Yan Huang @ Renderhosting

The “$100 Laptop Project” is planning to release this November 12th. It is going to be sold for $399 per two laptops. The buyer gets to keep one laptop and the other laptop is then donated to somebody in a developing nation. This seems like a high cost compared to its original estimate of $100. However, the makers are still aiming that the costs will lower to meet $100. On the right is a breakdown of the costs for manufacturing the laptop.

Many online source point that Linux is the way to go, especially when it comes to Academia. Blogger Adam Zwakk points out a list of 9 reasons why schools should use Linux as opposed to Windows here.

Linux is definitely a more cost effective alternative to Windows–same with shared web hosting. Linux shared web hosting is pretty much guaranteed to be more cost effective than it’s Windows equivalent.

This digital artwork was created using Photoshop. It depicts a man enjoying his coffee in a very unusual way.

read more | digg story

Anti-Google sentiment is stirring in many webmaster and publisher forums. I will try my best to keep this blog thread from being another conspiracy theory. Digital Point, a huge webmasters forum, has countless threads complaining about Google’s new search engine policies and Google Adsense policies. For those who do not know, Google Adsense is a PPC advertisement service that pays publishers/webmasters an un-predetermined amount per click from the user.

Revised Google Search Scheme
Google have been cooking up some new stuff in their pot of search algorithms. In the past, building back links and link exchanges was a great way to help improve Search Engine results. Having links on directories was also a good way of improving Search Engine results. Seems like that is thrown out the window by Google, as many Internet entrepreneurs learn the hard way. This has given many directory owners a 360 degrees turn, turning their page 1 Search results into out of existence on Google.

Two recent Google related threads I saw
Back links issue in Google
My site has vanished from google completely after 2 years.

DP User’s New Directory PigeonRank
Google released a joke about their new “PigeonRank” system. Here is a response by one of a directory owner on Digital Point. This guy’s new PigeonRank for his directory–check it.

Google Adsense…BAN!
It is true that many people get banned from Google Adsense for violating the TOS. However, there were also many alledged cases of users that got banned for “invalid clicks” and this could be as broad as a user with nothing better to do than to click on the advertisements multiple times. Google Adsense used to be the sanction for webmasters to go to to generate revenue, but now it seems to be a war zone. If you survive, you get rewarded with the money you earn. But if you are unlucky, your account will be terminated and the chances of an appeal is slim. Many webmasters and Internet entrepreneurs are looking at alternative PPC services such as AdBrite, Bidvertiser, ValueClick, and many lenient ones.

Flip Side of Things
It is true that Google changed their algorithms so the search results would be more naturally and less inflated with paid directories. And yes, it is true that Google is tough on Adsense to protect the interest of Adwords users. But all of this is really screwing with the webmasters and publishers–is it really right for Google to make these rapid chances without informing the web community first? Or would this be a security flaw in their algorithms?

There is quite a number of entrepreneurs out there whose business takes advantage of Internet. Out of those entrepreneurs, a number of them run Internet businesses that are solely web based. For these web entrepreneurs, PageRank and unique visitors are two very important aspects to look at when it comes down to the net worth of their website. If the website is solely driven by advertisements and referral based ads, then the amount of traffic reflects heavily upon the amount of revenue generated.

Many webmasters out there value their Google PageRank because it does take a long time to build. Have you questioned what is the significance of this number? This number reflects upon the amount of traffic your website gets. However, it is not always accurate because this measures only traffic from mainly back links. If a person owns, for example, a web based proxy whose marketing is via mouth-to-mouth, then the PageRank of this proxy could be zero at the same time, getting 5,000 unique visitors daily.

Yan Huang’s question to you is… Do you care more about PageRank or unique visitors? If you say unique visitors, then why would you put so much, if any, emphasis on Google PageRank? Website with PR6 sell for thousands of dollars because it is assumed they receive unique visitors in the thousands per day. But if a PR6 website only gets a couple hundred unique visitors per day, how much is it really worth?

Google PageRank helps determine the potential amount of visitors the website receives, but why not just cut this intermediary off and go with unique visitors directly for determining a website’s worth?

I hope this article puts in some perspective next time you put too much emphasis on trying to boost your Google PageRank. Not to mention…Google is getting rid of it soon!