Google Adsense CPM Ads Earn Money Without Clicks

Not all Google Adsense Ads require clicks to make extra money quickly for you. If you analyze reports, you may have seen earnings without any clicks. This is because many ads are CPM ads for which advertisers pay you money per 1000 ad impressions.
CPM stands for “cost per 1000 impressions.” Advertisers running CPM ads set their desired price per 1000 ads served, select the specific sites on which to show their ads, and pay each time their ad appears.
Why is it good for you?
CPM ads in Google Adsense compete against pay-per-click (or CPC, cost per click) ads in the ad auction, so only the highest performing ads will be served to your pages. If an advertiser wants to specifically target your site, they will need to bid high enough to beat out the CPC ads that are already in the auction in order to show up on your page. Google pays you each time a CPM ad is shown on your page. But you won’t earn additional revenue for clicks on these ads.
How do CPM ads look like?
CPM ads can be either text or image ads, and are always site-targeted. CPM text ads will expand to take up the entire ad unit.
What I learnt from this?
I had earlier added a competitive ad filter to several ads which seemed less targeted and were less likely to get clicked, but as income dropped I realized that these were CPM ads and they made extra money even if they were not clicked. And they competed for price with ads which would have appeared in their place, so no point filtering them anyway. The Google Adsense ad auction and smart pricing are too complex for us to deal with, lets leave it to Google at best. For more information, visit Adsense support.

Adobe Edge: Adobe's new HTML5 Web Animations Tool

 

Today, Adobe is launching a new tool called Adobe Edge which will allow creative professionals to design animated Web content using Web standards like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. Not Flash.
Aimed to coexist with Adobe Flash, not replace it, the Web design software is Adobe's big bet on how it will continue to solidify its position as a top player in the infrastructure of the modern Web, especially as the Web goes increasingly mobile. In this new mobile context, the Web has become a more hostile environment for Flash, which has no place on Apple mobile devices, and likely never will.
HTML5 vs Flash...or HTML5 and Flash?
Although Flash still accounts for the majority of website animations today, that won't always be the case.
So does Edge's launch mean that Adobe caved and ceded the battle to HTML5 over Flash? Adobe doesn't see it that way. Although battles make for good headlines here in the world of tech journalism, it's not really an either/or scenario when it comes to the 'Flash vs. HTML5' conundrum in the professional world. For today's Web designers and developers, both technologies are still used.

Adobe's Support for HTML5 Continues with Edge

'HTML5 is an opportunity for Adobe,' explains Devin Fernandez, Group Product Manager for Adobe's Web Pro Segment, 'that's not to say there aren't opportunities for Flash.' He contends that Flash will continue to push forward, and, as we have reported previously, it will focus on areas that HTML5 cannot yet address as well - like 3D gaming for example. (Although even there, HTML5 is making inroads.)
Still, with HTML5 being a relatively new technology, it doesn't today deliver a consistent experience across the widest range of devices and browsers. For example, Windows XP, which even to Microsoft's own chagrin remains a fairly popular computer operating system, can only run up to Internet Explorer 8. That means it can't take advantage of the many major leaps in terms of HTML5 support introduced in IE 9.
In other words, Adobe believes Flash still has a solid future here on the Web for some time. But when the Web is ready for an entirely Flash-free existence, this is surely Adobe's plan for maintaining its relevance among the creative professionals crowd, including developers and designers alike.

What Does Edge Do?

Adobe claims it has been a strong player in HTML5, going back to April 2010, when it first began introducing support for the technology in its product line, including Dreamweaver, Illustrator, its Digital Publishing Suite and, more recently, its Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool, Wallaby.
Now, with Adboe Edge, it aims to provide the tools that will help professionals build Web animations, and in the future, even simple games. At present, Edge will focus on its core animation engine, but in the future, it plans to add more HTML5 features, including Canvas support, support for HTML5 Audio and Video tags, richer support for animating SVG graphics and more.

