Cool Websites Everyone Should Bookmark

Often I find websites that offer interesting, innovative,or just plain cool stuff that doesn't quite rate a stand-alone article, but several of them together will get youjumping all over your computer to check them out. ** Copyright Thieves Beware **A free service at www.copyscape.com allows you to see ifanyone out on the Web has copied the text from your websiteand to what degree. Just enter the url of your webpage, article, or blog post,hit the submit button and the site will show you if anotherwebsite contains substantially the same text as your page. If you get a hit, then click the links provided to go tothe sites that may have copied you and see highlighted textthat matches your site. The free service on the home page only displays 10 results,and if you want to see more, you can pay $10-20 a month andthe service will monitor your web pages and let you know ofeveryone who copies them. A positive use for this tool I thought of for anyone whooperates an online business: put in your competitors' urlwhere they display the ads, articles, and other tools theygive their affiliates, and see who links to them. They may have active affiliates posting their content (withpermission of course) and you may find some great potentialpartners to help you promote your business.Another way you can watch for this type of activity is bysigning up for alerts at Google. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts/ and enter in your name,product title, article title, or some specific keywordcombination that would tip you off that someone had takenyour stuff (or was posting your competitors' material).You can then receive an update with links any time Googlefinds a new reference to your keyword phrase.** Surf While You Sleep **One of the disadvantages of surfing the web, especiallywith a 56K modem, involves the fact that your browserdoesn't allow you to easily and selectively downloadcontent from the World Wide Web. For anyone who ever experiences this frustration, herecomes GetBot to the rescue!Available at www.getbot.com, this handy little programallows you to surf individual sites, view all the pagetitles, see all the website links, both internal andexternal, and decide which pictures and pages you wantbefore downloading. Should you desire to download an entire site, you can setthe program to run before going to bed. When you wake upthe next morning all the information will already reside onyour computer, making for a fast and pleasant perusal ofall the material. Getbot comes as shareware with limited functionality, whichmeans you can try the program for free, but if you decideto keep it, or want all the features, then you must pay $19.On the bad side, it's a memory hog, so be prepared for arestart or two when using it. GetBot is a decent starter program... but if you want real power for downloading websites to view offline, check out www.httrack.com I've found it to be MUCH more versatile... and, it's 100% no cost :-)** Keyword Specific News **Log on to http://News.Google.com and you can find justabout any breaking news story on virtually any topic.Though the front page is segmented into main categorieslike Science, World News, Technology, and more, Google Newsalso allows you to search over 4,500 different news sourcesfor stories containing your keywords. For example, a search for "Iraqi Elections" returned over10,000 stories, many of them less than 5 or 6 hours oldwhen I did the search. Google News also allows you to sign up for "News Alerts"via email where the service will email you a link everytime a new story with your search criteria appears in theirdatabase.If you need keyword-specific information and articles topost in your blog... this makes an excellent way to getmaterial sent to you the minute the news breaks.-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic"reveals the secrets for drivingThousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliatelinks... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://the-easy-way.com/traffic.html-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-