If you are web site owner and would like to publish  video , high quality photos and  audio files,  without affecting  the performance of your web site, you will  either have to   spend  thousands on dedicated media servers  or …. Use the much cheaper and efficient Amazon S3 Web Services which provide the subscriber access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites.

Subscribing to Amazon S3 is a very simple procedure (Check out our 3 steps guide HERE), however transferring and managing your multi-media content  can be a challenge as Amazon does not provide a client application  to access and manage your content.

The solution is to either develop your own client or use third-party client software.

One of the most popular clients available today is the Cloudberry Explorer S3 Freeware which we have extensively tested and evaluated recently.

Here you are what we found out:

How easy it was  to Install and Configure?

The installation package is just 4MB - juts download, run, configure and  within 5 minutes you are ready to go. Click HERE to see how we did it in our detailed installation and configuration guide.

How easy it is to get started?

Using the Cloudberry explorer is extremely easy and intuitive – just drag and drop you files from your file system to the Amazon S3 buckets.  Or if you prefer from one Amazon S3 account to another – it is up to you how to configure the source and destination of the explorer tabs.  All can be done from a single drop down menu – configure your S3 account, select the source or the destination.   By adding additional tabs you  can have as many combinations of source and destinations as you need.   Working with files, folders, buckets is extremely easy, just right-click and you can quickly adjust properties, security permissions, distribution settings, create a download link .

What you can do with it?

Quite a lot actually:

• simply transfer content from your local file system to Amazon S3 buckets or from one Amazon S3 bucket to another.   And you do not have to wait for the files to be uploaded as they are added to a queue and processed unobtrusively in the background.  You can easily examine the queue and  pause/resume content transfers.
• You can register multiple Amazon S3 accounts and easily switch between them using the drop down menu.
• You can quickly and easily switch any bucket from EU to U.S. and vice versa.
• Easily define custom  permissions for every bucket, folder or content object
• You can easily generate web URL for a sinle or multiple Amazon S3 objects. You can even specify CNAMEs to customize the url to match your web site domain.
• You can automate the Cloudberry Explorer transfers using Microsofot PowerShell Command line interface. Most of the features available thru the user interface are also available though a PowerShell command line interface. You can combine CloudBerry Explorer commands with PowerShell commands. You can write complex scripts with loops and conditions and schedule routing tasks such as data backup or cleanup.
• Working behind a firewall is not an issue as you can configure the proxy from the Options panel.
• When not used, the Cloudberry Explorer minimizes itself to the task bar, to reduce the clutter on your desktop.

What if I have a problem?

Support for the Cloudberry explorer is excellent. Just visit their well designed and informative web site. Most of the answers can be found on their very active forum and problems are resolved quickly. Ask a question, report an issue and you will get a response within the same day!
A new free version with many new features is delivered  almost every month.

What we liked about it

Amazing application which is provided for amazingly low price - FREE .
One of the best and well designed user interfaces, which is a pleasure to work with and gets the job done quickly and efficiently.
Solid and robust tool to explore the full potential of Amazon S3.

What can be improved

Currently the program does not run on Mac computers.  So, if you want to use it on a Mac you would need Windows emulator like WINE, which works quite well actually.

Do you use a different client for Amazon S3 ? Would you like to recomend it? Click HERE to Join the discussion on our forum or post a comment. Thank You!

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Do you dream of breathtaking presentations?
Dynamic and interactive meetings?
PAPERSHOW will revolutionize your meetings !
PAPERSHOW is a new way of attracting and convincing at a meeting.

In other words, it’s intended to be a remote white board. You simply write on the special pad of paper with a special pen and everything that you write or draw appears on your computer screen or, if your computer is hooked into a larger projector or television, on the screen.

The Reality –

After using it for a bit I must say the hype is pretty darn accurate!

To see for yourself, just Click Here and  watch the videos  at SmartPen.tv channel

What’s in the box –

• Battery operated Bluetooth pen.
• USB Bluetooth dongle.
• Pad a special paper
• Sample of special printer paper
• Pen refills
• Various colored accents for the pen and the dongle (seriously? color coordinating the dongle and the pen???)

Set up –

Setting up the device was relatively easy. I put the battery in the pen, plugged the Bluetooth dongle into my computer (XP only — more on that later), uncapped the pen and waited for the pen and the dongle to pair with one another. You must(!) do the setup in this order in order for it to work.

After that it was as simple as drawing on the paper. The first time I did start the program, in fact, I was blown away. It not only works when it works exceptionally well and there’s relatively no lag time between what you do on the paper and what appears on the screen.

How it works –

Once you set up the device to the system works quite well.

You simply write on the pad in the way that you would with any normal pad of paper and everything that you write or draw a magically appears on your computer screen or the device to which the computer is attached. In addition, you can erase something from the screen (obviously it isn’t erased from the pad but you can tell that you’ve scribbled it out) and you can change the color of the pen and the fonts as well. In fact, you can change the color, shape, and thickness of the line that you draw.
As is the case with other digital pens (I’m currently working on a review of my new Livescribe pen as well) the pad of paper has microscopic dots that are not easily seen by, upon close examination, are clearly there. They allow the optical sensor in the pen to track all of the movements you make with the pen and translate them into digital information that appears on your computer screen.
You can import an existing PowerPoint slideshow and simply put it up on the screen. In this way you can have a presentation and have the added benefit of adding real-time notes.

