55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love

Everyone loves a good tip, right? Here are 55 quick tips for search engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking. Well, not my mother, but you get my point. Most folks with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be able to take these to the bank without any problem. 
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1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.

2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.
4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.

5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.


6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.

8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.

9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images.

10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.

11. Check for canonicalization issues – www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then http://domain.com should redirect to it.

12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html.

Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.
13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.

14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned.

15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.

16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.
17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.

18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.

19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.
20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.

21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.

22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title.

23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.

24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.

25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.
26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.

27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold.

28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and zines.

29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.

30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors.

31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content.

32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.

33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.

34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.

35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content.

36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!

37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description.

38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images.

39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc.

40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap.

41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:
(1) Log out of Google
(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar

42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.

43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.

44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually get used to the new URL.

45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.

46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account.

47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.

48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.

49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.

50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.

51. Add viral components to your web site or blog – reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.

52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.

53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much.

54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred page in your sitemaps.

55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site.

ONE-WHEELED MOTORCYCLE

This is the one and only one-wheeled motor. You need an

 extremely good balans to control and even ride this motor. This motor has the same engine power as a normal motor. Also this motor contains a balance system. You can imagine you need that, because there are only a few people who can even ride a one-wheeled bicycle, so there will be almost nobody who can drive a one-wheeled motor. The motor is good for the environment, because it has an ecomotor. His top speed is 60km/h till now, but the inventors intention was to create a good looking and environment safing motor in the first place. Because of this, the motor will be sold on the market within a few weeks. The price of the motor will be around $ 2500-3000 dollar.

New inventions and gadgets

New inventions and gadgets are continously appearing due to people's curiosity and willingness to improve their lifestyle and make their activities easier and more enjoyable. I selected some cool inventions I liked very much and I think that you will like too, and maybe even purchase, if you are a gadget fan!
Camping is an oportunity to get away from the cosmopolitan worlds, and have some quality relaxation time, without any form of technology, in a natural environment, using only products from mother nature. So, basically, camping is a sort of escape from technological world, but (there is a but) Orange has developed a solar powered tent, which can be the exception in your camping excursions. It seems to be the "tent of the future" and it ensures the all the electronics you take with you, including the gadgets, will work. In cooperation with some American design consultants for products, Kaleidoscope, they created this modern tent which transforms the solar energy into electric power for our gadgets, through a pouch which uses wireless charging.

This "wonder tent" has also an integrated geolocation technology, which is very useful in the situations when the campers loose the tent. They can send a SMS to their tent and tell him to glow more, so it becomes more visible and easily to find. It has also a control panel which shows the amount of the generated energy and the consumed amount. The great feature on this tent is that it has a heating system, which starts working after the temperature inside the tent drops below a previously set up level. This invention brings camping to a new level, which seems to be the future of this "natural" activity. So, from now on, you can adapt your camping excursions to the presence of the intelligent tent.

And if you are going camping, and also looking for treasures, or for gold in the waters of the rivers, than you shouldn't miss the metal detecting sandals. They are not actually a trend setter, but they are more interesting for people who really need to detect metals, and they don't have to carry the large pole around with them. The sandals have a small attachment, a small black box, which can be strapped around your leg, and hidden under the trouser. One of the sandals, the right one, has a copper coil, which is powered by the battery strapped around your leg, and when the sandals approach within 2' to a metal object, a vibration will be emitted, or a noise, either a light will be flashed to announce you the presence of a metal object close to your legs.The sandals require a 9V battery which will supply 6 hours of functioning; they cost $59.95 and you can find them at Hammacher and Schlemmer, and they can be purchase by both men and women.


Having these gadgets available, your camping excursions may become more interesting and you could make the relaxation period spent in the natural environment more pleasurable and you can have more fun with your friends in the heated tent, while weighing the gold you found with the sandals.

Computer

2008 forecast: media asset management in the video world

Each year, CIOs and IT managers everywhere ponder the technology initiatives that will shape their businesses in the coming year(s). In 2008, organizations will undoubtedly look at how they are managing (or not managing) their video assets. The use of video in the enterprise has grown astronomically over the past few years, creating a logistical nightmare for many organizations. Employees spend countless hours locating a single clip, while teams fail to take advantage of existing assets, simply because they don't know what they already have. When it comes to managing video, the requirements are clear' store it, find it, and retrieve it.

