5 NASA Inventions You Won't Believe

The Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off from launch pad 39B on July 26, 2005, in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Since its beginnings in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has had to invent everything it needed to make space missions possible, from protective suits for astronauts to the mirrors and software used on the Hubble telescope. But NASA was smart enough to know it couldn't do everything alone -- these are, after all, rocket scientists. It has partnered with businesses and scientists around the country to create some of the most amazing inventions the planet has ever seen, and not just Tang, the powdered orange drink famously used by astronauts on Gemini missions in the 1960s.

Take a look at these five amazing inventions, which were all developed by NASA for use in space but have found some amazing Earth-bound applications.

5: Nanoceramics Cure Cancer, Make Hair Shiny

While working as a NASA scientist specializing in nanomaterials (which are 10,000 times smaller than a human hair), Dr. Dennis Morrison developed nanoceramics, which could be formed into tiny balloons called microcapsules. These little balloons could be filled with cancer-fighting drugs and injected into solid tumors.

 

Ceramic-magnetic nanoparticles are good for more than fighting cancerous tumors -- they also release ions that make hair smooth and shiny.

Where, you're wondering, does space come into this process? In order to create the microscopic membrane around the liquid drugs, the microcapsules had to be formed in low-Earth orbit. Dr. Morrison's ceramic nanoparticles contained metals that would react when the patient was subjected to a magnetic field, like what's used in an MRI diagnostic machine. The capsules would melt, and the drugs would be released to fight the cancerous tumor.

It turns out that Dr. Morrison's ceramic-magnetic particles were good for more than fighting tumors -- they could also fight frizz. When incorporated into Farouk Systems's hairstyling iron and heated, the nanoparticles released ions that made hair smooth and shiny.

4: Reflective Coatings Save Skylab, Manatees

When the Skylab space-based laboratory was set in position in 1973, a solar panel fell off during the launch, which kept another solar panel from deploying properly once in orbit. These panels had to be replaced -- and fast. NASA turned to National Metalizing, a firm it had worked with previously, to create a new panel that would be ready to go into space in 10 days.

This manatee is in a river off the west coast of Florida.

National Metalizing had originally developed reflective materials for NASA in the 1950s, so it was able to deliver the necessary thin plastic material coated in vaporized aluminum in time. The material can deflect or conserve radiant energy, depending on which is required -- to keep something cool or to warm it up. This flexible reflective material proved so useful, it was inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame in 1996.

A former director of the company took this technology, which has been in the public domain for decades, and started a new company, Advanced Flexible Materials. The same materials used to protect Skylab now protects marathon runners from hypothermia after a race, as well as manatees, which can suffer from hypothermia at 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.6 degrees Celsius), while they're being tagged by researchers.

3: Deformable Mirrors -- Not for the Fun House

Any space nerd who remembers the Hubble Space Telescope launch in 1990 remembers seeing pictures and news videos of the giant mirrors being polished to perfection -- or as close as humans can get, anyway. Minor flaws in the surface could obscure important discoveries.

The Hubble Space Telescope positioned over the Earth.

Hubble and its amazing sheets of optical glass paved the way for the Terrestrial Planet Finder and its deformable mirrors, which will have 100 times the imaging power of its predecessor when NASA launches it in the near future. Deformable mirrors don't need to be absolutely perfect the first time out -- they can adjust their positions to correct for blurring or distortion, which in space can be caused by temperature, lack of gravity or getting bumped during launch.

Deformable mirrors are not so new; they were proposed by astronomers in the 1950s and developed by the United States Air Force in the 1970s. Each system consists of the deformable mirror itself, a sensor that measures any aberrations it finds hundreds of times a second, and a small computer that receives the sensor's readings and tells the mirror how to move to correct for the problem.

2: Nanotubes Look for Life on Mars

No matter what the movies have been telling us for decades, Martians are not likely to be humanoid, sentient beings. They won't have ray guns or space suits. If there is life on Mars, it will be very, very small, and probably not too far up the evolution ladder. Pity.

