Because there are so many blogs and web sites about blogs on the internet, it can be tough to distinguish your blogging web site from all of the others.Whether you are starting up a new web site aimed at bloggers or whether you are looking to make your existing blogging site more distinctive, the key to building and maintaining a site that will capture the interest and attention of the blogging community is finding your niche. If you can fill a unique need in a way that no other web site does, you’ll be able to build a lasting readership among web surfers. Once you have discovered a niche, you will still have a lot to do, but finding your place in the blogosphere is the place to begin.

Every great blogging web site starts with a great idea,and you can’t build a successful site that will last without one. There are many great sites aimed at today’s bloggers, and competition for the attention of this growing demographic is fierce. To make your blogging web site stand out from the pack, you will need to offer something that no other site is currently offering, or you will need to do the same thing that an already popular site does but in a more impressive or valuable way.

One way to discover an ideal model for your blogging web site is to look at the sites that have successfully captured a blogging audience already to determine if you can appropriate some of their strategies to help realize your vision. Of course, you will also need to add a unique flair to your project in order to stand apart from your competition. Many people agree that the web sites that do the best in today’s market are the sites that
have the most personality. The fiercely individual surfers who are bloggers are a demographic that responds especially strongly to personality, so consider
how you can give your site a unique and attractive feeling by lending your own voice and sensibility to your site’s design and content.

Once you have a great idea for your site, have pinpointed a special niche that you are well equipped to fill, and have infused the site with personality, the next step is figuring out how to get the word out to bloggers. In the long run, a great idea just isn’t enough to propel your blogging web site to success. You will need to draft a smart and realistic marketing plan in order to draw readers to your site. Once you hook a blogger, your great content will keep them coming back, but it is vital to get that first glance or your site won’t have a chance to shine.

Are you in the market for an air purifier?  Air purifiers are electric machines that are used to eliminate harmful particles or contaminants from the air.  If used inside your home, air purifiers will help to make the air that you and your family breathes cleaner. For that reason, there is a good chance that you would be in the market for a new air purifier, if not now then in the future. 

When it comes to buying air purifiers, there are many consumers who think they know what to look for.  Many of those consumers end up purchasing the lowest costing machine or the one that looks the best.  Of course, you will not want to pay more than you have to and a good looking machine would be nice, but you are advised against basing your decisions solely on that. Instead, you will want to take the time to understand the product you are interested, namely the price of the purifier, as a whole, and the performance quality.

Perhaps, the first step in buying a purifier is to familiarize yourself with all of your available options.  You can do this two different ways.  The first way involves visiting one of your local retail stores.  You will want to thoroughly examine each product that they have available. This should be done by reading the information which can be found on air purifier boxes. In addition to comparing prices and products at the store, you can also use the internet.  In fact, the internet may be the easiest way. Online, you can not only familiarize yourself with different air cleaning machines, but you can also read product reviews.

If you have the opportunity, you are advised to read online reviews of multiple air purifiers. These reviews should give you inside information on the operation and maintenance of multiple air purifiers.  Although product reviews are nice, you are also advised to do your own research, as well as use your common sense.  This is important, especially when determining the final cost of purchasing an air purifier.

With air purifiers, you will find a number of different make and models.  Some of these makes and models use filers.  With certain types of filters, many just need to be cleaned, but others need to be replaced. If you need to replace the filter in an air purifier, you need to determine when that filter needs to be changed and exactly how much it will cost.  This is extremely important, especially if you are shopping on a budget.  In some cases, you will find that some air purifiers need to have their filters replaced in as little as a couple of months. You may also find that the filter ends up costing more than you originally paid for the air purifier. You are urged to stay away from these types of cleaning machines; many times they are not just considered air cleaners, but financial traps.

