Summary: Temporary Internet Files explained. There is also information how to delete temporary internet files and corresponding index.dat files.

What are Temporary Internet Files?

Temporary Internet Files are, in fact, the cache of the Internet Explorer. This means that when you load a web page with Internet Explorer, it is saved on your computer so that if you later decide to open the same page again, it will open a lot faster. Temporary Internet Files improve speed of web browsing and also make possible so called offline browsing, which gives you the ability to open the web pages from cache even when you are not connected to the Internet.

Despite all these positive things about Temporary Internet Files, they have one big drawback: they compromise your privacy. Everyone with access to your computer can look into your Temporary Internet Files folder (location of this folder is discussed here) and see the sites that you have visited in the past. You can manually delete the contents of Temporary Internet Files folder (explained here) but this will not erase all traces of the pages because a special file called Index.dat is placed in this folder and it will still preserve the names and even the dates of your first visits to many pages.

Where is located Temporary Internet Files folder?

The location of the Temporary Internet Files folder depends on the version of Windows and whether or not you are using user profiles.

Note that on your computer the Windows directory may not be C:\Windows but some other directory. If you don’t have Profiles directory in you Windows directory don’t worry - this just means that you are not using user profiles.

How to delete Temporary Internet Files?

…Start Internet Explorer and click Tools menu, then select Internet Options… from this menu. This will open the Internet Options window.

…Click General tab and then find in the section Temporary Internet Files the button Delete Files… and click it. A new dialog box opens.

…In the Delete Files dialog box, click to select the Delete all offline content check box if you want to delete all Web page content that you have made available offline.

…Click OK to delete the files. Note that if you are doing this for the first time, the deleting can take a large amount of time, so be patient.

WARNING! This will most probably delete all visible items in the Temporary Internet Files folder (except cookies) but a number of invisible traces may remain in the index.dat files. The only way to be sure that you are getting rid of all traces for good is the usage of specialized privacy protection program like Mil Shield - a powerful privacy protection program that was designed specifically to clean and shred the Temporary Internet Files. Additional benefit is the ability to preserve the tracks from some chosen by you sites (selective cleaning), which makes your browsing more comfortable and safe (it is rather suspicious to always have empty history, cookies and Temporary Internet Files - it is better to leave some tracks from “innocent” sites). Mil Shield also cleans all other tracks as index.dat files, cookies, history, cache, AutoComplete records, UserData records, history of recently used folders and documents and many more.

There are a lot of things to analyze on your site before you start optimizing your site. Such things are your site overview, nature of business, home page, site dimension and number of pages, product/services categories, page rank and indexed pages for major search engines, link popularity, and a lot more.

…Analyze your site and think of a generic word that best fits for your web site. Choosing the right keywords is a strategy for better search engine positioning. Analyze your business carefully and think of all the words that relate to your company or product. Most techniques to improve your search engine rankings have one thing in common — Keywords.

…That word will act as your major keyword for your site. Then find a keyword tool that will help you generate keywords for your site…. Type in the major keyword that you had thought of and it’ll list all related keywords that you can use. On the tool you’ll see the number of counts your keyword has been searched. Person new on search engine optimization might use the keyword with a lot of counts (I, sure did that before) immediately but SEO experts says that Do NOT use it for a start as keyword searched as many times will just give you a lot of competition and give your site less probability in regards to your visitors.

…Examine those sites ranked from 1-10 on the keywords you chose to use in optimizing your site. Check everything about the site that is ranked highly on the search engine. Its URL, see if it is the top level webpage or it is the index page of the site as if it is not you can have a great chance to improve your index page for the target keyword and have a better placement in the SERP’s…. Page rank is Goggle’s way of giving specific value to how popular your website is…. Then check their page source, see if they’re actually optimizing their site for some on page optimization factors. Factors such as title tag, check if they use the keyword on their title tag which is one of the main reasons why a site is rank well on search engine. Header tags are used to separate topics and range from h1 being very large and bold and h6 which is very small and bold, it should contain your most important keyword or keyword phrases to assist you in ranking higher on Search Engines. Image alt tags are words that will be displayed in place of your image through an older browser or when your visitors have their image turned off, insert a readable keyword phrase within the alt tags of your image and it’ll help you on your rankings. And on the main content if they use the keyword on the beginning and at the end of the page, also whether or not they’ve bolded, underlined, or italicized the keywords on that page. By continuing this process on other keywords that you’ve chose you would have an improved ranking on SERPs.