Mars: The Schiaparelli Hemisphere

In order to find such small forms of life, small detectors were necessary. Enter nanotubes, which is a fun word to say. Scientists at the Ames Research Center developed carbon nanotubes, each 1/50,000th the diameter of a human hair, that can conduct heat and electricity. Each nanotube is tipped with single strands of nucleic acid (the "NA" in "DNA") from a microorganism. When it comes into contact with a matching strand, the pair form a double helix and send a faint electrical charge through the nanotubes. This charge is how anyone looking at the biosensor, as the tiny apparatus is called, knows life has been detected.

Sadly, no life has yet been found on Mars, but these biosensors are being put to good use on Earth. Tipping the nanotubes with waterborne pathogens like E. Coli and Cryptosporidium means an analyst can get results from the biosensor in the field within two hours -- no lab work required.

1: Mars Missions Create Tough Armor

When the Mars Pathfinder (1997) and Mars Rover (2004) missions landed on the Red Planet, they landed hard. These were unmanned missions, of course, with some guidance from engineers on Earth -- but not as much as they'd like. The equipment was designed to crash land, gently, with a cage of airbags to cushion the fall from space.

The Sojourner Rover uses its Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) to analyze the Yogi Rock on the surface of Mars during the Mars Pathfinder exploratory mission in July 1997.

Obviously, not just any airbag would work. NASA required the material to be lightweight and able to withstand extreme temperatures for the interplanetary flight. The material also had to be tough enough to keep the airbags inflated as the whole apparatus bounced along the rocky, sharp surface of Mars.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory worked with Warwick Mills, the company that had woven the reentry parachutes for the Apollo missions in the 1960s, to create a layered, coated, liquid-crystal polyester fiber that would fit the bill.

Warwick took the technology and ran with it, creating TurtleSkin protective gear that can withstand punctures from needles, knives and even bullets. The flexibility of the tightly woven fabric, which helped keep the Mars landers safe, now also keeps military and police officers safe.

10 Inventions by Thomas Edison (That You've Never Heard Of)

Edison is known for inventing the light bulb, but he had numerous lesser-known inventions.

Without question, our lives would be very different without the inventions of Thomas Alva Edison. This prodigious creator changed our culture in countless ways with the seemingly miraculous devices that flooded out of his New Jersey laboratory.

Edison, born in Ohio in 1847, obtained his first patent at the age of 22. The last patent in his name was granted two years after his death, in 1933. In between, he tallied 1,093 United States patents and 1,200 patents in other countries. Biographers have figured that Edison averaged a patent every two weeks during his working life. Even though many of his inventions were not unique -- and he engaged in some well-publicized court battles with other inventors whose ideas he "borrowed" -- Edison's skill at marketing and using his influence often got him the credit.

Most of Edison's inventions fall into eight main categories: batteries, electric lights and power, phonographs and sound recording, cement, mining, motion pictures, telegraphs and telephones. But while the Wizard of Menlo Park is remembered for his major inventions -- the motion picture, the incandescent light bulb and the phonograph -- his tireless mind also came up with some ideas that aren't so well known and some that weren't welcomed by the public. Keep reading to find out why members of Congress rejected a machine designed to make them more efficient and how another Edison invention frightened little girls and angered their parents. You'll also find out about a device that could have kept Edison's genius with us even today.

10. Electrographic Vote-Recorder

Edison was a 22-year-old telegraph operator when he received his first patent for a machine he called the electrographic vote-recorder. He was one of several inventors at the time developing methods for legislative bodies, such as the United States Congress, to record their votes in a more timely fashion than the time-honored voice vote system.

Congress had little interest in Edison's electrographic vote-recorder.

In Edison's vote-recorder, a voting device was connected to the clerk's desk. At the desk, the names of the legislators were embedded in metal type in two columns -- "yes" and "no." Legislators would move a switch on the device to point to either "yes" or "no," sending an electric current to the device at the clerk's desk. After voting was completed, the clerk would place a chemically treated piece of paper on top of the metal type and run a metal roller over it. The current would cause the chemicals in the paper to dissolve on the side for which the vote should be recorded. "Yes" and "no" wheels kept track of the vote totals and tabulated the results.

