But, I also think that it can be a bad thing too.

Social networks for instance. I think it is possible that they are the bane of relationships. Sure, they don't have to be, when not abused. At least in theory that should be the way it is. But really who's fooled by theory?

Scenario: You and the one you love are on a social network. You trust each other. There is no history of cheating or anything like that. What person alive can resist taking a peek at the comments that their significant other receives on said social site? What person in love can honestly say they don't care what other people may or may not be flirting with the person that they share their lives with? None that I know.

So, you innocently look and see what the world at large thinks about the one you love. Of course they think many of the same things you do about them. They think they are attractive. They dig some of their interests. The odd internet prowler overlooks the fact that it is readily available knowledge that they are in fact NOT single and flirts with them. You feel a bit of jealousy over these things, and that is natural, and healthy, but you never for one moment doubt your partner. As a matter of fact, with the jealousy, comes a sense of pride. They are with you after all, and everyone likes to be in possession of something that others want.

Next, you may playfully bring these things up. You really mean nothing by it. And in your mind, trust barriers have not been broken, I mean, really, you just saw what is right there and what everyone else could see. You are joking about it, but a hint of the jealousy you felt comes through. Naturally.

Now, your partner thinks you are checking up on them, and that you don't trust them. They get angry and it starts a fight, and breeds resentment. In some cases, it destroys relationships. And people let it.

Is it really worth it? Or should we just separate our internet lives from our daily REAL lives? Or banish this wonderful but massively misused tool from our desktops and minds in favor of love?

• You were best friends in elementary school.
• You go off to different High Schools because you move to different countries or states) and make new friends.
• During or after High School you suddenly remember that person and wonder where he or she is and what they are up to.
• So you search their name on Facebook and find them.
• You send them a friend request and they accept it (provided they have Facebook).
• Voila!! You are now in touch with your old friend!
• You now chat with them every day or couple of days.
• You can send friend requests to your friend's friends and get to know them.
• Soon, you have a big network of friends!!!

If you plan to get on Facebook, have fun!! (its free by the way)

If you don't, well, then its your loss.

Since I began blogging, I have noticed that just about everywhere you look, businesses, celebrities, authors, newspapers, and everyday people have blogs.  I created mine through Blogger for free, but you can also create blogs on Typepad, which charges a low monthly fee, Homestead where you can try it for free for the first 30 days then pay a low monthly fee, or a few others. 

Blogs are fun because they allow you to create a place online where you can be yourself.  You can design however you want, say what you want, add pictures, Youtube video feeds, connect with other bloggers, get feedback, leave feedback, and you can even place money making ads on your blogs.  All of my blogs are about things that I enjoy.  I have a blog of photos and artwork that my kids have done, The World Through Ryan and James' Eyes, one about books, Christy's Book Cafe, where you can find book reviews and links to blogs by James Patterson and Tess Gerritson.  My favorite blog to work on right now is Creativity In Writing where I share the writings of talented writers here on Triond.  I have enjoyed adding to my blogs and finding the blogs of other people.

If you go to the website of your favorite author, I bet you will find a blog link for them.  Go ahead, take a look, click on that link and you might just find some interesting info about your author or their books.  The fun thing about James Patterson is that he has a blog for himslef and a blog by Maximum Ride called Fly On. If you have read any of the Maximum Ride books, you will enjoy this blog.

Enjoy cruising? Check out Carnival Cruise Lines blog and John Heald's Blog about his cruising experiences.  I have even discovered that several of my Triond friends have blogs of their own! I have linked all of them to my Creativity In Writing Blog so others can see tham as well.  Some of them are Glynis Smy, Hein Marais, Jackie Stroud Painter, and Mary J. Dressel.  I am truly enjoying visiting blogs and reading articles as well as sharing stories and reading comments from everyone! 

Don't have a blog yet? Don't worry, check out some of the blogs that you find in your searches and you just might be inspired! I have read blogs about people reading books, about life on a ranch in Montana, about raising kids, biulding model airplanes, Dachshunds, and so much more! I have even read a post by a blog author that included a photo, about the horrible messy diaper she had to change on her baby! So, like I said before, be yourslef, talk about what interests you, and feel free to share your opinions with the world!  If you have a blog, go ahaed and leave the address in the comments section and I will "come for a visit" soon!

I have been blogging for a few months and although I have just discovered this business, I am enjoying it and I find it very entertaining. Having a blog is like having a diary. You could opt to have a private diary where you can write everything that comes into your mind or you can have a blog to share to the millions and millions of people in the internet. It is not hard to expose your blogs because almost every person now is surfing the internet. There are also a lot of sites that you can use to promote your blog.

Blogging could be used to hone your writing skills. There are many bloggers who do not know how to write well yet they are being read by a lot of people. The advantage of blogging is anyone could have it and you can write anything you like on it. There are blogs that prohibit certain materials but if you are a person who uses blog for a good purpose, you don't have to worry about restrictions.