The software (for both Mac and PC) is designed to have an intuitive paneled user interface, a fast startup time, and will include, at the bottom, the familar timeline feature creative professionals already know and understand. Edge users can import existing HTML documents and graphic assets including SVG, PNG, JPG and GIF and then sytle them with CSS3. Panels on the left and right provide access to properties of the .EDGE file and the various elements the designer is working with. And in the center, there runs an embedded version of the WebKit browser.
When a project is complete, it will work on modern Web browsers like those that run on Android, iOS, HP's webOS, the BlackBerry PlayBook, plus Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer 9.

Where to Get Adobe Edge

Starting today, Adobe Edge is available as a free download while in its public preview period. The 1.0 product is expected to launch next year.
This is a hugely important launch for Adobe - one that IDC analyst Al Hilwa, says is 'the biggest thing they have done so far.' Hilwa likes Adobe Edge, and believes it shows that Adobe is really in-tune with designer needs.
'Adobe has started working on HTML5 and has brought many little things, showing that they can pivot nicely to new trends,' Hilwa told us. 'It shows that they can remain the premier tools vendor no matter what the technology inside is.'
Will designers agree with Hilwa's sentiment, though? In time, we'll know.

Now make your website load faster with Google

According to Ram Ramani, the lead engineer on the Google's Bangalore team that worked on the project, websites using Page Speed will see a speed improvement of 25% to 60%.

 

"To use the service, you (webmasters) need to sign up and point the site's DNS entry to Google," Ramani wrote in a post on Google's official blog. "Page Speed fetches content from your servers, rewrites your pages by applying web performance best practices, and serves them to end users via Google's servers across the globe. Your users will continue to access your site just as they did before, only with faster load times."

Though Google is offering the service free of charge to a select number of webmasters initially, it will charge a fee once it launches the service. According to Ramani, the Web giant is working to speed up site load times for the last two years and the latest project is another step towards enabling faster browsing. Google claims that the optimization will happen in the real time.

With the importance of the web growing, many companies are aiming to deliver better Web browsing experience. In recent years, all browser makers have put in a lot of efforts to speed up page rendering. Opera Mini, a browser for portable devices, uses its own servers to compress data before serving it on smartphones and tablets. Opera claims this optimization helps it offer a superior and faster Web browsing to experience to mobile users.

Companies like Amazon and Akamai, meanwhile, offer services like content delivery network (CDN) that can speed up data distribution. Many websites rely on these services. According to reports, Page Speed will make of both website optimization as well as a CDN.

10 biggest technology myths: Must Read

Ah, the world of tech myths! Despite countless efforts to kill them, a host of myths continue to persist. Some of them are result of plain ignorance while a few had genuine lineage but as the technology moves forward, do not hold true anymore.
We take a look at 10 of these fallacies and squash them.
More mega pixels mean better picturesWe wish it could be true. Because then we all would have been pro photographers. More mega pixels were a big deal when digital cameras were new. But once the threshold of five mega pixels was reached, the number stopped being the most important factor in a camera.
In any modern camera, image quality primarily depends on sensor size and quality of lens. This is the reason why you are likely to get better images from say a Nikon D40, a 6 mega pixel camera, than a new point-and-shoot slick camera that can capture photos in 14 mega pixels.

Higher dynamic contrast ratio is betterMonitor and TV makers love to bandy about dynamic contrast ration. For example, Acer says its S231HL monitor has a dynamic contrast ratio of 12,000,000:1. In reality, this number doesn’t mean anything.
This contrast ratio can be achieved only when the monitor is displaying a completely black image. During normal use, the ratio is likely to be lot less than the static contrast ratio, which is 1000:1. Dynamic contrast ratio is a just a marketing scam so steer clear of that.
More RAM in a graphics card is betterThis is another marketing scam. And many gamers fall prey to it. In a graphics card, everything depends on the kind of processing chip that is used and not on amount of RAM. While buying a graphics card users need to pay close attention to the name. For example, AMD Radeon HD 6850 with just 1GB RAM will be more than four to five times faster than AMD Radeon 6450 with 2GB RAM.

