Gas costs are climbing and this is making business budgets are squeezed short more than ever before. With an economy lumbers along slowly and capital continues to be hard to come by, intelligent executives know additional budgets have to be cut. Executives throughout the nation need to make some weighty decisions to lower costs. One of the better plan to reduce business costs is to hack away at unneeded travel expenses, and the solution is online conferencing calls.

Online conferencing calls grant business people to communicate with others electronically in a conference in a distant town, in a far off state or even more significantly in an overseas country. Most online conferencing calls make use of revolutionary networking components. Due to the fact that they done through standard high-speed Internet connections, they only better utilize sunk business resources. By going to web video conferencing, is it possible to have a overseas presentation from almost any office offering Internet access. Its not just easy as a computer and an Internet connection, it has huge potential to reduce big travel five digits or more in a year.

Leaps in communications technology make web conference calling affordable for participants to share presentations and information in real time. Internet conference members can see and hear as though they were really there, even if they are on the other side of the planet. The detail of the presentations audio and video is without flaw given the best in streaming video.

Clearly almost any business can save money by switching to web conference calling rather than wasting thousands flying out a team on a big trip. You doesnt have to spend on hotels, meals or even transportation. Big savings that cannot be dismissed. Any dollar saved means higher productivity for your business. Most everyone knows that many companies are deciding on Internet conferencing calls to save money on unnecessary business journeys.

The fact that an estimated 40,000 new blogs are being started daily should be of great interest to anybody already in the web hosting business or intending to go into it. Especially those planning to go into the business as affiliates or as resellers because this group of online entrepreneurs are in a very good position to cash in quickly on this amazing growth rate of blogs with hardly any investment necessary.

While it is true that a vast majority of blogs are hosted free, it is also true that many blogs are gaining high traffic so quickly that they are forced to quickly find paid web hosting as they exceed their allocated bandwidth.

The other fact to bear in mind is that virtually all successful bloggers own several blogs. This is significant because it is not easy to own several websites since lots of technical know-how and time are required to maintain a single website, let alone several. This is not the case with a blog that mainly requires content and very little technical knowledge to run very successfully. In terms of business volumes this simply means that a web hosting business that targets blogs is bound to grow a lot faster than the one that only seeks clients from the ranks of traditional websites.

The other significant factor in blogs that should be of great benefit to any web hosting business is the huge traffic that blogs seem to enjoy almost effortlessly.

All a web host entrepreneur needs to do, is to find a way to advertise their web hosting services to this blog traffic. There are several ways of doing this. You can for example look for acceptable ways of creating as many links from the blogs to your web hosting sites as possible. You can even start your very own blog on the subject.

Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for http://www.websitesource.com and http://www.lowpricedomains.com with experience in the website hosting industry.

An unbeatable location – Situated on the Mediterranean just 30km. from the capital of Almeria, by its own right an accredited tourist model of the Mediterranean coast.An array of virgin beaches make it an area of incomparable beauty.

Excellent communications – 40 minutes from Almeria (airport) easy reach of airports at Malaga, Murcia and Alicante. 1 hour 30 mins from Granada, 3 hours 30 mins from Seville.

For Nature lovers – Puntas Entinas Nature Park, situated directly adjacent to Almerimar, is a true ecological treasure. The area is used by beautiful migrating birds and is a large botanical reserve of Mediterranean brushwood with huge expanses of deserted beaches. A very safe enviroment for families with young children looking for an ideal beach holiday.

Enjoy sporting life – Whatever your personal choice, do it in Almerimar. Yachting, windsurfing,scuba,horse riding,golf,fishing all this and skiing too due to the closeness of the Sierra Nevada Mountains! Visit http://www.vivacasamia.com for loads of information and pictures. Read all about the resort,and what it has to offer.

Sample the areas gastonomy – Almerimar provides visitors with the opportunity of sampling Mediterranean style cooking using fresh vegetables,fruits,cerals,olive oil seafood or meat from the area. Just wander the many bars & restaurants which surround the second largest marina in Europe!

— Enjoy!!!

Written by Adrienne Boxhall owner of the worldwide holiday accommodation directory http://www.weaccommodate.co.uk visit us for a selection of villas in Costa Almerimar.

Forget a motel, forget an RV you have not had the best vacation you have ever had until you have stayed in a Mountain Cabin. Mountain Cabin Vacation

Mountain cabins are usually found in the best locations situated in beautiful mountain settings and range from brand new to rustic charm. What more could you want from your mountain cabin.