However, it's not always so simple in the real world. Asset management systems are comprised of ingest/import, transcode, playout, storage, and export components. Bringing all these pieces together in a seamless fashion can tax even the largest IT department. Fortunately, in 2008 new turnkey solutions are available that bundle professional-grade hardware with Media Asset Management (MAM) software to provide an 'out of the box' experience that can save months of implementation time.

Putting it together- software for media asset management

Beyond physical storage, the right MAM software can help you streamline the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of digital media, saving significant time and money. The following features can help boost productivity and collaboration:

* A browser-based interface provides immediate access to projects and files from any location' critical for remote and multi-site collaboration. Using a standard Web browser gives end users more flexibility and greatly simplifies administration tasks, as there's no need to install and maintain separate client software.

* An intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) simplifies the learning curve.

* User rights policies give centralized control over who can see, upload, and download files, letting you provide access, while protecting assets. For example, an end user can have full rights for Project A with view-only rights for files associated with Project B.

Games Computer 2012

How to Build Your Own Gaming PC

To build a gaming PC is to enter a dazzling realm of modern engineering, blazing fast processors and cutting-edge graphics. Why, just the process of selecting a hard drive offers hundreds of possible options, each one representing an opportunity to fine-tune your machine into peak performance. This is the guide for people who cannot be bothered with that crap.

Look, your consoles play games just fine. Some of them do other things as well, like streaming movies or facilitating identity theft. You don't need a gaming PC.

Sure, many games look better on a well-equipped computer, and there's the occasional big-ticket game that's exclusive to Windows. But in truth, there is only one good reason to build a gaming PC, which is that it's fun. It's fun to piece something together, plug it in and make it go. And the pride from a successful build lasts a long time.

This guide is not about maximising your computer's specs; it's about maximising fun (or, more to the point, minimising agony). It is designed to be both helpful and laughable in its inadequacy. Much of the advice I offer will be objectively terrible. Dedicated hobbyists will not like (or need) this guide. I am fond of hobbyists. I just don't think you need to be one in order to build your own PC.

1. Should you do this?

Probably not. It's sort of complicated. Take this questionnaire.

Do you know how a computer works?

A. Yes. The hard drive is for long-term storage, RAM is for short-term data, and they both connect to a motherboard, which... [You continue to recite an accurate outline of a computer's workings even though I have obviously stopped listening.]

B. Yes. I type the thing into the Google, and my internet goes to the thing.

C. Yes. I push the lever down, and a few minutes later, my potato waffles are done.

For those who answered anything other than "A," put down the hammer and nails - you are not going to be building a PC today. The fact that you thought you'd be using a hammer and nails should have been a red flag.

2. Prepare to shop

There are two things you need to start shopping: a store and a better guide than this one.

Here in the US, I like to get computer stuff from Newegg. I hear that in the UK, Novatech and Aria PC are popular. I'm not endorsing any of these. Honestly, if you can't find a computer store on the internet, that does not bode well for success in this process.

Watch out for money-saving opportunities. For instance, many items come with a rebate offer attached. A rebate works like this: the manufacturer promises to give you money if you buy a product, and then once you buy the product, they do not actually give you money.

Case (n.): The paper bag you put over your computer's head.

As for the better guide, I mean a guide filled with the technical arcana that this guide lacks. You will reference this as you shop, and here's how: if the product you're considering seems to have a lot of the same acronyms and numbers as the products in the tech-speak guide, you can buy with 100 per cent confidence, maybe.

Select the homeliest, pixilated spreadsheety-est, jargony-est message-board guide you can find. I highly recommend the annual NeoGAF PC-building thread as a model of the form. It presents a surfeit of solid information in the most unattractive manner possible.

Ugly is good. Putting a computer together is a raw, nuts-and-bolts deal; that's part of the joy. When people try to make the process romantic, it feels false at best and icky at worst.

True story: while researching my recent PC build, I came across a glossy online guide in which the author described Intel's new Sandy Bridge processor chipset as if it were a woman whom he desired to have sex with. This despite the reality that Sandy Bridge is the least arousing name Intel could have chosen for their product.