Blogging is a nice way to express your thoughts, opinions and views. You can also have the opportunity to comment on other people's blogs and make friends with them. The idea of others for having a blog is to meet other people and having a blog is a good way of meeting new friends all over the world. As you blog and you become an expert on it, you could use your blog to earn an extra pocket money. It could pay some of your bills. Though I still haven't earned that much in blogging to boast it to other people, I do have cents in my accounts which when added could add up to a few dollars. With a little patience and effort in your part, you will soon know if you can earn by blogging.

Many people today are claiming that they are making substantial money through blogging. They could be right. As the saying goes, “There's no harm in trying.” Good luck.

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1. Networking.

   Some sites have groups of writers that work for them, all on their own, from home. These writers can show their support for each other by posting comments. A way of saying, "I have seen your site, now check out mine", without actually saying that.
   

2. Bragging Rights = More Sharing.

   A site where you can post your comment is more likely to be shared by you personally as a way of showing your friends that you have your name on a site, with your opinions.
   

3. Input for Improvement

   Some writers like to have input as a way to improve. When they get feedback they can return to their site and edit, omit, or add things to make the site better. A better site generates more hits, and most site creators want this.
   

4. Approval

   Some writers like to have comments as a sort of pat on the back, a way to feel good. A way to get interaction with people.

Why wouldn't a site have a comments area?

1. They do not want any negative feedback.
   
2. They do not have time to manage feedback. Most sites enable the user to delete any feedback, or require them to check it before it is posted. Some site owners do not have time for this so simply do not allow feedback of any kind.
   
3. They simply over looked the importance of allowing it.
   
4. The site isn't conducive to having comments added. Meaning that what ever the site is about, there is no point in commenting on it.

My own thoughts for you to comment on, if you wish.

1. I have dial up Internet, it is slow and annoying. It is hard and time consuming to post comments, so I only do so when I am passionate about something, or have lots of time to wait for a site to down load. I prefer sites where the comment shows up right away, as opposed to ones where it has to go through a moderator.
   
2. I am frustrated when I cannot have input, especially to correct something or point out something. Recently there was a site about a couple who lost a cat for several years, and then found it. The site reported they lost a "ginger" cat, but the picture clearly showed a calico cat.
   
3. I would LOVE to be able to add comments on links where certain pet foods are being marketed as good food. However, these sites usually do not allow comments, or would certainly delete mine!
   
4. From the social networking aspect, it is sometimes hard to come up with comments more exciting than the standard "that is a good poem" comment. Sometimes I would rather say nothing than add a redundant comment.

You even might not be familiar with them at all.

It's a shame! Marketing nowadays is a necessity in every field.

These marketing words are used a lot all over the internet and it is every important that you have some understanding of what they mean.

And since I know all about these words and language, I am going to help you understand the reality and nature of these top used marketing words.

Today I am going to list the next 25 words of the top 247 marketing words you have to know about now!

1. Crawler: also called “spider” is a program that searches websites to add them in search engines
2. Cross promotion: it is a plan in which you sell your product in conjunction with promoting another product
3. CSS: cascading style sheet. It is a form of html coding which allows you to change the style of a web page without having to edit each individual page.
4. Dedicated hosting: it is a web hosting server that is dedicated only for your website. This means it isn't shared by other customers.
5. Del.icio.us: a social bookmarking site for sharing and storing bookmarks with other users. It is free and viewable by public, so simply anyone can see the bookmarked pages on it.
6. Digg: a web 2.0 site that articles and blogs are listed on. It brings more traffic to your site.
7. Directory site: it is an organized site that lists a huge number of websites. You can list your sites in a directory to be found online and get more traffic.
8. Domain name: it is the name of your website such as: triond.com
9. Double opt-in: it is when you opt-in for information from a site and asks for your email to send you the information and then send you an email with a verification link to make sure that you really want this information requested. So after you verify that they send you the information requested.
10. E-bay: one of the biggest online markets where you can buy anything. It uses an auction form in buying and selling where the highest bidder gets the product.
11. E-business: it is any business that gets its income and traffic online
12. E-book: a book that is downloaded and read on computers. It can be of .pdf or .exe extensions. Pdf is the format of books read on acrobat reader.
13. Emoticons: these are icons that can be animated in order to show emotions when you are chatting or talking to anyone online
14. EPC: earnings per click
15. Ezine: electronic magazine where you can submit articles about your products to drive traffic to your selling site
16. FAQ: frequently asked questions that are asked about any website. It acts as a help forum to understand what the site is all about.
17. Flaming: it is writing comments that seem normal but they contain degrading tone and intents. These comments are called flames.
18. Folksonomy: a labeling system that allows you to categorize websites, links and photos
19. Forum: is a place online that holds discussions about a website or topic. There you can post comments or questions to be answered. A great way to express your point of view and to get more publicity to your site.
20. Freelancer: someone who works by a job done. They get paid for each job they get done. You can find freelancers on elance.com and rent-a-coder.com
21. FRA: free reprint articles. These are articles you are free to use again to add on your blog or site to gain extra content that helps you be found on search engines.
22. FTP: the standard protocol to download and upload files online. It is essential to upload your files on your website.
23. Ghost site: a site that is no longer updated but still online
24. Guru: an experienced teacher that influence others to do as he/she teach
25. Give away rights: this is when you give away a product for free and allow others to distribute it for free