You may be thinking rustic charm may mean old fashioned but today many mountain cabins are fully equipped with all the latest mod cons such as wonderful log fires, hot tubs, cable TV and fully equipped kitchens. One of the best features though of a mountain cabin, is unsurprisingly, the mountains. I suppose that goes without saying that you would expect mountains next to a mountain cabin, after all it seems sensible, but until you have visited some of the best places to vacation in the US you may not have been to the mountains before and boy are you missing something.

So try us folks up here in the mountains where the air is clean, the views are superb, the food is great and the activities are unparalleled.

Mountain cabins come in all sizes from single one bed roomed mountain cabins which are great for single couples, especially anyone on their honeymoon, to large 10 bedroom affairs which are great for group activities such as team building ventures.

One of the biggest attractions in vacationing in a beautiful mountain cabin is the peace and quiet you can find in a secluded cabin, yet most things are on your doorstep. You are so close to nature, with trails to walk and hike, short backpacking trips, skiing in the winter months, lakes for swimming, sailing and fishing and just plain good fresh air.

So stop thinking about mountain cabins, stop planning to rent a mountain cabin, stop dreaming of having a vacation in one and just do it. Book one and book one this week. Plan your next vacation in your own mountain cabin in some of the best mountain scenery in the US.

Wiltshire is a large English county situated in central southern England. Although it does not boast any coastline, it is crisscrossed by beautiful rivers teeming with rainbow trout.

As in many other English counties the capital, Salisbury, is not the largest city. That honour now belongs to the sprawling town that is Swindon, but it is in Salisbury that we will start our tour.

You cannot think of Salisbury, you cannot visit Salisbury, without paying your respects to the magnificent Cathedral. It boasts the tallest spire of any English cathedral at 404 feet and indeed it was the tallest building in all of Britain for an amazing 700 years. The spire was added around 1300. See www.salisburycathedral.org.uk for more details. And yet it was not the first cathedral in the area, the previous one was began in the eleventh century out at Sarum, on a windswept site. Not surprising then that when the time came to replace it, those in positions of power chose a more amenable site down in the valley close to the river.

Salisbury has always attracted artists, John Constable’s famous paintings of the Cathedral from the water meadows among the most famous, and you can still sit in that very spot and paint if you so desire, and the picture you will see will be almost identical to that he saw in the nineteenth century.

They chose to build near the river, not solely for the ample supply of drinking water, but also for transportation. The local rock being chalk that is singularly unsuitable for building, all the harder stone necessary to construct the new building had to be brought in, and it seems likely that most of it came on the water.

Swindon is north of Salisbury situated close to the fast M4 motorway that runs between Bristol and London. Traditionally it was a railway town, indeed there has been a railway works in Swindon almost from the days that railways were first invented. Today its manufacturing base is much wider spread. The huge sprawling Honda works is the largest employer in the town where they churn out Honda Civics that are exported all over the globe, including to Japan and the United States. But there are many other high tech employers in Swindon too, such at Intel, and this concentration on high tech industries has fuelled the city’s growth and prosperity.

Between Salisbury and Swindon is the pretty ancient town of Marlborough, famous for its street market that fills the main road every Wednesday and Saturday. Marlborough received its charter allowing a market here from King John in 1204 and there has been a market here ever since. The town attracts visitors from afar all the year round to browse in its antique shops, and look at the famous school that bears its name that sits right in the town centre. South of the town is the Savernake forest where deer roam wild in great numbers. Drive through late at night and look out for the stubby ancient oak that still grows beside the road, but keep a sharp lookout for night grazing animals.

Wiltshire is still primarily a rural county, featuring huge windswept treeless areas of chalk downland much of which is sown to cereals. No surprise then that Sting wrote “Fields of barley” here, staring out from his house at the swaying corn. Visit in early August to see the grain before it is harvested. Madonna owns an estate here too, and it has become an in place for pop and rock stars to set up home. But large areas of Wiltshire are also set aside for another purpose. The army have been here for centuries and their firing ranges up on Salisbury plain still span a vast area of the county.

Many of the surrounding towns rely on the army and large bases at Tidworth, Devizes, Warminster and others fill the county with military men. It is never a surprise when driving across Wiltshire to be temporarily delayed as a convoy of exercising tanks bursts across the road from one field to the next.

