Has Nero’s trial license finally expired. If it has and you think you are stuck paying to burn CD/DVDs think again.

InfraRecorder is one of Vnetpulse’s favorite replacement tools for Nero. With InfraRecorder you can create ISO files, burn your data to a disc, erase a disc and create a audio disc.

Download InfraRecorder

InfraRecorder Guides

Last week Vnetpulse talked about one of their favorite browsers Google Chrome.  Google Chrome is by far one of the quickest, light weight broswers out there. The only draw back that I have found with Chrome is that Google is collecting data on you.  Which really isn’t a bad thing however; if you think that google has enough of your internet habitits then SRware Iron is the browser for you.  Iron is based off of the Chromium code so it looks and feel like Google Chrome but will not collect any data on your surfing habits.

Download SRware Iron

Now that you have Iron installed it is time to set your default  search engine is default.  To do this, click the wrench and goto Options.  Under the basics tab click the Manage button, when the manage dialoge box pops up select the search engine of your choice, click close and your done.

We here at vnetpulse would love to hear in the comments if you think Google data collection is good or evil?

Google is going to change the face of communication and collaboration on the web this coming year.  Google Wave promises a revolutionary way of communication that is no longer a static system like our traditional email or instant messaging.

Lars Rasmussen one of the founding members of Google Wave describes how all of this works in a google blog post.

Lars states; “Here’s how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.

As with Android, Google Chrome, and many other Google efforts, we plan to make the code open source as a way to encourage the developer community to get involved. Google Wave is very open and extensible, and we’re inviting developers to add all kinds of cool stuff before our public launch. Google Wave has three layers: the product, the platform, and the protocol:

The Google Wave product (available as a developer preview) is the web application people will use to access and edit waves. It’s an HTML 5 app, built on Google Web Toolkit. It includes a rich text editor and other functions like desktop drag-and-drop (which, for example, lets you drag a set of photos right into a wave).

Google Wave can also be considered a platform with a rich set of open APIs that allow developers to embed waves in other web services, and to build new extensions that work inside waves.

The Google Wave protocol is the underlying format for storing and the means of sharing waves, and includes the “live” concurrency control, which allows edits to be reflected instantly across users and services. The protocol is designed for open federation, such that anyone’s Wave services can interoperate with each other and with the Google Wave service. To encourage adoption of the protocol, we intend to open source the code behind Google Wave.”

Google Wave Home Page

VNetpulse will keep you up to date on the advances that are made on Google Wave.

Watch Google Wave keynote presentation

Nvu  is a complete web Authoring System that will rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver.  Anyone can create web pages and manage a website with little to no techincal expertise or knowledge of HTML.

Download Nvu

screen shot of Nvu

Firefox was just too slow and when left minimized Firefox will eat up all of your system resources.  That being said I made the switch; Google Chrome is now my browser of choice.   Let the browser wars really begin…..

The first thing I noticed was the speed in which chrome loads; once clicked chrome loads and is ready for searching.  Just type what you want to search in the address bar and you are off.

Google created a small installer and a simple interface that is out performing my expectations. I will admit that it took me awhile to grow accustom to the simple interface and now I love it. Another great feature of chrome is that it thumbnails your favorite pages on the default home page. Equally impressive is the fact that you can do private browsing just open the browser in incognito mode and none of your browsing history is saved.

If you are like me and tired of bloated browsers slowing you down then go grab and install the code from Chrome now.

Download Google Chrome

Now that we have all of the videos files with title screens we are ready to author a DVD.  One of the best applications that I have found on the net to do this task is called DVD Flick.  DVD Flick can handle a wide variety of file types, so we can take the avi and wmv files and create a home movie complete with menus.

Here is what the gui looks like when you first open DVD Flick

Now to add the files that we have created we simply click the “Add Title…”  option on the right hand side.   Once we have the files selected we can rearragne them in any order we would like them to play in.  Now that all of the video is selected we can click the “Menu Settings”  at the top of the screen and create a fully function menu.  After everything is setup and good to go we can then click “Create DVD” select the right settings and then wait for our master peice to be encoded and then burned to a DVD.

Download DVD Flick Here

In particular if you are involved in the Internet Marketing game….  Firebug allows you to quickly analyze the code of the website that you are visiting….

For example, if I am researching the keyword ‘wealthy affiliate review‘, I can go to the website on google page 1 and check out its code very easily.  I just right click on the screen and select ‘Inspect Element’, and WHAM, the screen splits and shows me the code….  I love it… A software programming collegue of mine who is an absolute genius showed this to me a few weeks ago….

By investigating how the top performing site on Google is optimizing their site for the keyword can help us gain insight as to what we need to do to our website to compete for that particular keyword….

Firebug Inspection

You can see that this website is optimized VERY WELL for the keyword ‘wealthy affiliate review’ by inspecting it with Firebug… The owner of this website has done a great job..  Props to them!

The keyword is included in the header and meta tags several times – as well as title etc…  good optimization techniques were used on this webpage…  you can clearly see that you must do all of the same to your web page if you want to compete for this keyword…  it looks like a very competitive market however…. this web master must have worked very hard to market this site!