When looking for an air purifier, you are advised to look for air purifiers with HEPA filters. HEPA filters, although they are considered expensive, are often the most well performing.  This is because HEPA air filters must meet specific regulations. These regulations, which are imposed by the Department of Energy, are the reason why air purifiers with HEPA filters are considered the most successful at eliminating unwanted or harmful air particles. 

Once you have researched and examined a number of different air purifiers and you have made a final decision, you will find that you have a number of different purchase options.  Air purifiers are sold all across the United States. A large number of retail stores carry these purifiers, including home improvement stores, home stores, and most traditional department stores. In addition to storefront retail locations, air purifiers can also be purchased online from a number of different retailers.  For the largest selection of air purifiers, as well the ability to quickly compare prices, you may want to think about shopping online. 

Honestly, where you shop doesn’t matter as much as which type of air purifier you are purchasing.  If you are looking for an affordable, but well performing air purifier, you should be prepared to spend a little bit of time researching all of your available options.  While this research may seem time consuming, it will almost always be worth it in the long run.

  A YouTube video suggesting that face recognition cameras installed in HP laptops cannot detect black faces has had over one million views.

The short movie, uploaded earlier this month, features “Black Desi” and his colleague “White Wanda”.

When Wanda, a white woman, is in front of the screen, the camera zooms to her face and moves as she moves.

But when Desi, a black man, does the same, the camera does not respond by tracking him.

The clip is light-hearted in tone but is titled “HP computers are racist”.

“HP has been informed of a potential issue with the facial-tracking software included on some of its systems, which appears to occur when insufficient foreground lighting is available,” an HP spokesman told BBC News.

“We take this seriously and are looking into it with our partners.”

Source: BBC News

Microsoft has indefinitely suspended its Chinese microblogging service MSN Juku after admitting that it "copied" code used to create the site.

A vendor contracted to work for the software giant was caught lifting code from a rival Canadian start-up, Plurk.

According to Plurk as much as 80% of the basecode was "stolen directly".

Microsoft apologised to Plurk, saying "we are obviously very disappointed but we assume responsibility for this situation".

Microsoft China launched Juku in November.

Bloggers and Taiwanese users of rival service Plurk first alerted the Canadian firm to the fact that a large amount of the base code appeared to have been stolen.

Plurk responded: "We were shocked and outraged when we saw with our own eyes the cosmetic similarities Microsoft’s new offering had with Plurk….Microsoft China’s offering ripped off our service."

‘Daylight robbery’

It was not just the look and feel of the site, that was the same.

"On closer inspection we found that much of the codebase and data structures… are identical snapshots of our code. That it is Microsoft doing the copying in broad daylight makes it even more incredulous," Plurk said.

Microsoft was quick to issue an apology.

"The vendor has now acknowledged that a portion of the code they provided was indeed copied," it said in a statement.

"We are a company that respects intellectual property and it was never our intent to have a site that was not respectful of the work that others in the industry have done," it said.

"We will be reaching out to them [Plurk] directly to explain what happened and the steps we have taken to resolve the situation," it added.

Source: BBC News

  The Teletext information service on analogue and digital television will close across the UK on 16 December.

Limited services including holidays, racing and bookmaking and the subtitles on analogue channels will remain available.

Teletext’s chat and dating TV channels on Freeview will also be unaffected.

Speaking to the BBC in Jersey, Karen Rankin, the Managing Director of Broadcast at Channel TV said the closure was a commercial decision.

"The decision was taken by Teletext UK who run the licence for the whole of the UK to withdraw the service at the end of this year," said Karen.

She went on to explain that the advertising funded service was no longer commercially viable.

"Because it is a service that is funded entirely by a commercial advertising revenue, what’s been happening of course is that as people have migrated more and more to using the internet, it is no longer a viable business model.

"Channel Television has provided for a very long time local pages into that national service but we are not the licence holders ourselves.

"We are only contracted to provide the local service so that will go at the same time," said Karen.

If you use the Teletext service to check flights or harbour information you will need to look elsewhere.