We recommend www.americas-web.com.

Imagine if, for whatever reason, you were without your laptop. You need to do some work on it, or maybe some planning - you know why you need it.

But you cannot. It is incredibly frustrating. Many people have been in this situation.

Your laptop might be lost, stolen, damaged or just plain not working. How soon would it be before you are back with a functioning laptop, and how much is it going to cost you to get there?

Laptop Insurance is recognized as the necessary tool to help you through this, but how do you know if you are getting good cover at a price that represents good value to you?

To answer that, first you need to define exactly what is important to you. What are your likely risks?

For example, if you never travel with your laptop - maybe you just use it at home, sometimes in the lounge, sometimes in the study - then you are probably not going to need international cover as part of your laptop insurance. In this instance you are probably not going to need loss cover either (a laptop is not something you are likely to lose down the back of the sofa).

What if you just drop your laptop? You need your laptop insurance to be able to protect you for this. You do NOT want to have to commit insurance fraud (and thereby break the law) by lying in your claims process, you would want to make sure that you are covered for accidental damage.

So outline what elements of cover you think you will need. For example …

* Will you need Extended Warranty in case it just breaks down?
* Will you need loss cover?
* Will you need international cover?
* Will you need water damage cover?
* Will you need accidental damage cover?
* Will you need theft cover?

It may seem obvious to you that you need certain elements of cover, and maybe not others, but just consider the list above. Some people might feel more at risk of theft than water damage, while others might be the other way around.

For example, compare a traveling businessman with a Hydrological Consultant (who might be planning river system controls). The latter would obviously seem more at risk of water damage than theft.

Let’s look at each in turn …

Extended Warranty:
Bizarrely, very few companies offer Extended Warranties as part of Laptop Insurance. If you want to be covered for your laptop simply going wrong or breaking down, you need to be covered for this.

Loss Cover:
It would appear that almost no provider offers loss cover. It is most likely deemed to be too risky to insure.

Water Damage:
This is not a common element of cover in many laptop insurance company’s policies, but it IS a common killer of laptops! How many times has that cup of tea or class of orange juice been dangerously close to spilling over your laptop keyboard?

Accidental Damage Cover:
Again, this is a common need for laptop insurance. You are walking along, maybe in a crown, and your laptop bag gets knocked out of you hand … and smacks down on the concrete. This is a relatively common element of laptop insurance.

Theft Cover:
This is the most obvious risk for your laptop. You laptop is a very portable, high value item. Anything that is worth a lot and can be carried while running away is a prime target for thieves. Consequently, this is the most common element of most laptop insurance policies.

If you do not need to protect yourself for all of these eventualities, you can find slimmed down levels of protection for your laptop with your local insurance broker, or in your search engine.

Want a digital format of the hard copy of any document? OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology can be the right option. Changes are taking place in the field of Data Entry service with the improvement of modern technology. Apparently, you may think OCR service as a substitute of data entry service, however, OCR services come with both advantages and disadvantages.

Optical Character Recognition is a modern technology for digital replication. OCR technology comes with software, hardware and an additional circuit in the computer to execute conversion process. OCR software can not only read the fonts but also recognize line breaks in a document…. The entire process of converting hard copy of a document into electronic document may take only a few seconds.

If you are looking for only converting any document into editable digital format then there is nothing better than OCR services. Optical Character Recognition process saves the time and effort of developing a digital replica of any document…. Just place the hard copy of the document inside a scanner and get the digital format of that document with the help of OCR software.

With OCR process you can convert a document in several electronic formats like – Microsoft Word, Excel, HTML, PDF, Text or Rich Text formats.

