Comparison of Free PDF Software

By MP3 Sound | March 27, 2008

This section will review some of the free PDF convertors and readers currently available and look at whether they offer any accessibility benefits for users.

Convertors

A document created using Microsoft? Word, structured using the inbuilt styles and headings and incorporating images (with alternative text) was converted to PDF using each of the convertors below. The resulting document was then checked in Adobe? Reader for a number of the accessibility benefits that the format can offer.

Cute PDF Writer

Pdf995

PrimoPDF

Do PDF

Doc2PDF

GoogleDocs

Well Thats it. Of course you could use Open Office that has the pdf converter already available and is a great alternative to Microsoft Office.

bannerlogo

Topics: Articles | No Comments »

Great Place for Wordpress Themes

By MP3 Sound | March 18, 2008

Themes are great ways to customize your site.

If you are aiming to earn from AdSense, then use Prosense theme from DoshDosh.Com.

I was just browsing WP themes last night and I did see some nice Real Estate ones, as well as a ton of other really nice themes at http://www.wpthemesarchive.com/brow…ry/business/

Themes offered from http://www.blogohblog.com .. I use one of his free themes on www.GurusLab.com he also offers a couple of paid themes that cost a lot less than some of those *cough*, premium designs out there.

Most themes can be adjusted to whatever you like using the css style sheets and a few graphics.

advanced180Contents and Video Titles

1. Changing a header graphic
2. Playing with CSS Style Sheets
3. Inserting code and scripts
4. Content Management CMS
5. Advanced Plugins
6. Graphics and logins
7. Desktop Blogging
8. RSS uses and stats
9. 404 pages Customize your error pages
10. Widgets
11. Resources and summary

 

Visit http://www.advancedwordpress to get your copy.

Topics: Web Design | No Comments »

Great Place for Wordpress Themes

By MP3 Sound | March 18, 2008

Themes are great ways to customize your site.

If you are aiming to earn from AdSense, then use Prosense theme from DoshDosh.Com.

I was just browsing WP themes last night and I did see some nice Real Estate ones, as well as a ton of other really nice themes at http://www.wpthemesarchive.com/brow…ry/business/

Themes offered from http://www.blogohblog.com .. I use one of his free themes on www.GurusLab.com he also offers a couple of paid themes that cost a lot less than some of those *cough*, premium designs out there.

Most themes can be adjusted to whatever you like using the css style sheets and a few graphics.

advanced180Contents and Video Titles

1. Changing a header graphic
2. Playing with CSS Style Sheets
3. Inserting code and scripts
4. Content Management CMS
5. Advanced Plugins
6. Graphics and logins
7. Desktop Blogging
8. RSS uses and stats
9. 404 pages Customize your error pages
10. Widgets
11. Resources and summary

 

Visit http://www.advancedwordpress to get your copy.

Topics: Web Design | No Comments »

What Audio Can Do For You

By MP3 Sound | January 29, 2008

Adding audio to a website has never been easier than it is now. It is also very affordable. Unfortunately, many website owners do not realize just what adding simple audio files to their website can accomplish. If you aren’t sure yourself, read on!

First, people only remember about 10% of what they read, but they remember 50 — 70% of what they hear. With an audio file, you can be sure that more of your visitors will remember your message. Once your visitors hear your voice, they know that there is a real human being behind the website. This goes a long way towards establishing trust and credibility.

Website owners who have already added audio to their website have reported a whopping 400% increase in subscription requests! As opposed to other marketing methods used to gain subscribers, this is the quickest way to gain new subscribers for your newsletter or mailing list.

Audio will aid in keeping visitors on your website for a longer period of time. When visitors stick around, you have a greater chance of making a sale. Use your audio to increase those chances even more. You will also find that your site is more valuable to your visitors than your competitor’s sites that are not using audio. This puts you way ahead of the competition.

Audio is very cheap and simple to make. You can typically be set up to create audio files for under $50. Audio can be used in emails and on websites, and many people are even doing their newsletters in audio these days.
The Best Internet Audio and Internet Video tools & resources, all in one bundle and ready to download now!

If you still aren’t convinced that audio will help increase your conversions, then look out! Your competition is probably about to jump way ahead of you in the game. Don’t let this happen. Start looking into adding simple audio files to your website now.