The county is also crossed by the Kennet and Avon canal as it wends its way from Bristol and Bath in the west, to London in the east. The best place to see the canal, which is still in full working order more than two centuries after its construction, is probably at Devizes, another interesting country town. Marvel at the banks of locks as the long narrowboats rise and fall hundreds of feet. Indeed take a boat ride, or a holiday on a barge, because the canals are now almost exclusively cruised by leisure and holiday craft.

But of course the single most famous structures in Wiltshire are still the ancient monuments of standing stones at Stonehenge and Avebury and others. When the Romans came to Britain two thousand years ago Stonehenge had been standing on Salisbury plain for some two thousand years before that. It would be interesting to know what the Romans made of it. A visit here is an absolute must, as is the standing stones at Avebury. It is generally accepted that Avebury is the older, approximately 3000 BC while Stonehenge is believed to be have been built around 2000 BC, though no one can be certain. Current thinking has it that the stones were dragged from Wales more than a hundred miles away, there is certainly no local stone like this, but how ancient man managed the feat still baffles historians.

But only visit on the night of the summer solstice if you enjoy crowds of people as varied as druids, new age travellers, gypsies, mystics, traditional celts, and people from cults and pagan religions far too many to mention by name.

To the west of the county nuzzling up against the Somerset border you will find numerous small country towns, such as Melksham, Warminster, Westbury, Trowbridge, Devizes, Chippenham, Calne, and especially Bradford on Avon. You are only eight miles from Bath here, and in many ways Bradford on Avon is a miniature copy of Bath. The mellow Cotswold stone is much in evidence, as are mock Italianate villas. All of these towns are worth a visit, if you have the time. Devizes housed large American bases and thousands of German POW’s during and after the Second World War, indeed some of them are still living here, now happily integrated into the community.

Places to stay? Salisbury of course, though it can be expensive in the summer, Marlborough for sure, and indeed any of the westerly towns. People have lived happily in Wiltshire for more than 5,000 years, and will go on doing so as long as history itself. It is a fine place to live, and a fine place to visit, and at only two hours from London by rail or road it is but a short trip from the capital. But perhaps you might prefer to travel by canal. Set aside three days for the same journey, and I know which method of transport I would enjoy the most. Check out my web site www.pebblebeachmedia.co.uk to view more than 6,000 holiday cottages and villas worldwide. Do enjoy your stay, till next time.

David Carter has written hundreds of published articles. His latest work is the 240+ page property letting and management handbook Splam! See http://www.splam.co.uk for details. He also runs a holiday cottage website, http://www.pebblebeachmedia.co.uk where you can browse through over 6,000 holiday cottages, villas and apartments throughout the world. For homemworkers check out http://www.homemax.co.uk. You can contact David on any matter at supalife@aol.com

Game Art and Design Schools teach students how to create video games in a fast-paced, challenging environment. At Game Art and Design School, future designers and programmers learn to evaluate gaming products and how to program and plan character options and game environments.

The Game Art and Design curriculum helps to develop the students’ artistic abilities and technical skills. Areas of study include applied knowledge of video and computer gaming, basic art and design, character and environment creation, game play, and background design. Game Art and Design Schools offer college degrees including a Bachelor of Arts or Associate of Arts degree with a major in game design, and a Bachelor of Science or Associate of Science degree with a major in game programming.

Game Art and Design careers include programmers, interactivity designers, 3D object modelers, 3D character builders, 2D conceptual artists, and game-play testers, to name a few. Graduates of Game Art and Design School can find jobs in many fields of entertainment, such as film, television, video and video gaming, as well as military, architectural, and educational.

If you are interested in learning more about Game Art and Design Schools, feel free to search the many options found at www.schoolsgalore.com.

Copyright 2006 – All Rights Reserved
Michael Bustamante, in association with Media Positive Communications, Inc. for SchoolsGalore.com

M. Bustamante is a staff writer for Media Positive Communications, Inc. in association with SchoolsGalore.com. Find Game Art and Design Schools at SchoolsGalore.com; meeting your needs as your educational resource to locate schools.

Good web designs are very subjective and even the designs perceived as great by one person will not be viewed as so by another.

Before starting your search the first thing to establish is what budget you have. This determines whether you should be looking at a design agency or a freelance web designer.

So what do you need to look for? Do you look for someone with amazing creative talents, a history of excellent websites or simply rely on recommendations from others. Without doubt a web designer’s portfolio is of utmost importance, you are not going to contact someone if you are not keen on their previous creations. When looking at their sites check they don’t all look the same, check the pages load quickly and above all check they are easy to navigate through and that you never feel lost in the site.