Documents, which are converted through OCR process, are editable and allow the user to modify the content. Compared to manual data entry service the cost of OCR service is quite less for developing electronic replica of any document. OCR service proved better than data entry service for the organizations, which are engaged in developing electronic copy of printed books.

There are several disadvantages of OCR service regarding the cost as well as the process of recognizing the characters. Initially, the cost of developing replica through OCR process may seem lucrative but if you consider the cost of entire OCR system life cycle, the cost will be much higher than data entry service. Correcting OCR errors counts more cost than preparing a digital format of the document.

High accuracy OCR software can read more than 400 characters/second, approximately, and generates less number of OCR errors compared to any ordinary OCR software. Therefore, if you are looking for OCR process you have to maintain a separate workstation for correcting OCR errors.

OCR software is not efficient in recognizing the handwriting and the fonts, which are quite similar to handwriting.

…Compared to ordinary OCR process, conversion life cycle cost is less in data entry service and it provides complete flexibility to data entry operators preparing digital documents from multiple formats like hard copy or audio files. Consider the service of medical transcription where you need to prepare digital documents from audio files. OCR cannot prepare digital document by scanning any audio files. In such services, data entry can prove better than OCR.

It has been found that for services like mailing list conversion or data extraction from the Internet, manual data entry services are still widely accepted across the industry. Data entry service comes with several levels – staring from inserting raw data in a document to an error free document. OCR is efficient during the initial level of data entry service but cannot be a substitute of data entry service. However, the selection of a right service (Data Entry or OCR) depends on requirements of the job.

Finding the right keywords to choose for your pay-per-click campaign sounds easy, doesn’t it? My site sells hiking boots I’ll buy the phrase hiking boots or my site focuses on computer repair I’ll buy the term computer repair.

…And because these phrases are so broad you may get visitors to your site but your conversion may not be good. A conversion is a purchase, click, subscription to your newsletter or some positive action by your site visitor.

…And look at Merrell hiking boots, comfortable hiking boots, computer repair in Denver, Colorado, or Spyware removal as your search terms. These terms will be cheaper and much more defined.

If your term is hiking boots and someone goes to your site looking for Nike and you don’t sell it - you’ve just paid for a wasted click. However, if you buy Merrell hiking boots someone coming to your site is specifically looking for that brand.

The same holds true for the computer example. If you offer spyware removal the person who clicks on your PPC campaign link to spyware removal will get exactly what they are looking for.

Google and Yahoo offer suggestions for search terms and wordtracker.com also offers help with selecting search terms. This site, http://www.americas-web.com also help you select key words for your PPC campaign.

You may get fewer clicks in to our site this way but they will be more targeted. And more targeted clicks convert better.

So you have a domain name.

…Well, the obvious is to get it hosted somewhere. But how do you get it “somewhere”? How does one move their domain from one place to another?

Domain transfers are without a doubt one of the most confusing things to a domain name owner, especially if you’ve never done it before and you don’t have a clue as to where to start. Unfortunately it’s a fact and we can’t make it easy for you.

…The first thing you need to do is determine where your domain name is currently hosted. To do this you must do a whois search.

For this example we will use http://betterwhois.com. Type your domain name in the text box provided.

The who is database gives info about the registrant: administrative contact the technical contact and the billing contact, including addresses phone numbers and email addresses. This is available to the public.

We want info about http://notreallyadomain.com for this example.

Domain names in the .com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information.

Updated Date: 07-jan-2004 Creation Date: 08-mar-1997 Expiration Date: 08-mar-2006 The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and Registrars.

Referral URL-The URL of the Registrar -who you need to contact in order to change the domain from one name server to the other: either by physically talking to them or using control panel access.

Secondary Name Server-The nameserver the domain currently resides on Two nameservers are generally used: if the primary nameserver breaks then the secondary can take over the primary nameserver duties until the primary is fixed.

This domain was registered thru an Opensrs registrar/reseller. Scan the whois database you will usually find the Registrar contact info.

Providing we have our userid and password we could login and change our nameserver info, contact info or any number of functions.