The downside of message-board guides is that they are typically followed by thousands of enraged comments to the effect that everything in the guide is wrong. Ignore them. Which brings me to the next step:

3. Embrace your ignorance

Decide how much money you'd like to spend on this enterprise. For my recent PC build I set a budget of $900, which is the equivalent of about £25.50 or, in the imminent post-economic-apocalypse landscape, a tooth.

Don't worry too much about that budget at first. Just start piling motherboards and other junk into your cart while staying in the ballpark of your ideal figure. Maybe you end up with a computer worth two teeth. That's OK. Dream a little.

After you've pretend-splurged, whittle things back down under budget. Don't mourn the high-end kit you have to delete from your cart because - I can't emphasise this enough - you were never going to notice the difference anyway.

See, as you research PC components, a strange thing will happen. You, a person who stands there picking chunks of raw cookie dough from the tube without even closing the refrigerator door, will come to believe that you have the expert discernment of an audio-visual engineer. "This 6850 video card won't do at all," you'll harrumph, "a person of my taste requires the 6950."

No, you don't. Richard Leadbetter can tell the difference between the graphics power of the 6850 and the 6950, probably with his eyes closed. You and me, we can't. MAYBE if we run a side-by-side demo. By the way, never do this.

Don't run benchmark software, either, because it makes a little chart with little bars on it, and then you compare the length of your bar to the bars that people have posted on the internet, and all of a sudden it's gym class 1996 all over again.

Overclock (v.): To convert a functional processor into one that crashes a lot but does so very quickly.

Your ignorance is an enormous asset. It saves money and preserves fun. Build something that works nicely within your budget, and then forget that anything else ever existed. If you still find yourself tempted by the high-end, keep in mind the great equaliser: no matter how much you spend on your PC, in a few years it will be junk.

Beware. People will try to undermine your bliss. Last weekend I mentioned to my brother, a PC-building enthusiast, that I had put together my own computer.

"I think I have an extra video card that you could use," he said.

"Nah, that's OK," I said.

"Are you sure? It's probably faster than the one you have. I think it's a 9500," he said.

"Oh, mine is a 9600," I said, and he relented.

Lesson: If you ever get into a conversation with someone about your PC's specs, lie. Specifically, take the last number mentioned in conversation and add 100. When the interlocutor asks about a 3.3 GHz Intel i5 processor, casually offer that you have the 103.3 GHz Intel i105 processor. If questioned further, say, "You know, the new one." Then place a large quantity of food in your mouth and walk away.

The truth is, I don't remember what the model number of my video card is. All I know is everything looks real pretty.

On to the components, then.

4. The case

The case is the hulking plastic box into which you will cram the computer's innards. To decide on a case style, it's time for another ultra-short questionnaire:

Do you have dignity?

A. Yes

B. No

If you answered "A," just get an inoffensive black / grey case and be done with it.

If you answered "B," ask somebody who answered "A" to pick a case for you.

"Case style" is an oxymoron. No one is going to find your computer stylish. It's a wheezing box of circuitry. Midnight-blue LED spotlights, transparent side panels and garish paint jobsaren't going to change that. They only compound the embarrassment.

(Confession: I think the see-through panel is a neat idea, but I've never seen a windowed case that didn't look like it was designed by a 12 year-old sketching in the margins of his geometry textbook.)

Because you will reuse it for future builds, choosing a case is the PC-building equivalent of getting a tattoo. A blinged-out dork-box is the equivalent of a rainbow-unicorn tramp stamp. While you might convince yourself that it's cool right now, it is a time bomb of regret.

By the same token, a boring grey-rectangle case is like a little heart tattoo by your ankle: still not so tasteful, but whatever.

5. The processor and motherboard

The processor, or CPU, is the "brain" of the PC, according to a Burger King placemat I read once. Modern games, however, depend much more on the graphics card than the CPU. In gaming PCs as in life, the brain matters a lot less than you might hope.

The gigahertz / cores / chipsets breakdown changes on a monthly basis, but processors are a commodity. As such you will notice they fall into a consistent price hierarchy, even as the technology evolves.