If you’ve ever looked up your flight information on page 295, or checked out the TV listings it’s the end of an era.

All of the information that was on the local Teletext pages is available through a number of local websites and subtitles will still remain on programmes through page 888.

"Subtitles will be absolutely unaffected by the withdrawal of the public information service.

"The reason for this is that although it is the same system used to transmit the subtitles, it is not provided by Teletext UK, it is completely different setup.

"The subtitles for national programmes are provided and generated by the ITFC and local subtitles will continue to be provided and transmitted by Channel Television as they are now," said Karen.

Teletext used to be relied on by mariners to check marine weather, tides and shipping movements.

If you were one of them, the Deputy Harbour Master Captain Peter Moore has warned islanders to keep the Coastguard line clear for emergency use and search and rescue.

He’s reminding people that the Jersey Met website and the Jersey Harbours website between them show commercial shipping arrival and departure times and the weather.

You can find harbour and airport information from their respective websites and the States of Jersey publish flight arrivals and weather information on their.

And you can find information from a number of Jersey travel sources through our dedicated .

Source: BBC News

  A staggering majority of UK consumers are not getting the best out of their high-definition (HD) televisions, according to a survey.

Although 56% of UK households now have an HD television, 91% still watch standard DVDs and get their television through standard set-top boxes.

Full HD broadcasting can be viewed from Sky, Virgin and Freesat but will eventually be available on Freeview.

For full HD, films must be played on an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player.

Games consoles that some consumers have already offer HD content. Sony’s PlayStation 3 already has a Blu-Ray player built in, and the next versions of Microsoft’s XBox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii are rumoured to include Blu-Ray as well.

However, the survey of 2000 adults showed 81% admitted to not getting the best from any of the hi-tech gadgets around their homes – from mobiles to laptops.

That means that many consumers who have all the technology in hand to view full HD may not be setting up the devices and the cables properly to do so.

Cable, television

Sometimes it is as simple as not using the correct cable; all that is needed is an HDMI cable, and cheap ones work as well as expensive ones.

While HD boxes from commercial providers like Sky and Virgin come with an installation cost, the implications are that people are stymied by the technical details rather than the economics.

Unsurprisingly, 27% of respondents admitted to not reading the instruction manuals for their gadgets and 29% gave up at the outset, saying modern technology is too complicated.

"Unless you’re really into your technology, perhaps you don’t realise that just because it says HD on the box, the picture quality isn’t necessarily HD," said Stuart Miles, editor of technology website Pocket Lint.

"Once you show people HD they realise how poor the standard picture is, but a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to see that."

Source: BBC News

  The iPhone will be available at Tesco Mobile from 14 December, the company has announced.

Its lowest monthly tariff will be £20 a month for the duration of a 12-month contract – but customers will have to pay £222 for a basic 3G 8GB handset.

This works out over the course of the contract to an actual monthly fee of £38.50.

Both O2′s and Orange’s lowest tariff – £34.26 – is on a 24-month contract and comes with a free iPhone.

The tariff becomes only slightly more expensive to take an 18-month contract and pay about £97 for the handset.

These monthly cost figures represent the tariff plus the cost of the handset split into monthly payments.

Vodafone will also begin to carry the handset in 2010 but has not yet announced pricing details.

Apples and Orange

Although the Tesco averaged cost is the highest among the three, it says the advantage is in offering the shortest contract – and thus the ability to upgrade the handset sooner.

The entry-level bundle deal includes £60 credit each month, which works out to either 300 anytime minutes, 600 texts, or 150 minutes plus 300 texts.

As with the O2 and Orange offerings, the contract includes unlimited web and wi-fi access.

On a 24-month contract at £60 monthly, Tesco Mobile customers will get unlimited calls and texts and a more recent model – the iPhone 3GS 16GB – for free.

The iPhone will also be available to pay-as-you-go customers, for which the 3G model will cost £342.