A friend of Edison's, another telegraph operator named Dewitt Roberts, bought an interest in his machine for $100 and took it to Washington. But Congress wanted no part of any device that would increase the speed of voting -- decreasing the time for filibusters and political wheeling and dealing -- so young Edison's vote-recorder was sent to the political graveyard.

9. Pneumatic Stencil Pen

Edison invented the ancestor of the tattoo gun -- the pneumatic stencil pen. This machine, which Edison patented in 1876, used a rod tipped with a steel needle to perforate paper for printing purposes. It's important on its own as one of the first devices that could efficiently copy documents.

In 1891, tattoo artist Samuel O'Reilly was awarded the first patent for a tattoo machine -- a device allegedly based on Edison's stencil pen. O'Reilly apparently produced only one of the machines and that was for his own personal use -- there is no record of his marketing his device.

O'Reilly immigrated to New York City from Ireland in 1875. After he developed his tattoo machine, many sideshow and circus attractions began frequenting his shop at No. 11 Chatham Square. The machine was much quicker than hand tattooing, and the performers thought it gave cleaner results. After O'Reilly's death in 1908, a student took up his trade and machine and worked at Coney Island until the 1950s.

8. Magnetic Iron-ore Separator

Probably the biggest financial failure of Edison's career was the magnetic iron-ore separator. The idea, which Edison's laboratory experimented with during the 1880s and 1890s, was to use magnets to separate iron ore from unusable low-grade ores. This would mean that abandoned mines could be profitable once again through the extraction of iron from sand at the sites -- at the time, iron ore prices had risen to unprecedented heights.

Edison's laboratory was preoccupied with developing a magnetic iron-ore separator and putting it to practical use. He acquired rights to 145 abandoned mines and set up a pilot project at the Ogden mine in New Jersey. Edison poured money into the project, gradually selling most of his interest in the General Electric Company to pay for his work. But the engineering problems were never worked out and the price of iron ore fell, leading Edison to finally abandon his iron-ore separator.

7. The Electric Power Meter

All sorts of issues arise when you're doing something that has never been done before -- like running electrical services to businesses and residences. You need a way to measure how much customers consume so you'll know what to bill them.

Edison solved this problem by patenting the Webermeter in 1881. The Webermeter contained two or four electrolytic cells with zinc at both electrodes and a zinc sulfate solution. The zinc transferred from one electrode to the other at a set rate as electricity was used. The meter reader removed the electrolytic cells at each reading for weighing, replacing them with new ones.

6. Method of Preserving Fruit

Another Edison invention came about as a result of the laboratory's work with glass vacuum tubes in the development of the incandescent light bulb. In 1881, Edison filed for a patent for a method to preserve fruits, vegetables or other organic substances in a glass vessel. The vessel was filled with the items to be preserved, and then all the air was sucked from it with an air pump. The vessel tube was sealed with another piece of glass.

Another food-related invention, wax paper, is often attributed to Edison, but it was invented in France in 1851 when Edison was just a child. Edison did use wax paper in his sound recording work, which might be where the story originated.

5. Electric Car

Edison believed cars would be powered by electricity, and in 1899 he began to develop an alkaline storage battery that would power them. He was on to something: In 1900, about 28 percent of the more than 4,000 cars produced in America did run on electricity. His goal was to create a battery that would run for 100 miles without recharging. Edison gave up the project after about 10 years because the ready abundance of gasoline made the electric car a moot point.

But Edison's work wasn't in vain -- storage batteries became his most profitable invention and were used in miners' headlamps, railroad signals and marine buoys. His friend Henry Ford also used Edison's batteries in his Model Ts.
4. Concrete House

Not satisfied with having improved the average American's life with electric lights, movies and phonographs, the Wizard of Menlo Park decided in the early part of the 20th century to abolish city slums and get every working man's family into sturdy fire-proof homes that could be built inexpensively on a mass scale. And what would those homes be made of? Why, concrete, of course, using materials from the Edison Portland Cement company. Edison, recalling his own working-class upbringing, said he would take no profit if the venture succeeded.