High-end processors are manufactured as a practical joke. In essence, Intel is daring you to purchase a CPU that is maybe 2 per cent faster than comparable products costing hundreds less. They put this precious jewel on the shelf and then sneak around the corner, trying to hold in their giggles as some dingus with a God complex walks up and buys the thing because he has to have the "very best".

Then there is the second tier. The prices are reasonable by comparison and their still-considerable power will come in handy for all that protein-fold analysis you do. What's that you say? You don't decode intensely complicated atomic structures on your PC? Rather, you play Desktop Dungeons and design flyers for your alt-rock band in Microsoft Paint? Right, that's what I thought.

In short, if you plan to spend more than £150 on your processor (and even that is a lot), it might be time for some soul-searching. Hie thee to the third tier.

Motherboards are pretty easy. Find the boards that are compatible with your processor's chipset. Next, find a midrange model that has plenty of slots and a number of decent user reviews. Buy that one. Sure, the most popular motherboard is not necessarily the best one, but at least if it stinks there are plenty of people suffering along with you.

6. The video card

AMD PH II X4 955 3.2G AM3 RT (n.): Hell if I know.

Feel free to spend a little more on your video card as games rely on this component more than anything else. That said, you should still avoid the deep, pricey end of the technological pool, which is where the rubes swim. And, in all likelihood, where they pee.

If you're hooking your PC up to a huge, high-resolution desktop monitor, you're going to want a powerful card because it has a lot of pixels to push. (This is a colloquialism; the card is not literally pushing the pixels. In actuality, the process is more like a stern beating.)

I connected my gaming PC to my TV, a setup I recommend. A TV typically has fewer pixels than a comparable monitor, you see. Plus, my couch is eight feet away from the set. The viewing distance means that I can buy a cheaper card and the picture still looks great. Therefore, if you want to save money on a video card, move your couch.

7. The hard drive

Hard drives are cheap. Get a fast one. Anything slower than 7200 RPM, and you might as well chisel the ones and zeroes in there by hand. I mean, honestly.

The other consideration is size. Here is the formula for determining ideal hard drive capacity: take the number of times per week that you download internet pornography, and multiply that number times 100. This is the number of gigabytes your hard drive should have. (NOTE: Current drives generally max out at 3000 gigabytes, but you can buy more than one.)

An exciting new innovation is the advent of fast solid-state drives. Less capacious and far more expensive than traditional hard drives, today's SSDs are great for PC builders who find themselves in a "Brewster's Millions"-type situation, in which they must spend a huge quantity of money within 30 days so that they may inherit an even larger sum of money. Good luck!

8. Everything else

RAM is even cheaper than hard drives so there's no need to skimp. A pair of 2-gigabyte sticks, for a total of 4 GB, should do the trick. You must install the sticks in adjacent slots on your motherboard for maximum performance. Placed in such close proximity, each stick of RAM will fight to outperform its sibling and win your favour. They will grow to resent each other and, with time, you.

RAM (n.): Rutherford Access Memory, named for its inventor, William RAM.

Do you need a sound card? If it is 1997: definitely.

You'll have to purchase an OS for your rig, which is to say Windows. Microsoft sells discounted editions for system builders; don't buy the regular boxed copy. You may have a friend who will urge you to try gaming on an open-source OS like Linux. This is a great opportunity to not be friends with that person anymore.

Buy your power supply last. There are a number of online calculators that can help you determine the right wattage (probably in the 500- to 600-watt range). Get more wattage than you need right now, to allow for later expansion.

The most reliable power supplies carry what is called an "80 PLUS" certification. This seal of approval indicates that the unit has undergone rigorous industry tests to ensure that it has at least 80, and sometimes even more than 80.

9. Put it all together

The parts will be shipped to your home in the finest cardboard boxes. Open these boxes and take the parts out. Put everything into the slot where it looks like it's supposed to go.

No kidding, it's not much more complicated than that. Sure, there are going to be gaps between the myriad instruction booklets you receive, and Tab A doesn't always slide effortlessly into Slot B. You'll have figure a few things out for yourself. But that's your deal - you're a gamer, right? You thrive on challenges like this.

Keeping that philosophy in mind, here are a few general tips to make your assembly go more smoothly.