When you approach a designer we suggest you ask the following questions:

1) If a logo is required ask them how they approach the branding process and how can they build on your current branding
2) Ask them how many design concepts they create
3) When coding sites check they validate all pages on the W3C validator? This ensures the pages are free from errors and any respectable coder will automatically ensure this is automatically carried out on all sites. A good test is to look at their recent client list and check those sites using the W3C validator http://validator.w3.org/).
4) You need to decide what audience you are targeting and hence what browsers you want supported. If you want a site that works in all version 4 browsers and above on PC and Mac then it will cost more than a site is developed for Internet Explorer 5 and upwards on the PC. When you have decided what browsers and operating systems you would like supported check the developer has access to all the relevant browsers and platforms you require (i.e. do they have a Macintosh if you require this)
5) If your site requires e-commerce ask the designer if they have experience in this area and get them to show you examples.
6) Do you require a content management system (CMS)? Content Management Systems help you manage the text on your pages without knowing any HTML. Many developers can offer this service so if you require one ask them for recommendations, as a CMS they have worked on before will be a lot more cost effective than using one they have not.
7) If you want your designer to market your site on search engines then experience in this area is vital. Many companies offer tools which promise to submit to 1000’s of search engines but most people agree these do not work as well as links submitted by hand. Find out what projects they have marketed on search engines, go to Google and if you have the Google toolbar installed find out the Page Rank of the site (a Page Rank of 4 and upwards is generallt regarded as acceptable, anything less than a 3 could do with further optimisation and site submission). Do bear in mind it takes time to get listed on search engines, and even longer for the Google Page Rank to be updated. (this process can take over three months)
Work out if you require affiliate marketing e.g. banner ads or other forms of online advertising. If you want to go down this route you need to make sure they have experience in this area or use a separate company for this work.

So where do you start the search for a designer? Google searches, Kelly Search (http://www.kellysearch.com) and the UKWDA (http://www.ukwda.org) are all good places to start but even better is finding a site you like the look of and enquiring who developed it.

http://www.netahead.co.uk

The first thing before choosing a web host is that you should be fully aware of your hosting requirements. If you are a beginner wanting to host a personal web site, then your only concern is that you get a decent amount of disk space for your web site with a host that is as cheap as $5 per month. However, if you are a developer, an online entrepreneur or an online business looking for e-commerce capabilities or advanced scripting technologies, then you can determine your requirements in the following order.

(1) Whether you need Shared Hosting or Dedicated Hosting:
This depends mainly on two major requirements, the traffic your web site is expected to receive and the degree of administrative privileges you need. If you expect your web site to receive huge amounts of traffic, then you will need to have a Dedicated Server which definitely has a much greater bandwidth offering. Also you should select Dedicated server hosting if your web site requires customized options, secure information or complex applications i.e. e-commerce, dynamic content, database and multimedia applications.

(2) Whether you need Linux Hosting or Windows Hosting:
If you’re going to use server technologies such as ASP, JSP etc or intend to run Microsoft applications like Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database on your server, then you should use a Windows hosting provider. Although ASP can be run on the Linux platform using some commercial applications, there are security and reliability concerns related to it. However, if you want to use ColdFusion, it can run on both Linux and Windows platforms.

(3) What are your Space and Bandwidth requirements:
Many web hosts nowadays offer generous amounts of disk space from 1 GB to 3 GB. However, if your web site mainly acts as a download resource, then your disk space requirements may be 5 to 10 times greater than this. The second consideration is how much traffic your web site is expected to receive which will let you estimate your bandwidth requirements.

(4) How many Parked Domains and Subdomains do you need:
Parked domains are very advantageous and can significantly increase the amount of traffic to your web site. Similarly, subdomains can help with your search engine rankings by pointing to specific directories of your web site. Parked domains and subdomains occasionally come free with certain web hosting packages. However if you need more, you will have to pay an additional price per month.

(5) FTP Accounts and Anonymous FTP Requirements:
You may need more than one FTP account if you have coworkers working on your web site project at different locations. The Anonymous FTP permits the general public to access certain directories on your web server to whom they have been granted permission by you. In most cases, you will need a dedicated IP address for Anonymous FTP to function.

(6) Whether you need e-commerce Features:
If you need e-commerce features, you should choose a web host that provides e-commerce functionality such as shopping carts and the ability to accept credit cards. You should also check whether their server is SSL secure.

In addition to your own hosting requirements, the following considerations must be kept in mind when looking for a quality web host.

