First of all, Page Rank is Google’s ranking algorithm that calculates the importance of webpages on the Internet. In order to get a high PR, a site has to have high PR websites linking to it that are relevant to the topic of the site, and are not blacklisted by Google. The PR scale is from 0 to 10, with 3 being respectable, 6 impressive, and 10 almost impossible to achieve. It is a widely used way to determine a website’s value when deciding to buy a site, exchanging links with it, or in any other circumstances. Since it is so widely used, sometimes the consequences of being tricked by a fake PR can be drastic, like in a case of buying an expensive website. However there are ways to identify fake Page Rank, depending on circumstances:

1. Visit this PR checking tool (checkpagerank.net) to determine if the PR is valid. Among other things, it checks whether a site uses a 301 or 302 redirect that points from their site to another site with a high Pagerank. Such redirect can be used to fake a site’s PR by displaying PR of another website, instead of its own. PR displayed in toolbars is not always real, as it can be tricked by redirecting.

2. Check the number of backlinks on the smartpagerank.com site. If there are none or only few backlinks from low PR sites and the sites appears to have a high PR, it might indicate that something suspicious is going on. Use the backlinks analyzer for detailed information.

3. Check the number of indexed pages by checking out smartpagerank.com. If there are no pages it means that the domain has probably dropped/expired recently, or that it is blacklisted by Google. If there are only a few links and the site has a high PR, you should be cautious as well.

4. Use the WayBackMachine tool (archive.org/index.php) to see how the site looked like in the past. If it was a completely different website, it might mean that it recently switched owners. If the topic of the new website is different as well, there is a risk that the PR will drop. That is because Google only counts links relevant to the topic to determine PR.

We might not very often hear about people who is using Linux. Probably most of our friends use Windows, and it is quite apparent that most people are familiar with Windows. I know that there are those who are very much into Linux, and recently I have even read an article regarding Linux on a forum. It is a fact that Linux is a free platform, so some could expect it to be more popular than Windows which is a commercial software. However, Linux is not as easy to use as Windows, and lacks many important features which could be useful to an average computer user. Generally speaking, Linux users cannot use many programs like Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop. If you choose Linux you will simply have to live without these programs. I think that would be quite inconvenient for most people.

Of course, there are some programs which can be substitutes for the above mentioned software, as Open Office is quite powerful, and there is also a lot of graphic editing programs out there. However, the problem is that most software is only designed to work with Windows, so if you are not going to use the most popular operating system, you are not going to be able to use a lot of programs. It is hard to say whether Linux has a chance to become very popular, only the time will tell. However, it is true that it will be hard to compete with Microsoft Windows. Anyway, according to many computer geeks Linux still remains a great choice for advanced computer users.

There are many firewalls currently on the market, and while many of them advertise that they offer the best protection available, this is obviously true of only one firewall, as you cannot have many different firewalls that are the best. It is hard to decide which one offers the best protection just by reading the descriptions of various firewalls. The best way to decide which firewall can protect you the most is to conduct a test. Such tests were done, and I am going present you with the top five results:

Comodo Firewall Pro (95%)
ProSecurity (93%)
Outpost Firewall Pro (91%)
Online Armor Personal Firewall (89%)
Kaspersky Internet Security (85%)

It is interesting that the top two firewalls are actually free, and to have the best protection you do not need to spend any money. From the commercial firewalls it seems that Outpost, Online Armor, and Kaspersky are the best choices. From this list I would recommend Kaspersky. These days there is a lot of malicious websites that contain malware, so using a reliable firewall program is a must. However, the results prove that even those who do not have a lot of money to invest in protecting their computer can still have great protection. This is especially true if they do a little bit of research before deciding which firewall to use.

During the last two decades it was becoming more and more obvious that creating a game that has a chance to achieve a massive success requires to invest as much money as possible. While the cost of production of games was not that high 20 years ago, nowadays many games have a multi-million dollar budget. While this results in high quality graphics and cinematics for the consumer, independent game developers were feeling more and more endangered. Currently, there is just a handful of big players, but there still is a chance for indie game developers. Major consoles such as Xbox and Wii are allowing independent developers to create and distribute games through their marketplace. This may be a great opportunity for those who have great ideas for games, but lack a distributor and money.
It is hard to compete for independent developers with a company like Electronic Arts, which is a top video game publisher. The recent strategy of EA was to focus on quality of games rather than minimizing the cost of developing games. While generally that was considered to be a good strategy, some say that the drop in stock prices suggests otherwise. The shares recently fell a few percent and analysts suggest that this is due to their emphasis on quality. Unfortunately, developing a very high quality product requires a lot of money and time as we can see, for example, in the case with Warhammer Online, which was delayed a few times. More and more money is required for producing games, and that is a reality that we have to accept.

If you are a parent, you might be wondering whether Internet has good influence on your child. You have probably been growing up without access to the Internet, and children these days have had Internet access since they were very little. One of the things that you can do to understand your child better is to keep yourself informed about what is going on in the virtual world. Visit sites like MySpace to learn what it is about, read technology news, and visit some forums to see what the community is like. Try to monitor what your child is doing online, but do not violate its privacy. If possible, try to participate in some of the online activities with him. Teach your child to never believe everything it reads on the Internet. This will prevent many disappointments in the future, and might reduce the risk of anything bad happening. Overall, the World Wide Web is a wonderful place; however, it is also quite dangerous. This is mostly due to scams and dishonest people, as they are lurking behind every corner. The Internet also contains a lot of offensive materials, and that is why using a family Internet filter may be a good idea for some families. Such filters allow you to block specific category of websites including pornography websites, gambling, and sites that contain alcohol and tabacco references.

One of the ways that hackers might want to trick you is to send emails that look like they are sent from companies that you know, like your bank or PayPal. On the first glance, those emails might look like they are genuine. However, after some time you might discover that something is wrong. If you ever receive an email asking you to provide personal information, and asking you to click on a specified link to enter it, do not do it. Instead, open another window in your browser, and manually enter the address of a company that supposedly sent you this email. Check if everything is in order with your account. From my own experience I can say that real companies and institutions like your bank or PayPal will never ask you to provide any personal information without any explanation. So be careful. It is always better to be too careful than not being careful at all. There are people out there who wish to steal your identity, and make a profit out of it. It is up to you to protect what is rightfully yours. You do not have to give your password to anybody if you do not wish to do so. Be especially careful with those individuals who claim that they representing PayPal, because that is a popular scam.

The World Wide Web is becoming quite crowded. In practical terms this means that domain addresses are being registered every single day, and there are less and less attractive addresses. While a few years ago you could just try to register short, single word domain names at any registrar without any effort put into it, nowadays to find nice domain names consisting of two words you need to use some tools. One of my favorite tools to find domain names is makewords.com. It is a website that offers you the possibility to search through thousands of combinations very quickly to help you find the domain name of your dreams. You can specify your website’s category, prefixes, affixes, and preferred website name. It is a really handy tool so I suggest you bookmark the website. I find this tool to be very useful and I am sure that many other people also take advantage of this helpful method to find websites that are not taken yet. It is better to do it now than later, as the longer you wait, the more likely you are going to miss the address which is attractive to you. It is generally true that those who founded their websites earlier are more advantaged. However, you can still find the address on the Web that will suit your liking.