TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPICS: AGGREGATORS AND MONETIZERS

Howdy Riders! I'm waxing just a bit colloquial because I'm deep in the heart of Texas this week, attending a conference with about two dozen of my close friends, colleagues and collaborators. These are some of the smartest people I know... Internet pioneers and experts in programming, search engines, ecommerce, online publishing and a bunch of other subjects.

In this crowd, you can get smarter by the process of osmosis, and in today's Tourbus I'll be sharing some great websites and resources that were created by members of this friendly cabal. So read on!

Aggregate This

Dave Taylor is a guy who has been online since well, before Al Gore invented the modem. He has helped to define the structure of Usenet, and his programming skills have influenced the design of email software. Dave has been a guest driver of the Tourbus, and recently he wrote an article that de-mystifies the subject of RSS feeds and aggregators.

If those terms are new to you, don't let your eyes glaze over just yet. RSS is a useful new technology that can make it easier for you to find the news and information that YOU want, and deliver it to your desktop WITHOUT that side order of spam. Read Dave's article and learn how and why to use an RSS aggregator.

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/whats_an_rss_aggregator.html

Monetize That

Joel Comm is another long-time cyber friend of mine who has a knack for sensing trends in cyberspace that can help website owners turn their clicks into cold hard cash. But last fall I saw Joel and he was ready to throw in the towel, because he just wasn't making enough money to pay the bills, even though he spent long hours developing a network of really cool and useful websites.

However, an amazing transformation has occurred. Joel spent months studying and tweaking his websites in an effort to maximize the effectiveness of Google's Adsense program. In the process, he discovered some amazing (and simple) techniques to dramatically boost the bottom line of his online earnings. I won't tell you how much money he's making now, but his monthly checks from Google are so big that they arrive on a UPS truck instead of in his mailbox, and I kid you not!

I've used some of the same techniques and I can tell you they REALLY make a difference. If you have a website and you've been looking for ways to turn it into a money maker, then you need to read Joel's new book "What Google Never Told You About Making Money With AdSense!"

http://tourbus.com/adsense.htm

Learn Linux Today

Long-time readers will remember that I wrote a book called "The No BS Guide to Linux" a few years ago. Since I own the rights to the book, and the content is as fresh as ever, I decided to put all that material online, freely available for anyone who wants to learn the basics of using Linux (and thereby Unix) without getting bogged down in too much detail or technobabble.

http://www.linux-unix-info.com

This free online tutorial will teach you about the Linux file system useful commands, text editors, data manipulation, shell programming, accesing DOS and Windows Files from Linux and much more. I hope you find it useful.

That's all for now, see you next time! -- Bob Rankin