(1) More than 99.5% uptime:
Choose a web host that has an uptime greater than 99.5% and if there is an uptime guarantee, it’s even better. If your web site is for business purposes, it’s very crucial that your site stays online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.

(2) Fast Servers:
The level of connectivity of your web host to the Internet is very important. So you should choose a web host with at least a T3 connection to the major Internet backbone. Analysis has shown that the average web visitor waits for about 30 seconds before your web page loads. So if your web site takes more than 30 seconds to load, chances are that you will loose a lot of visitors and consequently sales.

(3) Server Backups:
To make your data secure, your web host must have a power backup system and should backup the data to an external device in order to prevent the data loss due to failure. Check how frequently the web host backups the data, i.e. daily or weekly.

(4) Disk Space and Bandwidth:
Choose a web host that meets your disk space and bandwidth requirements. Most web hosts offer 1 GB to 3 GB of disk space, so if your web site is not mainly a download resource, then this factor is not that important for you. However, as regards the bandwidth, it should be as much as possible because your traffic can increase in the future thereby requiring more data transfer. Also check that you have the option of buying more disk space and bandwidth when required.

(5) Unrestricted CGI, SSH, FTP access & Anonymous FTP:
If you have a professional web site, you will need to run CGI scripts, have SSH (Secure Shell) access and FTP access. CGI and FTP access is provided by most web hosts whereas SSH access is provided by a few. You may also need to check if anonymous FTP access is provided.

(6) Software/Scripts:
Choose a web host that has an extensive script library that you can use to add guestbooks, forms, surveys, newsletters etc to your web site.

(7) E-commerce capabilities and SSL:
Choose a web host that provides you with e-commerce capabilities with shopping cart software and also merchant accounts. The web host must also have an SSL secure server for safe and risk-free transactions.

(8) Web-Based Administration:
Almost all web hosts nowadays provide a control panel to access and manage web site features. Ask for a demo of their control panel if possible and check to make sure that it is simple as well as comprehensive. The control panel should provide access to FTP, e-mail, databases, e-commerce and all other functions for effective web site management. VDeck 2.0 and CPanel are the leading brands of administration control panels.

(9) Full e-mail services:
Choose a web host that provides both POP3 and IMAP e-mail accounts, web-based e-mail, autoresponders, mailing lists, forwarding accounts and antivirus and spam filtering software.

(10) Moneyback Guarantee:
If the Web host gives a moneyback guarantee, it’s even better because it makes you absolutely risk-free.

(11) 24/7/365 Customer Support:
The web host should provide as many support channels as possible including an FAQ section, a knowledgebase, video and flash tutorials, toll-free support, e-mails support, live chat support and a community forum. Try e-mailing the web host a couple of times to check how quickly they respond to your request. The customer support should be as prompt as possible and should be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. This is crucial because if you run into problems and the support staff is not receptive or knowledgeable, you will be helpless.

Michael Smith is an expert web hosting analyst. His site Web Hosting Provider reviews and rates the leading web hosting providers.

Numerous betting buffs have discovered the slogan “offshore sports betting” by now, but some are not entirely in the know what that represents. A foreign gaming website basically performs outside the legal power of any single country alternatively it could be a networked gaming website which bases their central servers within the boundaries of a state in which computer accessible sports betting isn’t outlawed. Concisely then, it’s a betting internet site operating outside the land of the consumer. Online sports wagering websites are in the main regulated by 3 administrations. These are termed OSGA (the Offshore Gaming Association), the IGC (Interactive Gaming Council) and finally the Fidelity Trust Gaming Association (the FTGA).

The Offshore Gaming Association is a self-governing “watch-dog” institute which watches the offshore sports gambling business, they undertake to offer sports gambling fans the capability to swiftly locate reputable businesses to play gambling games with. It labors to champion client’s rights, also they charge no association costs.

The agency are a highly proficient not to mention objective third party association who express objective info, established on your evaluations, impartial examination, chats, insider advice and also dispenses industry information.

The Interactive Gaming Council is a non-profit-making organisation. The administration has been set up to allow an arena for concerned parties to address matters and in addition to mutual interests in the global web-based sports betting trade, in an effort to establish honest not to mention amenable industry codes and patterns which strive to raise end user trust in interactive gaming products and services, and to aid as the sports gaming industry’s public procedure counselor furthermore the Interactive Gaming Council acts as a data base.

The Interactive Gaming Council have made a name for dependability, equity and solidity because of the rigid principles it stands for, and in addition its appeal to concerns of proper practise. The Interactive Gaming Council governs offshore sports betting via upholding a unique 10-point standard procedure instructions and in addition bills sports gaming business enterprises license fees to feature the council’s logo. Malcontent customers can, should they want to, state any of their arguments to the Interactive Gaming Council.