First and foremost, anyone with the number 69 in their user name isn't a keeper. If anything, its a guarantee that the person in question is a sex-crazed teenager looking for a new play thing, a middle aged man who thinks blatant sexual references are a sure fire way to attract women, or someone who just plain has a lot of growing up to do before they are ready for a serious relationship. Additionally, I'd like to point out that this comes along with a 60% chance that the person is overweight. You should also avoid names such as "Hawtblonde," "Sexygrrrl," and any name that references body parts.

The next thing to watch out for -and this is a big one- is people who use constant abbreviations instead of full words. I know it's all the rage amongst the younger crowd, but if you receive a message that says "ur pic is hawt u r a qt" you might want to start looking somewhere else for a mate. Adults use real words to communicate. If they can't communicate like an adult, they aren't ready for an adult relationship. There is one exception to this rule: brief messages coming from a cell phone are acceptable. Typing full words on one of those things can be infuriating, but I'm talking brief messages. You want to communicate with your cell phone? Dial the number and make the call, stop the texting foolishness and leave the abbreviations to the 14-year-old girls. God help them if they say an abbreviation out loud instead of speaking the full words. People who do that deserve to be smacked.

Once you meet that special someone and you start spending some time together, there is one last thing to keep an eye out for. If all you ever seem to talk about is sex, chances are they aren't looking for anything else from you. They may not be willing to admit it to themselves, but the chances of it turning into something more meaningful is slim, especially after you start having sex. It isn't impossible to salvage this sort of relationship, but it's going to take a lot of effort, so be sure they are worth it.

It can take a lot of effort to find someone worth pursuing a meaningful relationship with. It's important to remember that not everyone is looking for the same thing you are, and not everyone really knows what they are looking for. It's okay to meet up with Hawtblonde77 or bigJohnson69 from time to time for a good time, but it's important to remember that a good time is likely all they are looking fro from you. Heed my advice, and you might just find yourself a keeper.

Until next time, braaiiins...

Pretenders

First and foremost, you have to watch out for underage kids, married adults, foreigners looking for a free ticket into the country, dirty old men pretending to be young girls, and classmates or co-workers looking to have some fun at your expense. All of the above will be pretending to be something they aren't and will be looking to take advantage of you in some way or another. There's no real way to know if anyone is being truthful with you over the internet, especially if you don't know them from your day-to-day life. If they are too eager to please you, or vague about how they got your information in the first place, it's a good indicator that something is amiss.

A friend of mine once told me about his younger brother and his forty-year-old internet girlfriend. In this case, we have not one, but two people pretending to be something they aren't. One is a 15 year old boy claiming to be 18, and the other is a married woman with three sons (all of which are older than the boy in question), pretending to be single. As you can see, this was a disaster waiting to do some serious damage. Luckily, a few days before the boy was supposed to meet this woman in a hotel room, he bragged about it to his uncle, who then went to his parents and made sure it never happened. Instead, the uncle met the lady at the hotel room and explained to her that she was about to commit statutory rape because of her carelessness on the internet. This is how the details about her having a husband and kids came to light. Imagine the damage that could have been done if they had met and gone through with their little encounter.

Photos

Swapping pictures of each other always seems like a good means of being sure the person is who they say they are. Remember those horror stories I was telling you about? Many of them revolve around pictures being different than the genuine article. It's easy to fake this sort of thing. Fakes can range from real pictures of the person when they were younger or thinner, pictures of the person's friends or family instead of themselves, or even just pictures they found on the internet. Ask for more than just a single picture, preferably ones with friends or family involved. It's a lot easier to fake a single picture than a family photo album. Short of a live webcam, though, it's going to be hard to be 100% certain, and even that can be faked if they are willing to put forth the effort. Doesn't hurt to do a quick Google image search for words they might have used to find the picture by the same method either.

I knew a guy once who thought he had hooked up with this hot redhead. He would talk about how great she was at length and eventually they started engaging in cyber sex. Next thing he knows, his cyber sexploits are posted all over a former friends blog about how he duped him into falling in love with a fake girl. Had he bothered to do a quick image search for "hot redhead," he would have found the exact picture he had fallen in love with.