Edison's plan was to pour the concrete into large wooden molds the size and shape of a house, let it cure, remove the framework and -- voila! A concrete house, with decorative molding, plumbing pipes, even a bathtub, molded right in. Edison said these dwellings would sell for around $1,200, about one-third the price of a regularly constructed house at the time.

But while Edison Portland Cement was used in a lot of structures around New York City during the building boom of the early 1900s, the concrete houses never caught on. The molds and equipment needed to make the homes required a huge financial investment that few builders were able to make. Image was another problem -- not many families wanted the social stigma of moving to a house that was touted as getting people out of the slums. One other factor: The homes were just plain ugly. In 1917, a company operated chiefly by Edison's friends did build 11 concrete homes in Union, N.J., but they weren't well received and no more were ever built.

And what did Edison expect you to furnish your concrete home with? Keep reading to find out why the inventor wouldn't have been a good interior designer.

3. Concrete Furniture

Why should a young couple go into debt to purchase furniture that will last only a few decades? Edison proposed that for half the money, they could obtain a house full of concrete furniture that would endure for eternity. Made with air-impregnated foam to keep the weight at only one and a half times that of wooden furniture, Edison's line of concrete furnishings would be sanded and smoothed into a mirror-like finish or stained to look like wood grain. He claimed he could furnish an entire house for less than $200.

In 1911 Edison's company molded a piano, bathtub and cabinets that could house Edison's phonographs. They shipped the phonograph cabinets around the country as a publicity stunt, and Edison affixed stickers on the packaging, asking the shippers to please handle them roughly. The cabinets were to be unveiled in New York City at the annual cement industry show, but Edison didn't show up, and the cabinets weren't heard of again. Suspicions are that the cabinets didn't survive the trip.

2. Phonograph For Dolls or Other Toys

Once Edison had patented his phonograph, he began to devise ways to use it. One idea, first mentioned in a laboratory note in 1877, but not patented until 1890, was to miniaturize the phonograph and insert it into a doll or other toy, giving the formerly inarticulate plaything a voice of its own. The phonograph was enclosed in a tin casing that composed the doll's chest, then pre-made arms and legs were attached, along with a bisque head made in Germany. The talking dollies sold for about $10. Little girls sat in factory stalls and recorded the songs and nursery rhymes that were inscribed on the wax cylinders for the phonographs to play.

Edison miniaturized his phonograph invention to create talking toys.

 
Unfortunately, the idea of a talking toy was far ahead of the technology needed to execute it. Sound recording was in its infancy, and the cracklings and hissing on early records were more disturbing when they were supposed to be the voices of sweet-faced dolls. "The voices of the little monsters are exceeding unpleasant to hear," one customer complained. Most dolls did not play at all or the voice was too faint to be heard. The doll's fragile form did not protect the delicate mechanism from shaking and jolts, and its purpose as a child's toy almost guaranteed the phonograph for dolls would not get the delicate care it required.

1. The Spirit Phone

Taking the idea of the telephone and the telegraph a bit further, Edison announced in October of 1920 that he was working on a machine to open the lines of communication with the spirit world. In the aftermath of World War I, spiritualism was undergoing a revival, and many people hoped science could provide a means to access the souls of the recently deceased. The inventor, himself an agnostic who admitted he had no idea if a spirit world even existed, spoke of his quest in several magazines and explained to The New York Times that his machine would measure what he described as the life units that scatter through the universe after death.

Edison corresponded with British inventor Sir William Cooke, who claimed to have captured images on "spirit photographs." These photos allegedly encouraged Edison, but he never introduced any machine that he said could communicate with the dead, and after his own death in 1931, no machine was found. Many people believe he was just playing a joke on the reporters he'd talked to about his "spirit phone."

Some people claimed that at a séance in 1941, Edison's spirit told the participants that three of his assistants possessed the plans. The machine was reportedly then built, but did not work. Later, at another séance, Edison supposedly suggested some improvements. Inventor J. Gilbert Wright was present and worked on the machine until his own death in 1959, but, as far as we know, never used it to contact spirits.