Topics: Articles | No Comments »

Recording Techniques For Streaming Audio

By MP3 Sound | January 28, 2008

Preparing to record your audio

The first audio we will look at recording is a talking file. We will then look at recording or adding a music file.

Preparation

In making recordings, the goal is always to get a clear, undistorted speech signal with as little noise as possible.

Noise that will detract from or ruin signal quality for acoustic analysis can include:

* Any kind of environmental noise
* Speaker movement, especially if movement impacts the microphone or an object close to the microphone
* Voice overlap between speakers
* Noise from the computer system during transfer to computer

The best way to minimize environmental noise is to record in a sound-proofed or sound-treated room. To reduce the effects of noise in an ordinary room:

* Choose a quiet location
* Cover large reverberant surfaces with blankets or cloths
* Unplug electrical appliances
* Close doors and windows
* Turn off lights and fans or air conditioning
* Remove anything that ticks, buzzes, bangs, rattles, squeaks, hisses, or otherwise makes itself heard
* Always make a one minute black recording to see if there are any noises you have missed.
* Make sure you log off any software application like chat programs etc. There is nothing worse than almost getting to the end of your recording and your mail or chat program pipes in with a ding or what ever.

When recording speech form texts it is usually possible to satisfy all, or most of the above conditions. However, to record speech in “natural” situations, speakers often must be allowed to move around and interact with other people, with objects, or with their surroundings. This makes it substantially more difficult to get optimal recording quality.

10 Tips For Public Speaking - Toastmasters

Feeling some nervousness before giving a speech is natural and healthy. It shows you care about doing well. But, too much nervousness can be detrimental. Here’s how you can control your nervousness and make effective, memorable presentations:

* Know the room. Be familiar with the place in which you will speak. Arrive early, walk around the speaking area and practice using the microphone and any visual aids.
.
* Know the audience. Greet some of the audience as they arrive. It’s easier to speak to a group of friends than to a group of strangers.
.
* Know your material. If you’re not familiar with your material or are uncomfortable with it, your nervousness will increase. Practice your speech and revise it if necessary.
.
* Relax. Ease tension by doing exercises.
.
* Visualize yourself giving your speech. Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear, and assured. When you visualize yourself as successful, you will be successful.
.
* Realize that people want you to succeed. Audiences want you to be interesting, stimulating, informative, and entertaining. They don’t want you to fail.
.
* Don’t apologize. If you mention your nervousness or apologize for any problems you think you have with your speech, you may be calling the audience’s attention to something they hadn’t noticed. Keep silent.
.
* Concentrate on the message — not the medium. Focus your attention away from your own anxieties, and outwardly toward your message and your audience. Your nervousness will dissipate.
.
* Turn nervousness into positive energy. Harness your nervous energy and transform it into vitality and enthusiasm
.
* Gain experience. Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking.

Things I do.

* I write down my talk and then crop it back. When you write it down and practice saying it out loud you will find you can get rid of a lot of useless stuff.
.
* I make sure I speak a little slower than I would normally speak.
* Write it down and then edit it over and over again till you get a nice distinct piece of script that is suitable for what you are wanting to convey. In most cases more is not better. Use the Keep It Simple Strategy (Kiss)
.
* I separate my talk into sections so I can edit it more easily.
.
* I try and do it in one sitting and then go back and edit the audio file for example: if I make a blunder (I make a lot) then I just do that bit again and leave a bit of a blank space and keep going. When I have finished I can go back and edit the audio file deleting all the blunders.
.
* I also try and get a good piece of music to put in the background to take some of the emphasis off just my voice. Be aware of copyright laws with this.
.

When I am talking I try and think happy thoughts so the feeling of the talk will have the right flow and feeling. Your voice will project a little bit of your character so be expressive and enjoy it. This is probably the biggest secret of doing your own audio.
Tips on delivery:

* Make it conversational rather than professional. What some people consider professional often resembles theatre type acting (which seems fake). Where as conversational speaking resembles movie type acting (which seems real).
.
* Be you. That doesn’t mean you remain where you are without making improvement. But optimize what you presently possess. Most of what people consider detriments (poor voice, not funny, etc.) can be developed into advantages.