If you want to install Firebug, you need to open your firefox browser and select Tools > Add-ons …..

Then select the button that says ‘Get Add-ons’…  Type ‘Firebug’ into the search field, and then select the Add-on!

You can also go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843 to get Firebug….

Firebug Add-on Screen Shot

Get organized with your keyword research!

Many people seem to just compile a quick list of keywords and start writing articles before really analyzing the keywords that they have selected…  This is the number 1 newby mistake IMO. I have made this mistake with countless campaigns, but I have learned my lesson…..  I do extensive keyword research before seriously embarking on a new campaign for a small business, online product, service, or anything else, really….

Newcomers to internet marketing and SEO get so excited about churning out articles and it can often result in poor keyword research and a lot of useless articles – they may be well written and have awesome content, but if it is written for a keyword that is too competitive, then you are not going to achieve the results you are hoping for……

Check out this earlier post on the Basics of Keyword Research

Keyword analysis takes TIME. Don’t try and take shortcuts.  Shortcuts equal short profits – in particular when it comes to keyword research.  Why would you want to undercut the most important part of your campaign?

You first need to think about the product/website/blog or whatever you are promoting….

What are the reasons that someone would buy the product/service, or whatever is being offered?  What is the customer going to gain?

You need to think about the benefits of the service or product being offered…..

Your product or service may be the greatest thing since the dawn of time, but if you don’t optimize your content for the specific keywords that benefit the buyer, you will get nowhere fast…. Analyze the benefits of a product or service, and incorporate those benefits into your keyword research!

Let’s take the core training example again….  one of the benefits of core training is abdominal muscle development….. a sweet six pack!

What would someone who is looking to gain a sweet six pack of abs type into Google?

‘how to get six pack abs’ maybe?

Lets examine that keyword a little more closely….  if I search that keyword in quotes at Google, we receive 195,000 results…..  that is WAY too much competition – remember from VNet’s first keyword research post that we need to find a keyword that is 5000 or under when searched in quotes at Google….

Let’s try “how to get a six pack fast” – that gets 7470….  that’s getting better… but not good enough….

I think “how to get a killer six pack” could be a winner…..  it gets 3050 results in Google… that is a keyword worth examining further for the core training niche.  Someone looking to train their core is likely looking for a killer six pack.

But now what do I do?  How do I know that this keyword is worth my time?

A little more research on Google will help….

Google intitle:”how to get a killer six pack” – it gets 35 results…

VNet Keyword Research Tips

I then compile the information that I have learned so far…..  it is a good idea to keep a simple spreadsheet at first…  I recommend something similar to the following screen shot to begin with:

Keyword Analysis Template Screenshot

The above is just a suggestion – your keyword analysis should be more complex…. One Week Marketing really expands on the everything your are reading here…..  You should definitely expand on this simple start – include the benefits of each keyword – what is the customer trying to achieve by typing the keyword into Google? Listing the benefits of a particular keyword will stimulate your brain and result in more keywords to research….

So…… back to the keyword ‘how to get a killer six pack’ – we know that it receives 3050 quoted results, 35 intitle quoted results, and 755,000 regular search results….. I did a regular Google search as well….

The keyword is under 5000 Google quoted results, which is good… most seasoned internet marketers (like Pot Pie Girl) recommend starting with keywords under 5000 quoted results…..

The 35 intitle quoted results tell us that 35 web pages are using that exact phrase in the title.  That is a key number…. we need to beat out those 35 other pages…. I think that is doable with a few ezine articles, a blog, and maybe a squidoo page…..

Now that I believe that I can compete for that keyword, I start the process over again and expand my keyword list!

Learn more incredible keyword analysis techniques from Pot Pie Girl….  Get One Week Marketing and kickstart your internet marketing campaigns…..

Free Traffic System is a low-cost (actually, NO COST) option that will generate a lot of powerful backlinks for your site!

The video below will tell you the truth about the amount of backlinks that your website needs to hit page 1…..

Check out this video from Free Traffic System:

So I have all of my home video footage captured, cleaned, and outputted to an .avi format, but now what?  Well we are not quite done yet…. my wife has a lot of old pictures that she wants to include in the footage and she also would like to add titles.  Google offers the perfect solution to this problem and it is called Picasa.

Picasa is one of the best free image managers out on the web today.  Picasa has a simple GUI and a clean interface.  Picasa also handles most image formats; the only issue I have encountered so far is with high resolution tiff files.  Picasa also has a movie editor integrated into it; this is the area I will be discussing.

Download Picasa

Once you have installed Picasa and let it scan you drive for images and movies.  Mouse over to the top tool palette and click on “Create” and then drop down to “Movie…”

Once in side the Movie Make tab you can select the photos and movies files that you would like to integrate into you production.  You can also pick the desired output size that you would like.

After picking the files and the size of the video you would like you can also add titles to the sequence under the slide tab.

After entering titles and captions to your sequences simply click the export button and wait for Picasa to work its magic.  Once Picasa has finished the encoding process you will end up with a video file with your nice title and capture movie with all of your stills integrated.   In my next post I will discuss how to make a DVD from all of the files that you have just created.

For more information on Picasa make sure to go through the forums.