Macs don't have virusesIt’s not really a myth. There is some truth to it. People using Apple’s MacBook, iMac or Mac Pro are less likely to face computer viruses. But this is not because Apple’s computers or operating software are virus-proof. The fact is that cyber criminals largely focus on Windows because that is used by majority of people. But as popularity of Apple’s computers increases, cyber criminals are taking note and new viruses and trojans on Mac have started appearing.
Right click+refresh makes PC fasterAround 15 years ago, computers were always running out of memory. RAM was very expensive and most computers had just 4MB to 8MB RAM. Then, there were poorly-coded applications that caused memory leaks. This led to the practice of right click+refresh on the desktop as by refreshing the display or in other words Explorer, in some cases users quickly reclaimed free RAM after closing a process.
On modern computers, which have ample RAM, doing a right click+refresh is nothing more than a foolish habit.
For graphics work, a Mac is bestThis one too was true sometime back. But now it’s more of a myth than a fact. Before 2006, Apple was using processors based on PowerPC architecture by IBM. Compared to Intel or AMD processors, PowerPC chips had an advantage in graphics-heavy work. But after 2006, Apple shifted to Intel processors. A Mac still has some advantage in font management as well as quality of bundled monitor. But if you are a graphic designer who knows your trade well and who takes care while choosing his gear, you don’t need to pay premium and buy a Mac just because someone told you that it is better for graphics work.

To delete a file permanently, delete it from Recycle BinAfter deleting a sensitive file from recycle bin, never think that you have obliterated it. Using recovery programmes, even a kid can retrieve the file back. When you delete a file from recycle bin, Windows just changes its file name and makes it invisible to user. The file does not get deleted unless it is overwritten, which happens over a period of time when you create new files.
CPUs with more cores/Ghz are betterAnother marketing lie. In any processor or computing chip, the underlying architecture is what matters. This is the reason why even slower AMD Athlon processors were considerably faster than Pentium 4. And the architecture is reason why nowadays a four-core Sandy Bridge processor from Intel is faster than six-core processors that AMD sells.
You need to buy expensive security softwareThis was true when no good security software were available for free. But situation has changed a lot in the last few years. Nowadays, if you want some cyber security on a home computer you don’t really need to spend any money.
Microsoft Security Essentials, which is a free dowanload, will do the job. And so will free anti-virus programs from AVG, Avast or Avira.
You need to stop a USB drive before taking it outThis is true but partially. If there is a file transfer going on, which means if you are moving files between pen drive and computer, you may need to stop USB drive before unplugging the pen drive.
But if there is no file transfer happening, you can pluck out the pen drive right away. We assure you that it won’t go up in flames.

Google+ And The Death Of Online Anonymity

Google+ wants its users to use their real names in making profiles in the social network. This has been the problem of Facebook in the past. Now the search giant has been suspending accounts on Google+ for various reasons but users are complaining that it is too strict in some cases but it’s not consistent with its policy.
People are now asking whether anonymity in the internet is already going away because of Google’s obsession with the users’ real name. In a recent crackdown in Google+, accounts suspended included some prominent members of the hacker community. These include a programmer named Skud and a popular iPhone developer only known by his alias MuscleNerd.
There are reports that certain accounts were restored even though they used obvious pseudonyms. Google said that it doesn’t really want to force people to use their legally given names and doesn’t mind people setting up profiles under commonly used names although the rules are too vague and open to different interpretations.
Google senior vice president Vic Gundotra said that the company wants to maintain a positive tone on the social network. He compared the policy as requiring people to wear shirts in a restaurant. But online identity is a lot complex than that.

Apple laptops can be hacked to self-destruct; flaw to be detailed by hacker next month

How’s this for an undocumented feature? Apple’s newer MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro notebooks have a security flaw that can allow hackers to remotely prevent the batteries from charging. Better yet, hackers can exploit the same flaw and remotely cause batteries to explode. Apple laptops’ new “smart” battery technology is intended to provide added control over power management, and it does just that. Unfortunately, it also gives hackers added control because the microcontroller chip that ships in recent Apple laptops can be accessed remotely using a default password shared by each and every notebook. Charlie Miller, the security expert who discovered the vulnerability, plans to showcase the flaw next month at the Black Hat security conference. There, Miller will show that he is able to access the battery controller remotely and cause it to refuse a charge, or even heat up until it catches fire and explodes. “These batteries just aren’t designed with the idea that people will mess with them,” Miller told Forbes last week. “What I’m showing is that it’s possible to use them to do something really bad.” Thankfully, the security expert also intends to showcase a fix for the flaw, which Apple will hopefully implement as soon as possible.