5 Myths About Microsoft

A T-shirt from Microsoft's clothing line features a photo of Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' infamous 1977 mug shot.

There's an iconic image of Bill Gates that might help explain our collective fascination with this legendary businessman and his most famous creation, the Microsoft Corp. It's a mug shot from 1977, taken after Gates was pulled over in Albuquerque, N.M., for a traffic violation.

The photo shows a chinless 19-year-old geek with tinted prescription glasses and an undeniable smirk. How, we're left to wonder, did this goofy-looking college dropout with questionable driving skills (and wearing an even more questionable flowered shirt) end up becoming the richest man in the world?

If you go searching for answers to that question online, you'll find a lot of half-truths and misinformation. It doesn't help that Microsoft has made more than its fair share of enemies over the years. It really doesn't help that most of those enemies have blogs that enable them to share their enmity with the world. They've accused the company and its former CEO of everything from willfully running a monopoly to stealing some of its biggest technological innovations to actually being evil.

The myths surrounding Microsoft and its founder are closely tied to the creation myth of the personal computer itself. To start off our list of top 5 Microsoft myths, we're going to explore a common misconception about the origin of "windows."

5: Microsoft Invented "Windows"

In 1968, when 13-year-old Bill Gates was still programming tic-tac-toe in BASIC, an engineer named Douglas Englebart at the Stanford Research Institute introduced the world to the mouse. To modern computer users, the mouse is nothing more than a mundane technological necessity: How else could you click icons, scroll through menus and move cursors? But computer users in 1968 found the mouse revolutionary precisely because no one had ever heard of those things back then.

Englebart is credited with inventing the graphical user interface, or GUI (pronounced "gooey"). In the early 1970s, a team of researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) expanded on Englebart's concept and built the Xerox Alto, the first personal computer that featured the now-standard "W.I.M.P." GUI: windows, icons, menus and pointing device.

The Xerox Alto ran on an operating system/development environment called SmallTalk that was created in-house by Xerox PARC researchers. In 1979, 24-year-old Steve Jobs of tech upstart Apple Computer, Inc. paid $1 million in Apple stock options for a detailed tour of the Xerox PARC facility. Blown away by the SmallTalk GUI, Jobs demanded the product's technical documentation, which Xerox foolishly handed over.

With the specs for the SmallTalk GUI in hand, Apple released the Lisa in 1983, the first commercial computer to feature a "windows" GUI. Jobs would use a similar GUI for the much more popular Macintosh models. When Bill Gates, who wrote software for the Mac, released Windows 2.0 in 1987, Apple sued Microsoft for blatantly stealing the Mac's look and feel -- something Apple stole long ago from Xerox.

Apple eventually lost the case and Microsoft's subsequent dominance of the PC market made "windows" synonymous with Windows.

4: Microsoft Doesn't Care About Security

Microsoft is the Little Dutch Boy of software manufacturers, constantly plugging security holes in its operating system and application software. These backdoor vulnerabilities allow malicious hackers to gain access to unprotected computers, turning them into unwitting bots that spread viruses and worms to even more computers.

Five years in the making, Windows Vista's 2007 launch was the biggest in Microsoft's storied history.

You hardly ever see headlines reading, "Apple Warns Users About Serious Security Hole" or "Red Hat Races to Issue Patch to Thwart Hackers." That's because few programmers would bother to write malicious code and nasty computer viruses for Macs and Linux computers. The reason for this is quite simple: If you're a hacker and your insidious goal is to poison the most machines possible, you'd train your sights on the operating system used by more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers.

Despite the rabid criticism of the security weaknesses of Windows XP, it's wrong to say that Microsoft doesn't care about security. Microsoft employs some of the sharpest minds in the field of cyber security, including security chief Michael Howard and Linux security expert Crispin Cowan. In recent years, they've launched several long-term, far-reaching security initiatives, including Trustworthy Computing, End to End Trust and most recently, Microsoft Security Essentials. They've also built Windows Vista to be substantially more secure than XP.

