Online Shopping Guide

Canadian Web Hosting

A website is an invaluable tool for your business. It provides a source of contact between you, the customers, the employees and the business. That is why putting up your website with a reliable web hosting company is such an important decision.

Canada web hosting spans the entire North America continent as well as into Europe. The internet has made communication between people from different continents possible. Even if the Canadian web hosting service is located in a Canadian city or town, it can still effectively serve its clients around the world and provide satisfactory services. However, the first thing you need to know before you can engage the services of a Canadian web hosting is to know what your website is for.

Canadian web hosting is reliable, fast, convenient and affordable. For those in the North American continent, Canada web hosting offers a good alternative to the traditional American based web hosting services. Although it is not encouraged, Canada web hosting is one way to stretch your money’s value to the limits. The Canadian dollar has a lower exchange rate compared to the American dollar. This is one important feature for the budget-conscious.

For those who are new to the web hosting business, Canada web hosting could provide a way for the users to avail of the same service at a lower price. If your website has numerous data, generates many hits and heavy bandwidth, it might be faster and more convenient to use Canada web hosting. Canada web hosting offers technical support to customers as well.

There are a number of web hosting Canadian companies that offer great service to clients. Among them is MonsterHosting.ca. Their web hosting plan starts at $6.95. Another Canada web hosting service is IPowerWeb. They have their headquarters in California but have a number of offices in Canada.

ReadyWebsites.com extends website layout and hosting for a total of $8.99 a month. If you want to launch a business website, you can use Canada – based Builder Spot.com. Their site has some building tools that enable you to get your website up and running in no time at all.

If you live in Canada or somewhere near, it is easier to avail of Canada web hosting in order that you will be able to contact your host for technical support when you incur problems related to the Canada web hosting. Customer service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year through phone or email. Before you engage the company’s services, be sure to do some research on Canada web hosting services you are interested in. This way you will know what to expect from them and know if they do offer the services you really need.

About the Author

For more Canadian webhosting resources and information, please visit http://helpfulwebhosting.com

Canadian Web Hosting by David Dunlap

The Rules of Horse Racing – types of bet

ow to bet on horse racing and win! The first thing to understand is that in traditional horse racing betting, you are in direct competition with the ‘bookie’ – the person or company that lays the odds. They want your money, and you want theirs. Each bookie has an ‘oddsmaker’ – a person or system that creates their ‘book’. In theory a book is structured so that the bookie can’t lose – whoever wins the race, the odds are so structured as to guarantee a profit to the bookmaker.

The most common types of horse race bets are:-

Straight bet (a.k.a ‘Single’ or ‘Win’ bet). This is a bet that a certain horse will win. For this, you are given definite odds. If your selection wins, so do you, receiving back the amount specified by the odds you accepted.

Place bet. This is a bet that your horse will finish either first or second, and of course has worse odds than a straight bet.

Show Bet. This is a bet that your horse will finish either first, second, or third and of course has worse odds than a place bet.

Combination Bet. This bet allows you to choose between two and four horses to win in a specified order. The cumulative odds on this can multiply rapidly if you get it right. Pick 3 bet. You must pick the winners of three consecutive races. This is surprisingly hard to do, as you have to choose all 3 before the first one kicks off.

Pick 6 bet. You must pick the winners of six consecutive races, choosing all 6 before the first one kicks off.

Quiniela or Reverse Forecast (UK) bet. You can bet on two horses to finish first and second in a single race where the order doesn’t matter – either horse A is first and Horse B is second, or vice versa. To bet you say “$10 quiniela, numbers 3 and 7″. If the results of the first two horses are either 3-7 or 7-3, you win.

Perfecta / Exacta / Straight Forecast (UK) bet. You bet on two horses to cross the finish line in exactly your chosen order. To bet you say ” $5 Perfecta, 4-7.” Only if the horses finish 4-7 you win.

Trifecta / Tricast / Treble Forecast (UK) bet. Like a Perfecta, but betting on three horses to cross the finish line in exactly your chosen order. To bet you say “$10 trifecta numbers 3,2 and 5.” Only if they finish 3-2-5 you win.

Superfecta bet. That’s right – you guessed it! four horses to cross the finish line in the exact order you specify. At www.supabets.com we quite like this one.

Daily Double. Allows you to select the winners of the first and second races of the day, placing your bet before the start of the very first race. To bet you say something like “$5 daily double on 6 (your pick to win in the first race) and 2 (your pick to win in the second race)”.

Jackpot bet. Like the lottery, you pick six winners in six races. Prizes vary, but because the odds are so extreme, they tend to be very large.

Accumulator bet. A sequence of bets of your choice, where you ‘let it ride’. You bet on multiple races, and the winnings are passed along to the next bet in the sequence. If you get it right, this can multiply up to very large sums quite rapidly, although even one wrong call will mean you lose everything. Not for the faint of heart! (tied or cancelled races are simply removed from the accumulator).

Future bet. At the start of each horse racing season, you will be able to get odds on a horse to win a certain event at some future point which you specify. The odds you get are fixed, so even if they shorten for everyone else as the race approaches, you still get the original odds you were offered.