Chrome vs IE9 vs Firefox: Browser War

The Speed of the Web

Web browsers are converging. Since the arrival of Google Chrome nearly three years ago, all browsers have come under its influence, and they've all moved in the same three-pronged directions—speedier page loading, cleaner user interfaces, and greater support for new Web standards. All of the major browsers—Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Opera—have made significant strides in each of these three dimensions. The first two qualities are pretty much universally desirable, but the "standards" support piece, while also desirable, gets sticky: Each browser seems to support a different subset of the many features that fall under the label HTML5. All you have to do is check out each browser's HTML5 demo site. Apple's HTML5 demos, for example, flat out won't function unless you're browsing with Safari. So much for "standards."

Along with new standard support, all browsers have posted massive improvements in page-rendering and script execution speed. You just have to look at the often-cited SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks to see this. Even Chrome, which I already described as "lightning fast" in December of 2008, has sped up on the test from a time of 881ms to 267ms in version 12 on my 2.6GHz dual-core laptop—that's less than a third of the time! The rest of the browsers have followed suit, clustering around the same level of performance. Mozilla and Google have built their own Javascript speed tests, Kraken and V8, respectively. When these first came out, the maker's own browsers widely outpaced competitors, but results on these tests are also evening out.

Browser	Google V8 (v.6) Score (higher is better)
Google Chrome 12	8205
Firefox 5	3459
Opera 11.50	3,454
Safari 5.1	2567
Internet Explorer 9	2360

Browser	Mozilla Kraken 1.1 Score in ms (lower is better)
Google Chrome 12	4841
Firefox 5	5707
Opera 11.50	12353
Internet Explorer 9	15050
Safari 5	17603

Browser	SunSpider 0.9.1 Score in ms (lower is better)
Internet Explorer 9	245
Google Chrome 12	267
Firefox 5	282
Opera 11.50	279
Safari 5.1	303

The next frontier in browser performance is about graphics hardware acceleration. In this area, Internet Explorer and Firefox are ahead of Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari. Microsoft was the first browser maker to make an issue of hardware acceleration in the buildup to its releasing IE9. The company's site for its browser, called IETestdrive.com, sports a slew of demonstrations that show off hardware acceleration, which you can try running in any browser. On these, you can clearly see IE and Firefox's lead in hardware acceleration.
On the FishIE demo, which uses Canvas and Javascript to display swimming tropical fish, Chrome delivered 40 frames per second with 20 fish and 5 FPS with 500 fish. Since both Firefox 4 and IE9 use hardware acceleration for more than just future 3D content, they score the maximum 60 FPS with 20 fish, but IE still beats Firefox with 500 fish. Chrome was, however, better than Opera, which only mustered 20FPS and 3FPS.

Browser	FishIE with 20 fish (FPS - higher is better)	500 Fish
Internet Explorer 9	60	39
Firefox 4	60	35
Google Chrome 12	40	4
Opera 11.50	20	3
Safari 5	20	3

Another IE9 demo, Psychedelic Browsing, spins a color wheel and plays spacy sounds, reporting RPM as a result. Surprisingly, Firefox beats Microsoft at its own game here by a tad, though it doesn't play the required sound. Chrome, however, plays the test's required sound, but fares far worse in the revolutions per minute result:

Browser	Psychedelic Browsing RPM (higher is better)
Firefox 4	1885 (no sound)
Internet Explorer 9	1799 (correct sound)
Google Chrome 12	131 (correct sound)
Opera 11	82 (no sound)
Safari 5	83 (no sound)

One final test of hardware acceleration comes from Mozilla, its Hardware Acceleration Stress test, which spins a spiral of photos in the browser window and reports a score in frames per second (which tops out at the LCD's maximum of 60FPS):

Browser	Mozilla Hardware Acceleration Stress Test FPS (higher is better)
Firefox 4	60
Internet Explorer 9	60
Google Chrome 12	17
Opera 11	17
Safari 5	3

On this test, again, the browsers with graphics hardware acceleration trounced those without. IE8 can't run the test since it lacks the requisite HTML5 support.