• Always ensure that parts are seated firmly, yet do not apply excessive force.
• The tangle of wires coming from the power supply can be intimidating at first. Be patient; sort through the cables one by one.
• Minimise the number of tacos you consume while assembling the computer. If possible, eat no tacos (or, more reasonably, only soft tacos).
• If the PC doesn't work the first time you start it up, don't panic! Simply switch the computer off, put it in the garbage and begin again from Step 1.
• If you find that the verge depth of your anchor escapement is causing the wheel to bind up, you have mistakenly assembled a cuckoo clock.

10. Bask in your superiority

Congratulations! You have joined an elite group: those who dared to build it themselves. Granted, you didn't do much more than place a bunch of pieces in their respective holes - you "built your PC" in the same way that a guy who screws in a light bulb has "invented electricity".

Still, you should be proud. Now it's time to reward yourself with - what else - a pleasant afternoon of gaming. So fire up that Xbox and enjoy. You've earned it!

Games Computer

Computer games stunt teen brains

Hi-tech maps of the mind show that computer games are damaging brain development and could lead to children being unable to control violent behaviour

Computer games are creating a dumbed-down generation of children far more disposed to violence than their parents, according to a controversial new study.

The tendency to lose control is not due to children absorbing the aggression involved in the computer game itself, as previous researchers have suggested, but rather to the damage done by stunting the developing mind.

Using the most sophisticated technology available, the level of brain activity was measured in hundreds of teenagers playing a Nintendo game and compared to the brain scans of other students doing a simple, repetitive arithmetical exercise. To the surprise of brain-mapping expert Professor Ryuta Kawashima and his team at Tohoku University in Japan, it was found that the computer game only stimulated activity in the parts of the brain associated with vision and movement.

In contrast, arithmetic stimulated brain activity in both the left and right hemispheres of the frontal lobe - the area of the brain most associated with learning, memory and emotion.

Most worrying of all was that the frontal lobe, which continues to develop in humans until the age of about 20, also has an important role to play in keeping an individual's behaviour in check.

Whenever you use self-control to refrain from lashing out or doing something you should not, the frontal lobe is hard at work.

Children often do things they shouldn't because their frontal lobes are underdeveloped. The more work done to thicken the fibres connecting the neurons in this part of the brain, the better the child's ability will be to control their behaviour. The more this area is stimulated, the more these fibres will thicken.

The students who played computer games were halting the process of brain development and affecting their ability to control potentially anti-social elements of their behaviour.

'The importance of this discovery cannot be underestimated,' Kawashima told The Observer .

'There is a problem we will have with a new generation of children - who play computer games - that we have never seen before.

'The implications are very serious for an increasingly violent society and these students will be doing more and more bad things if they are playing games and not doing other things like reading aloud or learning arithmetic.'

Kawashima, in need of funding for his research, originally decided to investigate the levels of brain activity in children playing video games expecting to find that his research would be a boon to manufacturers.

He expected it to reassure parents that there are hidden benefits to the increasing number of hours their children were devoting to computer games and was startled by what he discovered.

He compared brain activity in children playing Nintendo games with those doing an exercise called the Kraepelin test, which involves adding single-digit numbers continuously for 30 minutes.

The students were given minute doses of a radioactive pharmaceutical through an intravenous drip which allowed a computer to map a complex picture of their brains at work. A subsequent study was conducted using magnetic resonance images.

Both studies confirmed the high level of brain activity involved in carrying out simple addition and subtraction and that this activity was particularly pronounced in the frontal lobe, in both the left and right hemispheres.

Though it is often thought that only the left hemisphere is active for mathematical work and that the right hemi sphere is stimulated by more creative thinking, the professor found that arithmetic produced a high level of activity in both hemispheres.

In subsequent studies, Kawashima established that arithmetic exercises also stimulate more brain activity than listening to music or listening to reading. Reading out loud was also found to be a very effective activity for activating the frontal lobe.

Kawashima, visiting the UK to speak at this weekend's annual conference of the private learning programme Kumon Educational UK, said the message to parents was clear.

'Children need to be encouraged to learn basic reading and writing, of course,' he said. 'But the other thing is to ask them to play outside with other children and interact and to communicate with others as much as possible. This is how they will develop, retain their creativity and become good people.'