Pace Tip

* Develop awareness. You should be able to feel your pace and sense when you’re going too fast or too slow. Feel your breathing and your heart rate internally as you speak.
* Use pauses to highlight your point and also to add a little variety.

Last but not least is vary your tone so people will stay interested. Exaggerate your voice a little and it will sound so much better. This means increase and decrease the volume a little and be a little expressive in your talk.

How is sound recorded?

A microphone consists of a small membrane that is free to vibrate, along with a mechanism that translates movements of the membrane into electrical signals. (The exact electrical mechanism varies depending on the type of microphone.) So acoustical waves are translated into electrical waves by the microphone.

Typically, higher pressure corresponds to higher voltage, and vice versa.

A tape recorder translates the waveform yet again - this time from an electrical signal on a wire, to a magnetic signal on a tape. When you play a tape, the process gets performed in reverse, with the magnetic signal transforming into an electrical signal, and the electrical signal causing a speaker to vibrate, usually using an electromagnet.

How is sound recorded digitally?

Recording onto a tape is an example of analogue recording. We will be dealing mainly with digital recordings - recordings that have been sampled so that they can be used by a digital computer, like the one you’re using now. Digital recording has a lot of benefits over analogue recording. Digital files can be copied as many times as you want, with no loss in quality, and they can be burned to an audio CD or shared via the Internet. Digital audio files can also be edited much more easily than analogue tapes.

If you have a tape recording use the Audacity software to turn it into digital sound.

Microphone Techniques.

If you do a search on the web for this topic you will find thousands of pages and it can become very confusing and complicated so I am going to make this very simple for you without any confusion.

Plug it in and do some tests.

I suggest a head phone mic for a couple of reasons. Firstly if you want to read off the screen it gives you hands free to be able to scroll through your text. This means no scuffling of paper in the background. Secondly you will always be the same distance from the mic so you wont have to worry about volume variations so much.

Now the fanatic audio guys will say you can’t get a good sound from them but from my experience you will get a good enough sound and if later you want to get more technical then go out and get the more expensive mic etc.

Obvious points to remember when using amplification of any kind:

Pointing the microphone towards a speaker when you are too close causes a high pitched noise called FEEDBACK.

Having the volume too high will cause FEEDBACK and DISTORTION.

Incorrect wiring & connections can cause electric shocks, equipment breakdowns, horrible humming or even pick up the radio!

The most common mistake is holding the microphone too close or too far from your mouth. This results in your vocal sounding muffled and distorted, too distant or no vocal sound at all. With a little practice this is easy to rectify and should become a part of your rehearsal routine.

To avoid distortion, ensure the mic is held no closer than 2 to 3 inches from your mouth during normal vocalization. You will have to experiment a little as the distance is dependant on the individuals natural power and ability to project.

Gradually move the microphone away as you continue to talk or sing and listen to the effect - at what point does the vocal sound start to fade? - That is your furthest point to remember. The optimum distance for clarity is between the shortest and furthest points.

There are times when you will be using more volume, hitting higher or lower notes or almost whispering. Practice using different distances and positions to see how using the mic creates different effects.

Avoid moving the microphone closer to your mouth when aiming for high or more powerful notes and practise using the microphone to enhance or lessen certain effects until it becomes second nature.

Topics: Articles | No Comments »

Top Research Ideas for Your Niche Product

By MP3 Sound | January 28, 2008

The fundamental mistake made by many niche marketers is they create products based on what they think people want to buy. The correct way of deciding what niche product to create, is to find out what people are actually buying at the moment.

Here are five ways of discovering ideas for niche products which you can sell to make money:

1) Use Forums

With the rapid expansion of the internet, forums (or discussion groups or bulletin boards as they are also called) have proliferated. There are forums hosted all over the internet based on practically every theme imaginable.

Forums are websites where like minded people gather to discuss all sorts of issues pertaining to the theme of the forum. Some of the well moderated forums are extremely active and a good place to conduct research.

When it comes to finding ideas for niche products, you need to use the search engines to locate a number of forums on the theme you are interested in. For example, if you’re interested in needlepoint, you could enter needlepoint+bulletin board into the search engine.

