective.

If you like the idea of the Mine but not the price, take a look at the Digital Wallet by Minds@Work. Not as versatile as the Mine, it requires that you insert the camera's media card in order to download photos and does not play music. But for a photographer looking for storage or someone who wants to transport large amounts of data between PCs, the Digital Wallet fills the need. It comes in sizes from 3 to 10 gigabytes. We have a limited number of 3 gigabyte units for $275. multi-gigabyte storage

microscopic micro-computers

ZDNet Story

In case the story gets taken down, here is an excerpt.

Single-molecule transistor--smallest ever? by John G. Spooner, ZDNet News, October 18, 2001 10:09 AM PT

Bell Labs has created a tiny new transistor and discovered a way to whip it up in a laboratory beaker.

On Thursday, the research arm of Lucent Technologies unveiled a new organic transistor--made from carbon, rather than silicon--created by the chemical self-assembly of molecules. The transistor has a channel length of just a single molecule. The prototype shows the potential, the researchers said, to allow for the creation of computer chips that are faster, more compact and easier to manufacture. More research on the topic lies ahead, but experts agree that so-called nanotechnology will replace current, silicon-based processes sometime in the next decade, as the dimensions at which chips are built shrink and as silicon loses its ability to shrink with them. Despite silicon's limitations, though, manufacturing breakthroughs and new materials could always extend its life span.

A wide range of companies are investing for the post-silicon future. IBM, for example, believes that the best bet for building non-silicon chips is the carbon nanotube, a tiny cylinder made of carbon. The computing stalwart's labs have already begun working with simple circuits based on those nanotubes.

Bell Labs has a long history in transistor research, including the invention of the device itself. Three of its scientists--William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain--invented the transistor in 1947, an accomplishment that earned them the Nobel Prize for Physics nine years later. Present Bell Labs researchers suggest that the organic transistor is a proof of principle, showing that transistors can be built on a molecular scale and also be used in future chips. The lab has already assembled a prototype voltage inverter, an electronic circuit commonly used in chips to convert zeros to ones and vice versa--that is, to speak the basic language of computers.

Smaller means faster

The Bell Labs organic transistor features a channel length--the distance between electrodes--of one molecule, or about 1 to 2 nanometers, which is 100 times smaller than today's limit of 130 nanometers, according to the lab's researchers. By comparison, the Pentium 4 chip is built using a 180-nanometer (0.18-micron) process. Channel length determines the speed at which transistors can switch on and off. Additionally, because of their smaller size, many more transistors could be packed into a single chip. Constructing chips using this self-assembly process is also radically different than what the silicon world is used to now.

The new transistors literally assemble themselves when a solution of organic semiconductor is poured on a base. The semiconductor molecules find and attach to the electrodes on their own, the researchers explained. Today's circuits are drawn on a silicon substrate, which is then etched away to form structures such as channels.

Rebates Revisited

In our last issue, I mentioned why companies love rebates. It lets them give their customers the impression that the item is discounted, while not actually giving a discount. They know that many customers will simply forget to send it in. But some go even further. They don't send out the rebate unless the customer remembers to call. Since most people forget to call, thousands of dollars are saved this way. Some companies take this approach even further, arguing with customers and making excuses for why their rebate is invalid. I recently purchase a Jamcam 3 digital camera from KB Gear Interactive. The camera was $65, which is no bargain for a very stripped down 640 X 480 camera. But the $30 rebate made it look like a very nice gift for my daughter. In order to claim the rebate, I had to send in the UPC code from the package. Several weeks later, I received a postcard telling me that the UPC code I had sent in was not valid for the rebate. There was no phone number on the card. Fortunately, I am one of those people who saves such things. I pulled out my copies of the UPC code, the sales receipt and the rebate form, which did carry the phone number. I called it and got a recorded message, "if it has been less than 8 weeks since your purchase, press 1." It was less than 8 weeks, so I pressed one to hear, "You must wait 8 weeks before calling. Good bye." I called again (good thing it was a toll-free number) and this time I pressed 2. It asked me to enter my phone number, area code, zip code and other information, using the touch tone dialpad. Since I didn't want to waste time, I pressed the zero key and pound sign several times. A recording said, "we can't understand you entry. Please hold for an operator." After asking me a number of questions, the operator was quick to assure me that the postcard had gone out in error and that I would be getting my rebate.

Shortly afterward, one of my friends told me that he had received the same card. He also got the runaround and the operator insisted that he had send in the wrong UPC. When he remained persistent, he was finally told that he would also receive his rebate. So KB Gear has now been added to our Rebate Hall of Shame.

Organize your CD collection and recover wasted space

Do you buy your CDs in bulk on spindles without cases? Have you suffered from the common problem of having your fragile CD cases break? Does your CD collection take up all your available desk and shelf space? Here is the solution!

These disc savers are not made of the cheap, rigid plastic that shatters so easily, but of a flexible material. They do not have weak, breakable hinges but are of a solid, durable construction. Cleverly designed, they are only a little thicker than the CD itself, so they takes up far less shelf space. In several bright but semi-transparent colors, you can color-code your CD collection but still see the disc inside. 50 packs come with a free storage case. Only 25 cents each. disc savers

Paypal: Not What It Used to Be

Auctionbytes September article

Turbo charging your system. Settings explained.

www.rojakpot.com Excellent and detailed discussions of various settings you can use to turbo charge your PC.