Once we have changed our name server info there is generally a propagation periodnas the internet as a whole updates with new dns information. For a new domain name, you can count on anywhere from 12 - 24 hours. For a domain name that is already in existance, and has already been moved, it can take anywhere from 12 - 72 hours.

…There have been instances of propagation taking two weeks or more.

Here are some of the different Domain name registrars now available on the net.

Never use your domain name as part of your email address on your contact email for your whois record. Use a web-based email like Yahoo or Hotmail. If you experience any kind of issue, you’ll be emailed at your contact email, and if it’s your domain name and it’s broken, you’re out of luck.

Use yourself as a technical contact on your whois record. Use a second email address as well. Hosting companies do go out of business, and this could hinder your access should you want to move the domain name.

Keep track of the email addresses you use as contacts, the userids and passwords. Keep track of your domain name - when you ordered it, when it expires. If you let the domain name expire, your website will not be accessible through the domain name. Keep track of any userids/passwords associated with domain name maintenance.

www.americas-web.com contributed to this article.

If you have a computer, then chances are you have either spyware or adware lurking on it somewhere. Estimates suggest that 90% of computers are infected with malicious software (malware) of some type. They take over your computer, infest it with pop-ups and other junk, or even worse, steal your private information. Although there are countless types of spyware and adware, these are the ones generally considered the biggest threats to your computer.

Gator - This adware is designed to track the sites you surf and so get a picture of your online interests. Once it has enough data, it starts to bombard you with everything from banner ads to pop-ups on similar subjects, hoping to grab your interest and attention. Generally your computer gets infected with Gator when you share files through Kazaa or other means, or when you download freeware.

n-Case - Another type of adware, which subjects you to an endless flood of pop-up ads. Downloading freeware from online sites is the way your computer usually gets infected with this malware.

…First it displays a pop-up ad on your computer offering to detect any pornographic content on your computer, with an offer to remove it. If you click on the ad, however, you end up a website which then infiltrates your computer with even more spyware and adware.

Transponder - Similar to Gator, in that it ‘watches’ your online behavior, then bombards you with ads that this malware decides are relevant.

CoolWebSearch - This malware is certainly not cool, but malicious. The first step is that it hijacks your Internet settings and web page, and then redirects you to another web page of its own. As you can imagine, that website is full of more adware and spyware, waiting to get into your computer.

Internet Optimizer - You could almost call this piece of malware a hacker. It takes control of your home page, and also any other web pages you visit. The final step is to pass you on to its own web page, so that it can download other malware onto your computer.

Perfect KeyLogger - This malware is a tool for hackers. It can record your keystrokes, which makes it simple to find out private information such as credit card numbers, passwords and other private details.

…It’s a form of spyware, and it operates by continually displaying pornographic images and pop-up ads on your computer, which is both embarrassing and annoying. It also takes control of your Internet settings and web page.

TIBS Dialer - If you access the Internet via a dial-up connection, this malware will hijack your phone modem and then transfer you to various websites full of pornography.

Keen Value - This malware starts out by tracking your online behavior, analyzing every website you visit. It also collects your personal information if you fill out any forms online, and then bombards with endless advertisements, many of which link through to websites full of dangerous malware.

This is why protection is always important even if you surf the next just once a week.

Shopping carts are more commonly used as a way to display physical products, products like televisions, groceries, electronic equipment, clothes, and memorabilia, etc, not digital products. Shopping carts make it easy to cross-sell and up-sell your customers once they arrive at your store. Shopping carts typically handle the shipping and handling calculation, taxes and credit card processing.

…A good shopping cart program also creates dynamic order forms on the fly as the order takes place. The shopping cart should be totally dynamic; meaning it only executes code and retrieves products, images, and product descriptions from your database when your customers request it. During the checkout process it should also calculate shipping/handling and taxes for you.