In the UK, bets are done slightly differently. If you want to place an each way bet, you need to know that with 2 to 4 runners you can’t do place betting. With 5 to 7 runners you can bet on the 1st and 2nd and will win one quarter the odds. With 8 or more runners, you can go all the way to show and will win one fifth odds.

To complicate matters, handicap races have different rules – with 12 to 15 runners you can go all the way to show at one quarter odds. With 16 or more runners you can bet on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th at one quarter odds. Don’t ever be afraid to ask for advice – the bookie WANTS you to bet and will explain ant term you don’t understand. For more on Yankee bets and other horse racing tips, consult www.factlocker.com .

About the Author

Alan Cramer is turf correspondent for www.factlocker.com the free site all about betting and gaming.

The Rules of Horse Racing – types of bet by Alan Cramer

Web hosting Basics

So you’re about to embark on your first web project and you’re wondering where on earth to start? Well, one of the first things you’ll need is a web hosting package. There are so many out there it can seem daunting to try and choose one. In this article we’ll teach you the basics to help you make an informed decision.

What is Web Hosting?

For people to actually view your pages on the web, you must have your files located on a “web server”. When they visit your site, what they are actually doing is viewing those files. You can rent a little bit of space on the web server, or if your site is large, rent an entire server for your site. Each server is assigned an IP address. This is a four number address that is separated by dots. i.e. 127.0.0.1 Every domain name actually points to an IP address and this is how visitors access your files on the web server.

Once your site is hosted on a webserver, it can be viewed by any computer in the world through a web browser. All they need to do is type in your domain name to view your web pages. Your site must be hosted on a web server before it will be available to external visitors.

What is a Web Host

A Web Host is a company that owns and maintains webservers with the purpose of hosting web sites. You rent space from these companies and in return they will maintain and service the server. Part of this entails keeping the server software current, applying any security patches and ensuring the site is always available, known as ‘uptime’. To achieve peak performance, these servers are normally housed in specialist ‘datacenters’ with dedicated high speed connections to ensure that website loading speeds are as high as possible. A lot of web hosting companies will rent space in a large datacenter to save costs.

Web Host companies come in all shapes and sizes, from large multinational telecommunications companies to joe bloggs down the street with a server in their office. A number of web hosting companies will include a lot of other services to make them a one-stop shop to get yourself on the web. This could include domain name registration which ensures your domain name will point to the correct IP address as soon as the name is registered. If you register your domain name with a different company you will need to specify the IP address of your hosting server before anyone is able to view your files.

Types of Web Hosting

    * Shared Hosting

      Shared hosting means your site will be hosted on a web server that is also hosting a number of other websites at the same time. The server disk space and server resources, i.e. RAM, data transfer is divided up between the various clients. Although your site is located on a shared server, your files are still secure and can not be viewed by anyone else who also has their site on that web server.

      As well as sharing the server resources, all the websites also share the same IP. This can be important in some cases as some websites can get banned by search engines for improper behaviour such as SPAM or illegal activities. When a website is banned, the search engine will block the IP address which means all the other sites on the web server may also be affected. It is therefore important to ensure that the web hosting company careful monitors the activities of the websites they host or state what kind of sites are appropriate for that server.

    * Virtual Private Server Hosting

      Virtual Private Servers (VPS) share some of the same characteristics as shared hosting but it provides you with a bit more control over your own destiny. Like shared hosting, a web server is divided up and the server’s resources are split between the clients. What makes this different is that each partition is given its own IP address and generally, there are a very limited amount of users on each server, ensuring that you get a good share of the server’s resources.

    * Dedicated Hosting

      Dedicated Hosting means that the entire web server is ‘dedicated’ to one website, or one client. A client can host a number of their own websites if they choose to do so. The benefits of this are that you control the server, and can be assured that no one else is doing anything on their website that will affect your site. It also means that all the systems resources are geared to your site which will boost the speed and reliability of your site. On the downside, having your own dedicated server incurs a much bigger investment and you are responsible for ensuring that the server is always running.

      This can be a great option if you run a large site that will cover these costs and you have the technical expertise to manage the server.

Summary

I hope that after reading this you’ll have a better idea about what kind of web hosting plan best suits your particular needs. Remember to look around. There are lots of very good companies out there but there are also a lot of bad one’s. It pays to do some research about the company you choose before purchasing your web hosting plan.

About the Author

Steve Ashton is a programmer and web developer. He runs two popular websites, Web Hosting Guide and Domain Names Center.

Web hosting Basics   by Steve Ashton

Are Free File Download Services Really Safe

On Monday June 27, 2005 the Supreme Court ruled that Grokster and Streamsoft, two free file download
services, were operating illegally because they were allegedly encouraging illegal downloads of copyrighted material.

Encouraging it…that was what the Supreme Court said. These were free services that were encouraging illegal activity.

Would this have happened if they had had paying customers? In other words, would a paid file download service
be better than a free download service?

I think so, and here’s my reasoning why…

If you consider that every dollar paid is like a vote, then it becomes clear the paid file downloading services are much more accountable than free file downloading services.

If you follow my metaphor so far, then you may see how a paid file download service is like an elected official, and a free file download service is like a dictator.