The FTGA has been formed in order to generate a benchmark which will reform the standards of web based betting operations. The council trust that doing business with internet sites of good reputation, they can make a federation of the fairest and most proficient overseas gambling companies in the world at large.

These are agencies that review the procedures exercised by internet based sports betting and which should with time work to ease a lot of the uneasiness held by detractors. Machine-accessible sports gambling sites are completely trustworthy, in that personal details shouldn’t be a requirement and the payouts and the gaming odds are equivalent to a normal Vegas-type Vegas style wager. These sites cut the traveling expenditure, but nonetheless maintain the fundamental essence, however nowadays you can bet at your computer.

internet sports bet

This article is a simple step-by-step guide for webmasters who want to create a Google toolbar “push button” with an icon that navigates to a site, displays an RSS feeds of that site in a drop down menu; host the button and make it available on their website. This type of button is a great way to gather all the sites of interest to you in one place in an attractive way.

A custom button is an .XML file (like feeds) and its properties and behavior are defined with a <*custombuttons> element.

The XML file elements we are going to use are following:
title- is the name of the button;
description- acts as a tooltip;
site- defines a link to a website;
icon- 16×16 .ico file which many sites use as their favicon.ico file and it has to be base64 encoded;
feed- adds the ability to open a dropdown menu with RSS feed titles and links.

As an illustrative example, we are going to use www.mygiftgadgets.com website, because this site has feeds and an icon.

The following basic XML produces a button that, when clicked, opens www.mygiftgadgets.com in the current browser window, has a title and displays a tooltip:

<*?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<*custombuttons xmlns="http://toolbar.google.com/custombuttons/*">
<*button>
<*site>http://www.mygiftgadgets.com<*/site>
<*title>MyGiftGadgets.com<*/title>
<*description>Shopping for Gifts and Gadgets<*/description>
<*/button>
<*/custombuttons>

Now that we have the main button elements in place we need an icon. You can draw a small picture using any picture editing program you may have and save the picture file to your desktop, so that you would find it easily. As mentioned before the size of the icon needs to be 16×16 pixels. The easiest way to accomplish this would be by first, generating a favicon.ico from the picture (which you can do here: www.chami.com/html-kit/services/favicon) and saving the file to your desktop. Second, encode the favicon.ico file into ASCII text using base64 encoding (www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp), which in the end produces a base64 string – a long line of letters and numbers. As you can see creating an icon doesn’t require any program installations to your computer!

The base64 string (your icon) has to be placed between the <*icon> and <*/icon> elements as shown in the final XML file example.

MyGiftGadgets.com site also has feeds that can be shown in the dropdown menu of the custom button. In the XML file the feeds URL will be displayed between the <*feed> and <*/feed> elements like this:

<*feed refresh-interval="3600" refresh-menuitem="false">

http://www.mygiftgadgets.com/wordpress/wp-rss.php<*/feed>

where the feed elements are:

refresh-interval – number of seconds to wait before reloading the feed, the default is 3600 (1 hour);
refresh-menuitem=”false” – hides the refresh menu item any time a successful connection is made to the server.

Adding the icon and feed elements to our basic XML structure will complete the button file and the final XML file of MyGiftGadgets.com custom can be seen here: www.mygiftgadgets.com/mggbutton.xml

Now we are going to save the text file as mggbutton.txt and upload it to our website hosting root directory, then change the file name into mggbutton.XML and we’re done with the file!

The next step is to link to the button from our site. To do that we have to create an installation link by using the following URL syntax for our mggbutton.XML file:

http://toolbar.google.com/buttons/add?url=http://www.mygiftgadgets.com/mggbutton.xml

When a user clicks on this link, the MyGiftGadgets.com button is installed in their Google toolbar. If the user doesn’t have a compatible version of the toolbar, they’ll be prompted to install it and the custom button will automatically be added.

After we’ve made sure that the custom button that we’ve created works (to make sure try adding it to your toolbar!) it is time to add the button to the Button Gallery by filling out the button gallery submission form (www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/request.py?contact_type=button).

Note: “*” element is not part of the encoding and needs to be removed when using in a .xml file. It’s here so that the article can be displayed properly.

MyGiftGadgets.com online shopping site for gifts, gift ideas and gift gadgets.
URL: http://www.mygiftgadgets.com