Visit each forum and find out what questions people are asking. In addition, find out how many times similar questions are asked. The more frequently a question is asked across a number of forums, the more likely you have found a topic for your next niche product or website.

2) Visit Your Local Book Store

If you are completely stumped for ideas, a visit to your local book or magazine store is in order. People who are keen on a hobby almost always subscribe to related magazines, and if they buy magazines there’s a good chance they will buy niche products.

Your task is to discover what magazines are being sold and how quickly they move. It is best to visit a number of stores and compare the common magazines sold in all of them. Try to find out from the sales assistants how many copies they sell of the popular magazines you have identified.

A magazine sold in great number by each store, month after month, is a sure sign of a profitable niche.

3) Investigate eBay

eBay is one of the biggest, if not the biggest single market place on the planet. Millions of people buy a gigantic range of products month after month.

Go to eBay.com and scroll down the left hand menu, click on “All Categories” and scroll down to the bottom of the page that opens in your browser until you get to the section titled “Other Ways to Browse”. Included in that section are four sub-sections, each being ways to conduct your research:

i) eBay Keywords (popular terms being searched for)

ii) Common Searches

iii) eBay Pulse (a daily snapshot of current trends)

iv) Popular Products

 

From these four you will be able to spot a multitude of popular ideas for your next niche product.

4) Survey Your Website Visitors

If you have an existing website which receives a fair bit of traffic, you can survey that traffic using a popup. In order to entice people into taking the survey you will have to offer some kind of reward. You could even offer extra rewards for people who refer others to your survey.

Normally any web survey you conduct would have to be of a similar theme to your website, but it is possible to conduct a survey to find out your visitor’s interests and whether they would be prepared to spend any money on their interest.

They key is to ask simple questions in a manner that won’t lead your respondents to any particular answer. When designing your survey, keep in mind you will have to analyze the data and draw conclusions from it. This means keeping your questions “on topic”.

The simplest surveys to analyze are those constructed with multiple choice questions. The disadvantage of this is you don’t know for sure that the answers are absolute or close (i.e. “second best”).

5) Survey Your eMail List

If you have your own email list, you could survey them to find out what problems they are currently facing, or what interests they have. People on your email list will tend to answer more truthfully because there is a degree of trust between you and them.

This degree of trust not withstanding, you will still have to offer an incentive for your subscribers to take the survey. Design your survey the same as you would for a popup on your website.

Topics: Articles | No Comments »

The art of Streaming Audio

By MP3 Sound | January 27, 2008

Have you ever tried to communicate with another person using just actions and sign language? It gets pretty frustrating, doesn’t it? Especially when you know that if you could just SAY a few words, they’d get the picture, almost instantly.

headphones

Well, imagine if the website you’ve put up on show… could “speak”. If it could sparkle with the spoken word. What do you think the effect could be?

You see, what the smart website marketers have realised, is that they need to move beyond just written words and striking graphics. They’re looking to giving their website… a ‘personality’.

BUT… in the cold hearted, faceless world of the internet, being able to reach the audience you want, with sincerity, warmth and with a ‘face’, doesn’t come easily to most.

That is unless you happen to have the skilful knack of knowing what to write, when to write it and are able to string words together to help paint a strong emotional picture in readers minds for your product, service or idea.

Getting all the help we can via other means is crucial in giving us that slight edge.

There’s possibly nothing more intimate, more convincing, more realistic for the reader, than to hear a ‘voice’ behind the website. What it adds, is satisfying helpings of…

LIFE and… CREDIBILITY!

Imagine being able to connect at regular intervals with your customers and clients! How do you think they’ll feel when you’re able to inform them that there’s an exciting offer about to happen and you make sure the message reaches both their eyes, and their ears!

What about using this simple technology to help create a stampede of sales, an abundance of new subscribers, a fleet of qualified prospects, a herd of new referrals!

What about being able to tell your customers that you messed up on the last bit of information you gave them and that you’re really sorry. Won’t you be able to convey this message better using real live words, than by using written text?

Won’t your sincerity, conviction and heartfelt emotion, reach them INSTANTLY, where it matters most… THEIR HEARTS!

Topics: Articles | 1 Comment »