How to make a computer faster

6 ways to speed up your PC

By following a few simple guidelines, you can maintain your computer, help increase your PC speed, and help keep it running smoothly. This article discusses how to use the tools available in Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP Service Pack 3 to help make your computer faster, maintain your computer efficiently, and help safeguard your privacy when you're online.

Note: Some of the tools mentioned in this article require you to be logged on as an administrator. If you aren't logged on as an administrator, you can only change settings that apply to your user account.

1. Remove spyware, and help protect your computer from viruses

Spyware collects personal information without letting you know and without asking for permission. From the websites you visit to user names and passwords, spyware can put you and your confidential information at risk. In addition to privacy concerns, spyware can hamper your computer's performance. To combat spyware, you might want to consider using the PC safety scan from Windows Live OneCare. This scan is a free service that helps check for and remove viruses.

Download Microsoft Security Essentials for free to help guard your system in the future from viruses, spyware, adware, and other malicious software (also known as malware). Microsoft Security Essentials acts as a spyware removal tool and includes automatic updates to help keep your system protected from emerging threats.

The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool is another utility that checks computers running Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 for infections by specific, prevalent malicious software, including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom, and helps remove any infection found.

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2. Free up disk space

The Disk Cleanup tool helps you to free up space on your hard disk to improve the performance of your computer. The tool identifies files that you can safely delete and then enables you to choose whether you want to delete some or all of the identified files.

Use Disk Cleanup to:

• Remove temporary Internet files.
• Delete downloaded program files, such as Microsoft ActiveX controls and Java applets.
• Empty the Recycle Bin.
• Remove Windows temporary files, such as error reports.
• Delete optional Windows components that you don't use.
• Delete installed programs that you no longer use.
• Remove unused restore points and shadow copies from System Restore.

Tip: Typically, temporary Internet files take the most amount of space because the browser caches each page you visit for faster access later.

To use Disk Cleanup:

Windows 7 users

Windows Vista users

Windows XP users

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3. Speed up access to data

Disk fragmentation slows the overall performance of your system. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk as a file is opened (to piece it back together). The response time can be significantly longer.

Disk Defragmenter (sometimes shortened to Defrag by users) is a Windows utility that consolidates fragmented files and folders on your computer's hard disk so that each occupies a single space on the disk. With your files stored neatly end to end, without fragmentation, reading and writing to the disk speeds up.

When to run Disk Defragmenter
In addition to running Disk Defragmenter at regular intervals (weekly is optimal), there are other times you should run it, too, such as when:

• You add a large number of files.
• Your free disk space totals 15 percent or less.
• You install new programs or a new version of the Windows operating system.

To use Disk Defragmenter:

Windows 7 users

Windows Vista users

Windows XP users

Running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter on a regular basis is a proven way to help keep your computer running quickly and efficiently. If you'd like to learn how to schedule these tools and others to run automatically, please read Speed up your PC: Automate your computer maintenance schedule.

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4. Detect and repair disk errors

In addition to running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter to optimize the performance of your computer, you can check the integrity of the files stored on your hard disk by running the Error Checking utility.

As you use your hard drive, it can develop bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing (such as file saving) difficult or even impossible. The Error Checking utility scans the hard drive for bad sectors and scans for file system errors to see whether certain files or folders are misplaced.

If you use your computer daily, you should run this utility once a week to help prevent data loss.

Run the Error Checking utility:

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5. Learn about ReadyBoost

If you're using Windows 7 or Windows Vista, you can use ReadyBoost to speed up your system. A new concept in adding memory to a system, it allows you to use non-volatile flash memory—like a USB flash drive or a memory card—to improve performance without having to add additional memory.

• Learn more about ReadyBoost in Windows 7.
• Learn more about ReadyBoost in Windows Vista.

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6.  Upgrade  to  Windows 7

If you try all the previous remedies and your computer still isn't as fast as you would like it to be, you may want to consider updating to Windows 7.

• Find out if your computer can run Windows 7 using the Upgrade Advisor.
• Compare Window 7 editions.
• Read a third-party review of Windows 7 by David Pogue of The New York Times.

If the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor determines that your computer can't run Windows 7 and you still have the need for speed, it might be time for a new computer. There are some great deals on new computers right now:

• Shop for new desktop computers.
• Shop for new laptop computers.
• Shop for netbooks.