What We liked –

It allows you to write on a piece of paper and have the images appear on your screen for all to see. In doing so, it allows presentations to become far more interactive than they might otherwise be.
Relatively easy setup and use. Overall the application and the device are highly intuitive.

What needs improvement –

• The pen is relatively thick end, aesthetically, not at all pleasing.
• Windows only!
• Has only one specific use.

Conclusion -

There is a lot to like about Papershow. It is a product intended for individuals who make numerous presentations so it will have a limited audience but for that audience it is a great solution.It needs a Mac solution to truly be a universal solution but if you are currently using Windows (or have access to a Windows device) it is excellent!

Do You use PaperShow yourself? Do you have any question or can you give us some tips?

Click Here to Join the discussion on our  dedicated forum

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PhotoBox’s ProGalleries service offers a free and easy means of showcasing and selling your digital photos.

What we liked: The simple selling system lets you simply upload a picture, give it a title, choose the print sizes and set a price. When somebody purchases a copy of your photo, you receive the difference between the printing cost and the price you set, minus VAT and a 10 per cent commission for PhotoBox. For example, if you sell a 10 x 8in print for £2.19, you’ll make a profit of 78p.

As well as ordering prints and posters of your images, people can create customised mugs, coasters, mouse-mats and other gifts. Your gallery is given a unique URL (as well as unlimited storage), so you can promote it as an online store. You can limit the availability to friends and family or let anyone browse and buy images. You can also give your shots a watermark to prevent them from being copied. The site also features a regularly updated blog and a section providing photography tips.

How it can be improved:
PhotoBox ProGalleries caters for printed products rather than digital ones, so you can’t sell photos for use on websites or in magazines. It’s also worth noting that you can only get paid once you’ve earned £50 – an amount that might take you some time to reach.

Our verdict:
PhotoBox ProGalleries offers a refreshingly straightforward means of making a profit from your pictures. Customers can turn your snaps into all manner of gifts and the print quality is excellent.

You would be surprised how many people would wish to buy your photo's and besides, it's free so give it a try!

Visit http://www.photoboxgallery.com

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Adwords are currently beeing used by millions for advertising. As a result it has become overcrowded  with affiliate advertisers and high  marketing budget money spending companies. Ads have become more and more eexpensive as top spending companies are bidding $10, $20 or $30 for each click! As a result  any other ads can end up on page 10, 20 or even firther down.

The solution is to look for alternatives and we have listed 9 to choose from in our knowledgebase. (Click  here to view) .

Adbrite is one of them. With 344 million impression per day and sites in the network such as ebay, digg, vh1 etc., you will have not problem get flood of traffic to your site.

AdBrite supports the following ad formats:

• Text ads - Cost per click (CPC).  Cost per action (CPA) available for qualifying advertisers
• Banner ads - Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)
• Active interstitials - Your site, full-screen, directly in front of your target audience.  Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)

You can target customers with precision using their real-time traffic estimator.  Instantly see how much traffic we have, based on your targeting criteria, and place your bid.

• Content categories
• Keywords
• Demographics
• Geography

You can create multiple variations of each text or banner ad.  AdBrite will give you stats about each variation, and help show your better-performing ads more often. At the same time, you can see every site where your ad appeared, and the exact cost associated with each click or impression.
We've recently have tried Adbrite advertiser network, and have been really amazed with Adbrite’s result.

Here is our comparison of Adwords and Adbrite for advertisers

We ran the same exact ad on both Adbrite and Adsense and got 45% better results for almost 65% cheaper with Adbrite for past 2 weeks. One of our products revenue just jumped 56%!!! If you cannot spend $20 or $50 each day on Adwords (which may not even get you any result), we highly recommend Adbrite.

Check them out here yourself.

We would appreciate if  you come back to rate and comment about your Adbrite experience.

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HostGator is one of the world's top 10 largest web hosting companies with more than 2,200,000 hosted domains.
They are the perfect choice whether you are looking for business, personal, or even Fortune 500 hosting.
Every web hosting plan comes with a 45 day money back guarantee, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and is fully guaranteed by the owner himself.

What makes hostgator stand out from the crowd is their excellent support and customer friendliness. If you are not satisfied with the support, you could even get hostgator president Brent Oxley to personally take a look at your problem.

Recently hostgator went green, probably making them the first main stream host to do so. They purchase renewable energy credits up to 130% of their total power consumption.

Hostgator offers linux hosting only(even though they are expected to start windows hosting in the near future). All their packages come with all the features needed for a serious website. Baby and Business packages allow unlimited domains(add on), which makes a lot of sense if you have multiple websites. They use cPanel, which is the best control panel around. You get Fantastico script installer which will install most of the popular open source scripts with few clicks. They support PHP4 & 5, SSH, Cron jobs, Python, Ruby On Rails etc. Also, all the packages include enough POP3 accounts(20 for Hatchling and unlimited for others).

Currently they offer the best value for money plans for hosting  unlimited websites.  To start using their services, go to HostGator web site.

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