Powerful CGI, PHP, CFM, ASP, etc, scripting, processes commands for you on secure servers when your customers place their orders. Don’t get this confused with credit card processing. That’s mean passing of your customers’ order information from a secure form, to your merchant or payment processor, using one of the scripting languages above. Your payment processor or merchant, like PayPal, 2CheckOut, or Authorize.Net will then process the credit card. If you don’t currently have a merchant or payment processor, and you are going to be selling online, then you need one.

You can choose what options you want your customer to see. For instance, you can choose to display a search form on your shopping cart. A search form allows your customers to search your store for items by keyword or product name, etc. You can choose to display options like color, size and quantity, and even adjust the price based on the customer’s selection…. Your shopping cart should also allow you to upload images of your products as well.

You can purchase standalone shopping cart software or services. The stand alone software, of course, requires skill and expertise to install it on your web host or on your own server. Some of the shopping cart services, although it may not seem like it at first, limit you as to what you can and cannot do. These services are most commonly offered by web hosts as a way to entice you to host your site with them. When using these types of services, remember, you’re locked into using that web host when you opt to use their shopping cart service. Your business is not portable and becomes a part of that web host. Make sure there is a simple export process that allows you to easily download your website and shopping cart if you no longer wish to use their services. The best option is to use a shopping cart that runs from your own website, independent of your web host. Both Prowebware and stand-alone shopping cart applications run from your website, giving you both control and flexib!

…2 Your Skill-level - Do you have the expertise to edit & install scripts on your server?

3 Desired Functionality - Want a professional results oriented system or a display case?

4 Time - Have time to take away from your business to shape and mold a new program?

Whatever you decide, your cart should also permit you to follow-up with your customers automatically and even instantly auto-subscribe them to your mailing list.

To implement most out-of-the-box applications, you will need to know how to edit PHP, HTML, or ASP code and how to set up a MySQL database on your server for dynamic operation. Then, with some, all you need to know is how to copy/paste some simple code to your existing web pages or the template you’re using. The system should also include some type of easy help or instructions, like an HTML file or contextual help menus that walk you through setting up your new cart.

You will laugh next time you see an unknown email message in your Inbox. This knowledge will help you understand more what spammers and phishers look like.

The best way to decrease or totally eliminate spam from your Inbox is to use a Gmail account. I tested a lot of accounts, such as yahoo mail, msn hotmail, adpost, Outlook express and mailup.

I noticed that Gmail is very good to filter spam, and even though I receive spam all of it ends automatically in the Spam Folder. I do not use any anti spam software. Although I receive even more than hundred emails a day the spam software is useless if you have a Gmail account. You can get it for free from the google website.

If you are receiving spam from the same people over and over again you can report them. If you use Gmail, you can contact the Google Team. You can also create a filter that will automatically delete all messages sent from a specific email address.

…You receive spam because people see your email address. That does not mean you have to keep it Top Secret. It means you must use your email carefully. If possible don’t write it down in message boards, forums, groups or classified ads.

Treat your email address as if it is the key of an important door. Do not share it with everyone, or give it freely away to other people whom you do not yet know. Spammers find these email addresses online, anywhere. Then they start sending you messages or even sell your email to other spammers.

I have more than one Gmail account and you can too. If you have many contacts or do business you can just use one account for sending emails and another for something else.

…Subscriptions to newsletters, ezines or any other subscription may be dangerous. Do not submit your Name and Email to all the subscription boxes you find online.

Some are so interesting that attract a lot of people, maybe cause they are giving away something for free. There are hundreds and thousands of newsletters, and usually they all give some freebie to attract new subscribers.

Use caution, and only subscribe to newsletters and ezines that you are really interested in, not just to receive the freebie. If you just need the freebie a good idea is to create a new Gmail account and name it myfrebbies. Then use that account just for getting freebies.

If the site is looking badly designed, or even some other things that are repelling you, then don’t subscribe. The badly designed sites do not have good newsletters neither and they might sell your email or send you spam.

Phishing is the most dangerous type of scam. Phishers attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details. These people are simple called Phishers not Spammers.

Phishers send messages trying to make you believe they are huge companies like paypal, ebay, stormpay, HSBC and many others.