Here’s how they differ:

1. If an elected official doesn’t get enough votes, the elected official doesn’t get re-elected and is “out of there”.

2. A dictator doesn’t care about votes. A dictator does
whatever they want. And, if you get hurt by what they do….
well, it’s YOUR problem.

Basically, it’s all about accountability.

A legitimate business has to make money to survive. If a business hurts people, customers will stop buying from that business and go elsewhere. And, if people stop buying from that business, then that business is “out of there” (just like the elected official which loses votes).

But a free file sharing service can “do what it wants”, just like a dictator, and if they even go to the level of encouraging you to do things that are illegal, even lying to you by telling you that it’s perfectly legal… well it’s no skin off their nose. It’s your problem!

Or so they thought…up to now.

For the first time, the Supreme Court has made these shady liars legally responsible for their bad behavior.

They got away with it in the past by “advising” people to do things that were potentially illegal. They rationalized it by saying “Hey, we aren’t the ones actually doing it, so we shouldn’t be held responsible.”

But the Supreme Court has finally cleared this up. They are responsible, and can now be sued for their actions. Even if they did it for “FREE”.

“FREE”… that was the draw that got so many innocent kids downloading songs, videos, movies, games, etc. illegally without knowing it. The “FREE” file downloading services were just exploiting these kids’ ignorance.

Paid download services can’t afford this kind of behavior. They look at this as a business. If they start getting their customers in trouble, word gets around pretty fast on the internet, and their business will become toast!

Think of this like NetFlix, who doesn’t sell download services, but sends out CDs and DVDs through the mail. What would happen to them if they “encouraged” purchasing illegally copied movies or music from them? Yeah you got it… toast!

But the “FREE” file sharing services that are encouraging kids to do this thought they could get away with this indefinitely because “they weren’t making any money off of it, and after all, they weren’t the actual people doing the downloading.”

Nice legal trickery… good thing it won’t work anymore!

So… the question still begging to be asked is:
“Are paid file download services better than free file download services?”

I’ll let you take it from here… ;^)

Are Free File Download Services Really Safe / John Pawlett

Download Classic Movie is an informative Free Download site that looks into all aspects of Downloading from Music to Movies. To find out more visit Free Legal Downloads

Advanced Artistry Photoshop Tutorials

If you’re a Photoshop user with a working knowledge of the basics, you may well enjoy the Advanced Artistry Photoshop tutorials. With this intermediate level training package you can hone some very advanced Photoshop skills. Here is what you’ll learn.

The Introductory CD will tell you all about the course and the instructor, including some tips on how best to learn from the Photoshop tutorials. You’ll learn about the technical aspects of the presentation and its variations from Mac to PC.

The next of the Photoshop tutorial CDS is called Utilities. Machine basics are included in this lesson plan, as well as PS preference and essential shortcuts. You’ll learn navigation shortcuts, as well as those for imaging, tools, and workspace.

You’ll get a quick review of all the keystroke and Photoshop super shortcut techniques and help setting up your own workspace.

The next of the Photoshop tutorials tackles the subject of retouching. In this CD you’ll learn the professional retouching techniques, how to assess the Photoshop image, how to analyze the histogram, as well as the contrast, lighting and texture.

You learn how to do an analysis of the focus and to manage the contrast controls. You’ll learn the ins and outs of contrast levels, and the use of each level. You’ll learn to use curves, to enhance color and the advanced techniques to avoid saturation.

These Photoshop tutorials will also teach you to use the patch tool and the healing brush, and to burn and dodge demos without destruction. You’ll also master the technique of red eye reduction.

Advanced artistry tutorials in this Photoshop lesson package will also include a CD that teaches how to adjust for focus and the center of interest, how to sharpen the focus, how to enhance the field depth and how to fish or burn edges.

In the fine art toning CD you learn intermediate and advanced techniques of producing black and white photos from color originals, how to work with and create sepia tones, selenium tones, digital cyanotypes and maps with gradients.

Fine art photograph effects lessons include soft focusing, angelic and dramatic posing, high contrast and high keys and cross processing.

Including in this Photoshop tutorial is mastery of fine techniques for people’s skin, giving them the look of perfect skin, of radiant and dramatically glowing skin, advanced techniques in metal skin looks, infrared and translucent skin, and the use of maps for displacement.

Natural media and landscape techniques are taught in Photoshop advanced artistry tutorials as well.

Enhancing the skies and adding sky from other photos are techniques taught, as well as using the history and art history brushes, and burning and dodging without being destructive.

If you want to create a professional hand drawn look you can master that technique through Photoshop tutorials, and can also learn watercolor, logos, and vector illustration too. Hand tinting lessons are varied and include painting in a color mode and adjusting of layers.

Grid and Tech glows, TV scan lines, pixel drags, and edges and borders that are soft, painted, beveled or burned are all advanced artistry Photoshop tutorial lessons.

Advanced Artistry Photoshop Tutorials / David Peters

Master The Basics Of Adobe Photoshop In Under 2 Hours With Easy To Follow Online Photoshop Video Tutorials. Full Details Here: www.learnphotoshopnow.com