Make A Fortune On the Internet

This is a series of articles that I am writing for AuctionBytes. You can find them, along with many other informative topics, at www.auctionbytes.com. The most recent article can be found here Part 3, with links to the first two. I recommend that you sign up to the free Auctionbytes newsletter for more great articles.

Search Engine Smarts by Irving Weiss

Part VII - Search Engine Robots

Googlebot and some other search engine robots find your site, swallows, indexes, parses, calculates keywords and gives it some weird title and description to human searchers. What is going on?

The robot is programmed with many algorithms that try to calculate the most important keywords, title and most fitting description for the page. It is safe to say that all the most common robots take the title straight from the title tags. The title of the page is displayed in the blue bar on top of the browser page. The title should be containing your most important keyword phrase.

The description is a much more complex story with the robots all trying unique methods to figure out the best way to describe your site. The following checklist will help you make sure they describe your site correctly.

First, jot down a well worded description of about 25 words. The 25 words should contain your most important keyword phrase at least once. Try to place this description in the following places:
1) The meta description tag.
2) The alt tag of the first picture on the page.
3) The first words on the page.
4) The first heading tag on the page.
5) The first sentence structure on the page.

Some search engines read the entire copy of the page and seek out keyword density. They then parse out the sentences that have the highest density keywords and use that for the description. Make certain that your most important keywords have the highest keyword density and that they are used in valid sentence structures throughout the page.

Good luck and you can always get a second chance if you don’t get it right the first time.

Need help with the Search Engines? Optimization or advice. Feel free to contact me.
Irving Weiss searchenginesmarts@hotmail.com 718-337-6907

Just For Laughs

We have put together a collection of tributes and humor (most of it very visual) on our web site. Please send us your favorites so we can update our collection. World Trade Center Tributes and Humor

Useful sites and freeware

Mailwasher has got to be the best anti-spam tool I have found. Before I got my own domain name, folks emailed me to my ID at my ISP. Once I started using my ccs@ygoodman.com ID, the only thing coming in to my previous ID was a few of the newsletters to which I had subscribed and a whole ton of spam, about 50 emails a day of it. I have been using mailwasher for only a few weeks and have watched that spam disappear. It's easy. You enter your email accounts. The program retrieves the headers of all your email messages. You can then mark messages for retrieval, deletion and/or bouncing. If marked for bounce, the sender gets a message that your email ID is invalid. This should take you off many spam lists. In addition, the sender's email ID is now blacklisted from sending you email again, so future emails will be deleted immediately. Those 50 spams a day have been reduced to under 15 in just two weeks.

Tiny Apps Site - contains a collection of applications that are 1.44 megs or less. Some of these apps are amazing, considering how small they are. Despite this age of bloatware, some programmers still remember how to code efficiently.

Winpulse shows you lots of useful information about your system's current configuration, including how much memory, swap space, cpu power and disk space is being used. Download Winpulse.

Ever send someone email and not get an answer for days or weeks? You sit there wondering if the emails are getting "lost in the ozone" or if the person is deliberately ignoring you. Here's a nifty way to know. Go to itraceyou.com and register for a free account. Now you can send mail one of two ways. You can send it directly from the itraceyou site or you can send it from your regular email but change the TO field just slightly. Itraceyou will send you a confirmation email when your email has been delivered to the recipient's mailbox and then a second email when it has been read. The recipient isn't notified of the trace. Next time you get that "Sorry for not responding but I've been away for a few weeks" reply, you'll have some idea if it's true. A free account at Itraceyou is limited to 15 secretly traced messages a day. After that, Itraceyou places a banner on the email saying something to the effect of "This email was traced using Itraceyou.com."
Another service that does a similar job is Confirm.to. No need to register for an account. Just add .confirm.to to the end of the email ID it is being sent to, as in: izzy@ygoodman.com.confirm.to. This will send the email and send you a confirmation when it has been read. Confirm.to limits you to 30 messages a month.

Do your drive letters come up differently depending on which computer you use or which removable drives you plug in? I use a removable drive and while I love it, there is one annoying feature and that is that if I plug it in, it becomes my D: drive and my D: becomes E:. This interferes with all the other programs I have set up. Outlook prompts me for a new PST file and applications can no longer find the files I last worked on. I just recently learned of a free program that will let you assign just about any device to any letter. letter assigner.

Here's one you can do yourself. Create a file in notepad with the following two lines:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=javascript:alert(document.lastModified)

Save the file as: last_modified.url in the favorites directory of your machine (usually c:\windows\favorites but it might be c:\winnt40\profiles\favorites). Now whenever you are on a web site, you can go to your favorits and click this URL to see the date that site was last changed.

Here's a useful one for folks who are very exacting or find their PC clock inacrruate. It's a utility that can sync your PC's clock with the atomic time. You can run it manually or set it to run automatically in your start up. Atomic Time.

Co_citer - this free utility lets you grab info from a web page into a mini database. It also stores relevant information like the URL, date grabbed, etc.

CDR identifier - this free utility will read a CD and tell you the manufacturer and some other information.

the Langa Letter tips and tricks on using your PC, emailed to you absolutely free. I have included some of his tips in my previous letters.

I hope this letter contained useful information. Please email ccs@ygoodman.com with any comments.