Monetizing Scrambled Thoughts

Do you have atleast one banner to promote your website? Banner advertising is considered as one of the most effective ways of promoting your website or products online. One of the most important steps in banner advertising is creating an attractive banner. However, most of the time you need a costly software or pay for someone to create one. Not everybody can afford to purchase these softwares or know how to use them. Good thing there are free banner generators that can help you in creating banners and launching your ad campaigns.

Create graphical banners (this can also be used for your website headers and banners).

Banner Sketch offers a high-quality professional online banner creator. They have pre-build templates you can use. However, they only offer banner (468×60) and half banner (234×60) sizes.

Banner Break lets you create a professional-quality graphical banner.

My Banner Maker is an easy to use banner maker. You can choose any ad format that will suit your ad campaign. All banners are instantly hosted by ImageShack.

Flash and animated banners can undoubtedly catch an attention and increase CTR.

AdDesigner offers professional-quality, animated banner ad creation quickly and easily. Use the high-quality banner ads you design at AdDesigner.com to get higher click-through rates (which means more traffic to your website), to build a professional image for your website, and to create a favorable and lasting impression on everyone who sees your banner ads.

Ping A Friend lets you create a “dancing” text. You can choose several effects for you banner.

Web 2.0 banners and logos are becoming a trend in banner advertising. Here are some of the great web 2.0 banner generators:

Web 2.0 Logo Creator is meant to be a parody of Web 2.0 Logos. Create your own Flickr-like logo in seconds!

Creatr lets you create a web 2.0 logo similar to Google’s, Yahoo!’s, and Flickr’s.

Other logo generators: SimWebSol Logo Generator and Flickr Logo Maker.

The world’s biggest online payment service, PayPal, has said it will block “unsafe browsers” from using its service as part of anti-phishing efforts, likening not stopping customers from using old software to letting a car owner drive without a seatbelt.

PayPal said it was “an alarming fact that there is a significant set of users who use very old and vulnerable browsers such as Internet Explorer 4″ and that some customers are even still using Internet Explorer 3, released more than 10 years ago.

Under the new plans, unveiled in a white paper, customers will first get a pop up warning that a certain browser is unsafe but could then be blocked if they continue.

PayPal’s chief information security officer recently attacked Apple’s Safari browser for not having two important anti-phishing security features.

“Apple, unfortunately, is lagging behind what they need to do, to protect their customers”, the officer said. “Our recommendation at this point, to our customers, is use Internet Explorer 7 or 8 when it comes out, or Firefox 2 or Firefox 3, or indeed Opera.”

>> News - PayPal warns customers off Safari
>> Via - BBC

We got wind of it weeks ago, but today has seen the official launch of Facebook Chat.

The new tool, which is already being mooted as a rival to the likes of Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger, is accessible on profile pages.

A chat bar at the foot of the browser allows members to have a private conversation with one another, rather than rely on email messages or wall posts.

Facebookers can “chat” to any of their friends that are online and the service doesn’t install any client software so it can be accessed from any computer connected up to the Internet.

“Chat is by no means a new concept, as instant messaging systems have been around for over a decade”, says Josh Wiseman, engineering lead at Facebook on the company’s blog.

“But just as other features on Facebook have allowed friends to communicate more efficiently than before, we hope Facebook Chat will make it easier to connect instantly.”

>> Via - PC Pro

Internet TV subscriptions worldwide doubled in 2007, according to new research by Informa.

The number of IPTV subscribers has now hit 12.3 million worldwide, driven by a boom in western Europe where some broadband suppliers offered the service for free.

A report published by research firm Informa Telecoms & Media revealed that western Europe now accounts for 57% of global IPTV subscribers, with the boom led by uptake in France. (more…)

Mozilla has today announced the availability of Firefox 3.0 Beta 4.
This latest Beta includes more than 900 enhancements from the previous beta, and Mozilla says many of these were based on community feedback.

Amongst the improvements are a revised download manager; a full zoom facility; and integration with Vista.
Also - Mozilla has made the browser more Mac-friendly so that the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application.

Firefox also uses OS X widgets and spell-checker in web forms and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. And integration with Linux has also been included.

Mozilla adds that the performance of the browser has been improved so that, compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office will run twice as fast in Firefox 3 Beta 4.

Log in now to take part in the Beta test.

>> Link - Beta feedback form
>> Link - Bugzilla