You can read the title of your email messages and simple understand they are fake.

Further more these may contain adware or spyware. You should just delete them.

…Those sites are fake, and just by clicking on a single fake link from your email message that can harm your PC with spyware or adware.

Phishers most often do not even say Dear or Hello, or say just Hello Friend. They don’t know your real name most often.

Links inside emails can be verified to see if they are fake or real. If you open a message and you think it is phishing place your mouse button without clicking over the URL. It’s important not to click. Then simple look at the bottom of your browser.

Are the links the same? Probably not, cause they are fake.

…You should treat spam as if they are really harmful because they indeed are. Take care of your email address, cause it is the key to your privacy. The Internet can be very dangerous if you allow it to be. This advice helps makes your online activity safer. Everyone has common sense, and it is important to make use of it when you are on the Internet.

Working on the Internet provides Internet marketers with the opportunity to make a living in the comfort of their own home. Computer Security includes threats such as viruses, identity theft, spyware, adware to name but a few. The latest statistics show that at least over 900 new viruses are created each month which makes keeping track of them really quite difficult. This article would cover three (3) subtopics namely: The Internet, Spyware and Antivirus.

If you use your computer on the internet, you need (at minimum) anti virus software. The problem of computer security is the number one problem in today’s networks and Internet engineering. As hackers use different means to crack the security systems it often happens to be impossible to resist and computer security system fail.

Computer Security on the internet is vital for home and business use as there are increasingly hostile environments when users surf the net. It is very important for users to be educated on the dangers they may face while on the internet. Your computer connected to the internet is similar to your house in many ways. Users search on the internet for free computer security software which they dump into their computers and hope for the best.

…Anyone with an Internet connection can stay in touch with family and friends via email. Computer security is growing rapidly by the minute and the only one who has control over their files of information is the user. It is strongly suggested that users equip their pc with an armed fire wall for vital protection.

An advice is to use Microsoft Windows Update to keep your operating system and Internet Explorer patched…. Even if you have a computer connected to the Internet only to play the latest games or to send email to friends and family, your computer could be a target.

Although confidentiality, integrity and authenticity are the most important things when it comes to computer security in general, for everyday internet users, privacy is the most important one, because many people think that they have nothing to hide or the information they give doesn’t seem sensitive when they register with an internet service/site.

An avenue for Spyware to infect your machine is through popular Peer-to-Peer File Sharing software such as Kazaa. Extreme spyware like Rootkits and other advanced spyware have fundamentally changed the playing field in today’s computer security.

While it may seem to be common sense, many of the most widely spread attacks have involved spyware and email attachment worms. Often these packages come as “suites” including a firewall and Spyware scanner. They scan and destroy spyware as it’s found in the user’s computer.

Regardless of the type of spyware, it can slow your computer to a crawl and needs to be removed from your computer. Spyware occurs when certain websites run programs in the background of your computer while gleaning information from it.

…Anti-spyware tools will greatly assist in protecting your privacy and restoring full computer functions that spyware may have taken over. In the internet world it is vital for users to have a good spyware scan and removal tool because of the multitude of different spyware, adware, Trojans and other malware constantly looking to attack your system. Spyware can slow down your computer, and would have to be removed.

There are tools available which include good free Spyware removal software among other security measures the user can take to protect the computer from malicious attack such as Viruses, Spyware and Adware…. Spyware not only covertly runs in the background and steals personal information of the user it is a potential security threat of which the extent of the damage cannot be determined.

With all of the marketing commotion that surrounds viruses, you should already have antivirus software on all of your computers. Let me explain something, just because you have a antivirus software program on your computer you are not cured. Until recently could one install a firewall and an antivirus program and feel quite secure.

Protection services could commonly include the ability of an administrator to monitor activity throughout the system as well as potentially block hazardous material on the internet from being viewed by other users, the ability to manage automatic updates and what’s more the ability to enquire about the status of antivirus software. These include firewall, spyware scanning software and antivirus software.

Everyone needs to have proper computer security measures in place to make sure they are consistently free from all these malicious software.