Obsession

If you find yourself in a relationship and things are going well, the next thing you need to start looking out for is drastic changes to your daily routines. If you find yourself sitting in front of your computer for hours on end, just waiting for your other half to sign into instant messaging or reply to  an e-mail, it's not a healthy thing to be doing. If your whole life turns into sitting in front of the computer, waiting for the next bit of interaction, no matter how small, you need to rethink what your life has become. If you're doing these things because the person on the other end demands it of you, then you definitely need to reevaluate the relationship.

A guy I met through an online college course fell into this trap, and it did some serious damage to his life. This guy was in his second semester of his first year of college, sitting pretty with a full-ride scholarship to a fancy state university. He met this girl in a chat room, a high school junior, and everything in his life changed.

Everyday when she got home from school, first thing she did was to sit down in front of her computer, do her homework, and chat with friends. This is where the problem started. The guy had a class that starts 5 minutes after she usually signs into instant messaging. It didn't take long for him to start blowing off the lecture except during tests, and soon he didn't even bother showing up for those. Before long, it spread to skipping his other evening class to spend more time online talking to her, and ignoring any homework or studying for his other classes. By the time the semester ended, she had broken up with him for some guy at her school, and he was looking at failing grades in all his courses. He lost his scholarship, and last I heard, has made a career of living in his mom's basement and flipping burgers, all because of some girl he barely knew.

In Conclusion

These are, in my opinion, the biggest dangers of internet dating. It can ruin lives if you're not careful. Like it or not, if you find yourself reading this and it sounds a little too familiar, you might want to take a closer look at how you're living your life. If you do you might be able to salvage something good before it's too late, or save yourself a lot of pain or humiliation down the road.

Until next time, braaiiins...

1. Digital Films

   Let your creative juices flow at DigitalFilms.com as you prepare to produce your very own digital movie that you can email or share with your friends and family. Choose your own background scene, characters, animated actions, dialog, introduction and ending credits and everything that you will need to produce your own digital film for free. Let your creativity shine online and share your creation with the world.

2. Food Fighting

   Start a food fight online among your family and friends by throwing virtual food at them via email. Simply select the type of food you wish to toss their way from red ripe tomatoes to cream pies without having to clean up any mess. This concept is simple, but fun when more people get involved.

3. Strange Reports

   We all know someone who likes playing practical jokes and pranks on unsuspecting people. Now get ready for some sweet payback by creating a virtual prank with their name written all over it. Send a fake news report with your victim named as the sole suspect that the police are looking for via email. You create the news report using the tools that StrangeReports.com provides and then you simply forward the report to your victim's email address and let the fun begin.

4. Folding U.S. Paper Money

   After stumbling across this interesting money folding activity on Bored.com, I knew that this one activity that would blow your mind. You can fold U.S. paper money using the techniques shown on this website to see the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on fire or you can see Osama in The Pentagon and so, much more by simply folding your money correctly. This exercise will blow your mind. I promise.

5. The Dialectizer

   This website lets visitors convert any English text into several comic dialects from Pig Latin to Redneck and several other dialects. Simply type the URL of any website written in the English language, select the dialect of your choice, and then click Dialectize, so you can see your favorite websites converted into the language that you selected.

6. Cave of Magic

   Originally I had my doubts about this mind control magic trick, but admittedly it blew my mind, because it worked. Cave of Magic is a card trick that guides visitors through a series of short exercises, before it has you pick a single card, and then Simeon (your guide) mysteriously reads your mind and picks the card that you have selected. It's wild, weird and most importantly, it really works.

7. Crazy Images

   This is a must see website that offers its visitors a wide selection of amazing interactive activities that will keep you busily entertained for hours. Choose from image menu an activity that you want to see, and then using your mouse take control making the images change right before your eyes. Hidden within some of the images are nuggets of treasures that will reveal more websites and activities that will blow your mind. I'll leave finding these Easter Eggs embedded within some of the activities on this website up to you to discover, because it is part of the fun.

8. Fortune Teller

   Just for fun, let's see what your fortune has in store for your future. You can choose from nine different kinds of readings that are each focused on a different aspect of your life. Similar to tarot card readings, but using a regular deck of playing cards these readings are pretty dare accurate.

9. Match Age

   Try to accurately guess the real ages of the people shown on this site using only the photograph that the user has provided or upload your own photo and let other people try to guess your age. This is an extremely addictive activity, so you might want to avoid visiting this site until you have more free time available.

10. Get MakeOvers

    Have you been considering changing the natural color of your hair or getting a new hairstyle, but are a little nervous about what the changes might do to your look, then before you do anything too extreme checkout this website first. You can upload your photo and change your hairstyle, makeup, glasses, and many other things until you discover the best new look for you and before you actually do anything to yourself in real life. This is a really useful website as well as a lot of fun to unwind while using.