In this month's Newsletter:

• BBC iPlayer. How to get iPlayer in Spain
• How to get your site to number one in Google
• MySky. Never miss your favourite TV programs.
• iWin. Free games.

PC Resolver, in partnership with The Inland Magazine, is publishing a Questions and Answers section in the published magazine. The questions and answers themselves are in the Website Steve's Q&A section of Support. This section will grow and will include non-published questions.

A key part of Website Steve's Q&A is questions about websites. Having your own website has never been easier, cheaper or more necessary than it is today. A fully functioning professionally designed and built website costs 300 Euros to build to your requirements and less than 10 Euros a month to host (including your domain name and IVA). I will give a 50 Euro discount to anyone quoting this newsletter!

You can meet me at my Free Computer Clinic at The Inland Magazine Bootsale in Salinas on the First Sunday of each month.

Due to an increasing number of requests for help via email I am now answering many of these by creating an article on my website. To receive a 'tweet' everytime I publish something new Follow me on Twitter:

How Can I Get BBC iPlayer in Spain?

This has to be one of the most frequent questions I get asked and (until now) I’ve said “You Can’t”. Well, it turns out that I’m wrong ... and it gets worse! It turns out that I’ve been wrong for years! I have the solution!

First the problem: because of licensing restrictions the BBC, Channel 4 etc are not allowed to broadcast outside of the UK. They therefore have to monitor users of iPlayer etc to see where they are accessing the service from. They do this by looking at your IP address (this is given to you by your Spanish Internet provided).

There are a number of people offering access to these sites for either a one-off fee of several hundred Euros or a monthly fee. What they do is set up a ‘proxy’ account for you which means that all the information you send or receive is redirected via another computer in the UK. You can do this yourself and you can even find free proxy servers.

My concern is: what are they doing with that information? This includes everything you send or receive (bank details as well as the latest Eastenders). You can always turn the proxy off when you’ve finished but will you remember? And, if even if you turn it off, what has happened whilst you were connected? What Malware has been downloaded for instance? Even if they are legitimate services you will run into frustrating reliability problems.

The Solution

The fix I have for this is a product called OnSpeed. I’ve used this on and off for years, even in the UK! It’s primary function is to speed up your Internet access (it makes a difference even on a 1mb broadband/ADSL link). It costs less than 30 Euros a year and has a money back guarantee. SAFE, LEGAL & CHEAP!

It does this by reducing the amount of information downloaded by compressing it and then decompresses it on your PC. Believe it or not, it is faster to compress, send and decompress than it is to just send. To do this it has to use its own high-speed servers in the UK to request and receive the data. This is how you are able to get iPlayer etc!! OnSpeed is asking for the programs from within the UK and forwarding them to you!

It also displays pages intelligently – for instance, the quality of pictures improves as the page loads so that you see all the text and a low resolution pictures immediately which means you can probably see all you need to see and be on another page in less time than it previously took just to download the page.

If you give it a try and you don’t see a significant improvement you can always cancel within the 14 days.

Unlike the other options, this is safe, secure and reliable! And LEGAL!! Oh, and you get faster Internet!!

Please see the fulll article for uptodate issues.

How Can I Get My Website To Be Number One In Google?

Following on from the last 2 months’ articles (we’ve paid for our own Google ads on Google pages and we have paying ads on our site earning commission) we now want to be on the first page of Google.

The important question is: "what search terms (key words) do you want to appear on the first page for?"

The more precise the key words the easier it is to be Number 1. For example: if you search “Computer Repairs Alicante” you will see PC Resolver on page 2. Change Alicante to Sax and I’m number 2 on page 1.

You need to:

• Be sure of the search phrase/words that you are targeting
• Write your content with these keywords / phrases in mind
• Have links to your site from other (relevant) web sites
• Write content for other sites and link to yours
• Update your site regularly and keep it up-to-date

Don’t pay for short term success (there are many people offering to get to you page one but the results are not sustainable). The best and most reliable way of getting higher in the results is content, content, content. Your content should be relevant, up-to-date and interesting.

There are other steps you can take to improve your ranking but the list above is going to give you the most consistent results. When I build websites I build them with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in mind and offer advice to existing sites.

Website Steve's Q&A FREE Stuff

My Sky

mysky.sky.com: This is your Free Sky account page. Sign Up and check out the “Never Miss” option. Tell Sky the programs you’re interested in and they’ll send you an email telling you when the Series or program is due to start. How good is that?!

iWin Games

iWin.com: More entertainment - this time computer games. 100s and 1000s of games. Free to download and play with adverts or pay to remove the ads.

