Put the World on Your PC With Google Earth

Google has a fantastic, new, free program for those of you with a broadband connection. It's called Google Earth. And it's just flat amazing.

First, how you get Google Earth

Getting Google Earth is simple. Just go to google,com, and click on More When the next screen opens, scroll down until your see Earth in the Tools category. When you click on Earth,,, a window titled Google Earth Explore, Search and Discover will open Scroll down to and click on Get Google Earth (Free Version). Click on Download Google Earth and follow the directions to install the program on your computer.

What you will see

When Google Earth opens, you will see Earth as seen from space, a search box and two panels labeled Places?and Layers.?You can ignore these for now and just type in an address in the search box. You need to include, the street address, city and state, with these three elements separated by commas. For example, 1108 Walnut St, Omaha, NE.

After you type in the address ?and your house might be a good place to start ?Google Earth will rapidly zoom in on the address just as if you were zooming in from outer space. It will stop about 1,000 feet above the address you searched on. You can zoom in even further using the + and ?buttons at the bottom of the program, but the picture may eventually become blurry, depending on what resolution your display is set to. (Note: Be sure to check your display's settings to make sure they match Google's recommendations.)

What happens next

After you've zoomed in on your house (or whatever address you typed in the search box), you can pick another address or a place such as the Grand Canyon. Google will do fly over?to the new address or location just as if you were flying over the globe in a very fast jet plane.

Once you get the hang of it, you can go to and zoom in on locations all over the U.S. Or the world for that matter. You can even save addresses or places to make it easy to get back to them in the future.

Google Earth is just a kick. Go ahead and try it. I'm sure you'll find it's literally hours of fun.

Something else that's new and free is HD Radio that enables AM and FM radio stations to broadcast their programs digitally. These digital broadcasts provide listeners with radically improved audio quality, more radio channels through multicasting, and new data services. To learn allabout this amazing new technology, just go my Web site, http://www.hd-radio-home.com, to get all the buzz.

Douglas Hanna is a retired marketing executive and the author of numerous articles on HD radio, the Internet and family finances.

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Making PC to Phone VoIP Calls over Dial-Up Internet Connections

Theres a lot of hype these days surrounding Internet-based voice communications (VoIP) replacing traditional telephone service. Most of this revolves around companies such as Vonage who coin themselves as the Broadband Phone Company? So what about those of us who dont have a broadband connection? Just because you dont have high speed Internet, doesnt mean that you cant save a fortune by using VoIP for your long-distance calls. Whilst a broadband connection will usually result in more consistent VoIP call quality, comparable results can be achieved using a dial-up connection provided some simple guidelines are followed.

Shop Around

Not all VoIP service providers support dial-up users. Companies such as Vonage bill themselves as alternatives to traditional telephone service and shy away from the dial-up community (who are tied to those traditional?networks to access the Internet). Furthermore, some service providers only support dial-up above a certain speed (e.g., 56Kbp). Two companies whose VoIP softphone applications work well over low speed connections include Callserve and Go2Call.

Free-up?your System Resources

In order to ensure the highest call quality, close programs that are running in the background? For Windows users, these applications can be seen in the taskbar at the bottom right of your screen. Right-click?the icons and close those programs that arent critical to system security (e.g., dont close anti-virus software, firewall applications and the like).

If youre using Windows XP with user switching enabled, log off all users except the one that will be used to make the call. This will prevent the other user identities from running software and/or using your bandwidth while youre making calls.

Free Up?your Internet Connection

Given the limited data capacity of dial-up connections, its important that you devote as much of your bandwidth as possible to the VoIP softphone application. To achieve maximum call quality, dont do anything that uses your bandwidth whilst making calls. This includes instant messaging, checking email, using a webcam, browsing the internet, downloading, etc. In Windows, you can look at the two little computers in the bottom right of your taskbar to see whether your connection is being used prior to calling (the little computers illuminate when data is being uploaded and/or downloaded).

Scan your System for Viruses, Spyware, Adware and Malware

Some of these malicious programs can hijack your browser, tie up your internet connection and slow down your system (not to mention seriously invade your privacy!). I recommend AdAware for free scanning and removal of Spyware/Adware. Once youve checked and cleansed your system of these nasty programs, your virus definition files should be updated to minimize the chances of re-infection.

Use a Headset with an Integrated Boom Microphone

Last but not least, using a headset with a boom microphone should eliminate those annoying voice echoes often associated with PC to Phone calls. Echoes are caused by your microphone detecting the voice coming from your computer speakers and re-transmitting that voice signal back to the person youre talking to. By using a headset, the voice signals are limited in volume (due to the headset being directly adjacent to your ears) and thus the chances of your microphone re-transmitting?those voice signals is greatly reduced.

So there you have it. A Lack of high speed Internet neednt mean a lack of PC to Phone VoIP capability.

Nathan Smith

Nathan is the owner of netphonedirectory.com which deals specifically with PC to Phone and PC to PC VoIP. The site includes a comprehensive directory of PC to Phone service providers as well as information on VoIP and what you need to make inexpensive long-distance telephone calls using your computer

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