Source: BBC News

  Facebook is launching new privacy settings, designed to simplify the process for its 350 million users.

It is the latest in a string of changes that have been made to its privacy policy this year.

The site claims that only 15-20% of users have ever adjusted their settings.

One new feature – the ability to control who sees every post made – was made following a stream of requests from users.

Facebook will make recommendations about how widely available different postings should be. It suggests that status updates should be visible to everybody.

"We believe users will feel comfortable sharing more," said a spokesperson.

It will mean information can be shared with a wider internet audience as search engines increasingly integrate content from social media sites into search results.

Google announced plans to integrate certain Facebook data into its real-time search although the data will be limited to public profile Facebook pages created by celebrities and companies.

Rival social media site Twitter makes all information viewable to the public.

Facebook will require users to update their general privacy settings, in a first for an internet firm.

It acknowledged that the process had become "complicated" as new features have been added to the site.

The new publisher privacy control means users can select a privacy setting for each piece of content, from updates to photos, meaning they can tailor their posts for specific audiences.

Privacy choice

Users will be asked to choose one of three categories; friends, friends of friends, or everyone.

From 9 December, Facebook will offer all its users a so-called transition tool, explaining the changes and asking users if they want to update their settings.

"We’ve always designed Facebook to enable people to control what information they share with whom… we will continue to innovate to serve users’ changing needs," said Elliot Schrage, vice president of communication.

Earlier in the summer, the social network was forced to make worldwide changes to its privacy policy when it was found to be in breach of Canadian law by holding on to users’ personal data indefinitely.

It agreed to make changes to the way it handles this information and be more transparent about what data it collects and why.

It also agreed to make it clear that users can deactivate or delete their account.

In February Facebook responded to criticism over the way it handled users’ data by opening up the site’s policies to users.

Source: BBC News

  Batteries made from plain copier paper could make for future energy storage that is truly paper thin.

The approach relies on the use of carbon nanotubes – tiny cylinders of carbon – to collect electric charge.

While small-scale nanotube batteries have been demonstrated before, the plain paper approach lends itself to making larger devices more cheaply.

The work, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could lead to "paintable" energy storage.

Because of its structure of millions of tiny, interconnected fibres, paper is a good candidate to hold on to carbon nanotubes, providing a scaffold on which to build devices.

However, paper is also mechanically tough, and can be bent, curled or folded, more than the metal or plastic surfaces that are currently used or under development.

Good on paper

A team of researchers at Stanford University started with off-the-shelf copier paper, painting it with an "ink" made of carbon nanotubes.

The coated paper is then dipped in lithium-containing solutions and an electrolyte to provide the chemical reaction that generates a battery’s electric current.

The paper acts to collect the electric charge from the reaction. Using paper in this way could reduce the weight of batteries, typically made with metal current collectors, by 20%.

The team’s batteries are also capable of releasing their stored energy quickly. That is a valuable characteristic for applications that need quick bursts of energy, such as electric vehicles – although the team has no immediate plans to develop vehicle batteries.

Liangbing Hu, lead author on the research, said the most important aspect of the demonstration was that paper is an inexpensive and well-understood material – making wider usage of the technology more likely.

"Standard copier paper used in our everyday life can be a solution in storing energy in a more efficient and cheap way," Dr Hu told BBC News.

"The experienced technology developed in the paper industry over a century can be transferred to improve the process and performance of these paper-based devices."

The team says that adaptations to the technique in the future could allow for simply painting the nanotube ink and active materials onto surfaces such as walls.

They have even experimented with a number of textiles, paving the way for batteries made largely of cloth.

Source: BBC News

Google has introduced so-called "real-time web" results into its search engine.

It means that Google will display information from news organisations, blogs and platforms, such as Twitter, as soon as it is published.

Google said it was "the first time" that a search engine had integrated the real-time web into its results page.

The feature will also be available on phones, such as the iPhone and handsets running the Android operating system.