As always, I encourage anyone with a comment, suggestion, question, idea or inspiration to contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Please also see The Inland Magazine Computer Problems Forum if you have a specific IT problem.

Steve
PC Resolver
966 967 439
650 354 629

Please email Steve if any of the links in this article don't work.

In this month's Newsletter:

• Is This Email a Hoax? How to tell if the email you have received is for real or not.
• Advertisiing With GoogleAds - How to use GoogleAds to promote your business.
• HoaxSlayer Website - Check here for the latest and greatest hoaxes.
• You Send It - How to send large files quickly, easily .. and FREE!

Introduction

PC Resolver, in partnership with The Inland Magazine, is publishing a Questions and Answers section in the published magazine. The questions and answers themselves are in the Website Steve's Q&A section of Support. This section will grow and will include non-published questions.

A key part of Website Steve's Q&A is questions about websites. Having your own website has never been easier, cheaper or more necessary than it is today. A fully functioning professionally designed and built website costs 300 Euros to build to your requirements and less than 10 Euros a month to host (including your domain name and IVA). I will give a 50 Euro discount to anyone quoting this newsletter!

You can meet me at my Free Computer Clinic at The Inland Magazine Bootsale in Salinas on the First Sunday of each month.

Is this email for real? How can I know if it is a hoax or a scam?

How do you know if the latest email forwarded to you by well-meaning friends is for real or not? Is it a scam or a hoax?

The most recent question related to an email stating that MSN was closing down its email service. It went on to say that if you didn’t forward the email to all your contacts it would cost 10.00 to use it. So, you have to pay 10 ‘somethings’ to pay for a service that is no longer available!

This was obviously a hoax but others are more believable but still a hoax. There are a great many email hoaxes going around all the time and some keep circulating for years (this one has been on the go since 2001!). Most of us have fallen for an email hoax at some point (including yours truly!). These days, before I forward an email message, I always check it out at www.hoax-slayer.com. This also helps me identify the scams and phishing emails.

Hoaxes are less serious than the scams and phishing emails but still not harmless: they cause worry and I have known people stop using a service because of them. If you are at all concerned about an email you have received then check it out on line. If you’re still concerned then send it to me and I’ll check it for you (for free of course!).

Finally, if you do forward these emails (and the jokes etc.) then please use your BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) function of your email program to protect your friends’ email addresses. Contact me if you don’t know how (for some reason the BCC option is not displayed by default in most email programs). You can read more about using BCC in my article:

Blind Carbon Copy - What It Is, Why And How To Use It

How do I advertise with GoogleAds and how much does it cost?

Last month I covered how to add GoogleAds to your site to make money. I’ve had a couple of questions since about how to pay Google to advertise Websites.
For your advert to appear on Google’s search results pages and on other websites you create an advertising campaign with Google. You design your advert and include relevant key words to ensure your ad appears on relevant search results and websites.
You decide how much to pay per ‘impression’ (view) and how much per click. The more you pay, the higher up the list your ad will appear. You also dictate a limit spend per day or month: when your limit is reached your ad stops appearing and you stop paying. I limit mine to 1 Euro a day; not expensive and it drives traffic to my site.
It should cost less than 25 Euros for a web designer to do this for you.
As always, feel free to contact me if you need help or more information.

Website Steve's Q&A FREE Stuff

Hoax-slayer

Hoax-Slayer is dedicated to debunking email hoaxes, thwarting Internet scammers, combating spam, and educating web users about email and Internet security issues.
Hoax-Slayer allows Internet users to check the veracity of common email hoaxes and aims to counteract criminal activity by publishing information about common types of Internet scams.
Hoax-Slayer also includes anti-spam tips, computer and email security information, articles about true email forwards, and much more. New articles are added to the Hoax-Slayer website every week.

YouSendIt

Send files up to 100mb. Simply and easily ... and FREE. You don’t even need to create an account! In today’s file-sharing world, this is a must have!

All you do is enter the email address of who you want to send the file to, your email address and browse to the file that you want to send. Click 'send' and your friend will receive a link to download your file. Easy!! Click here.

As always, I encourage anyone with a comment, suggestion, question, idea or inspiration to contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Please also see The Inland Magazine Computer Problems Forum if you have a specific IT problem.

Steve
PC Resolver
966 967 439
650 354 629

Please email Steve if any of the links in this article don't work.