The real question, according to veteran tech writer Rob Enderle, is whether anyone at any company could successfully repel the near-constant barrage of attacks that plague Microsoft products. To make matters worse, he says, boasting about security features is bound to attract hackers hungry for a challenge. As an example, the writer cites an announcement from Oracle that called its latest creation "bulletproof." It was successfully attacked the next day.

3: Microsoft is a "Natural Monopoly"

Some critics of the U.S. government's ongoing antitrust case against Microsoft defended the software powerhouse as a legal natural monopoly because it earned its dominance by outmaneuvering its free market competitors.

The real definition of a natural monopoly is actually quite different from its conventional meaning. In economic parlance, a natural monopoly is a company that is allowed to monopolize an industry because it's in the best interest of the state and the consumer.

Utility companies are classic examples of natural monopolies. In most cities and towns, you have no choice about which electric company to use. That's because there's a huge barrier of entry for starting a competing electric company. You'd have to build power plants and string miles of cable to create a workable infrastructure. It's cheaper for the consumer -- and more efficient for the state -- to have one tightly regulated private company running the show.

On the surface, Microsoft looks like a natural monopoly of the computer industry. Since the company has some 90 percent of the global operating system market share, Microsoft enjoys huge economies of scale. For instance, smaller software developers could never spend as much as Microsoft can on product development and marketing. They would never make the money back without having to charge much more than Microsoft would for the same products.

The biggest difference is that Microsoft used its "prodigious market power and immense profits," in the words of U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, to not only erect higher barriers of entry for its competition, but to threaten and intimidate anyone who dared knock at the door. And there's nothing "natural" about that.

2: Microsoft isn't Innovative

Microsoft has a well-deserved reputation in software circles for being technologically derivative. In other words, Microsoft has borrowed or bought every good idea it's ever had.

This theory isn't unfounded. For example, Bill Gates and friends didn't write the code for MS-DOS. They bought something called QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) for $50,000, tweaked it and licensed it to IBM for huge profits. They didn't code the original Internet Explorer, either: They licensed the source code from Spyglass Inc., maker of the Mosaic browser, and used that same basic code for three or four versions of Explore.

Despite its cutting-edge business ideas, Microsoft isn't known for its technological innovation.

Defenders of Microsoft know that the company isn't such a great technological innovator -- Gates didn't realize the potential of the Internet until 1995 -- but they will say the company has some of the most cutting-edge business ideas in the field.

Think about it. Before Microsoft came along, no one had entertained the idea of selling software and hardware separately. IBM licensed MS-DOS from Microsoft because it wanted to concentrate on hardware. Gates, Steve Ballmer and other Microsoft executives foresaw the lucrative potential in licensing their operating system to dozens of different PC hardware makers.

When the Harvard Business Institute studied the secrets of Microsoft's success, they pinpointed the company's innovative approach to its intellectual property. Microsoft has created a gargantuan library of proprietary source code "components" that work across the Windows platform. If a developer proves his loyalty to Microsoft, he gets access to that code library -- and hundreds of millions of potential Microsoft customers.

1: Bill Gates is Evil

Arrogant. Bullying. Ruthless. Stubborn. All of these are adjectives that former and current Microsoft colleagues and competitors have used to describe William Henry Gates III. But would those critics describe him as evil? Not in a million years.

When Gates announced that he was stepping down from daily operations at Microsoft in July 2008, it spawned a flood of articles about his legacy. Some compared him to Henry Ford, another person who took an expensive, rarified technology and devised an ingenious way to selling it to the masses.

Microsoft's long-time mission was to have "a PC on every desk and in every home." Indeed, Microsoft operating systems have been used on billions of PCs worldwide since 1981.

Some journalists and pundits chose to compare Gates to Henry Ford, but a more apt comparison might be to Andrew Carnegie, the steel baron who engaged in ruthless business practices before dedicating the final years of his life to philanthropy. By the time he died in 1919, he'd given away all of his ill-gotten riches to found museums, libraries, parks and numerous charitable organizations.

Gates may be guilty of many underhanded businesses tactics, but has yet to order mercenary troops to attack his own factory (as Carnegie did). As a philanthropist, he's poised to become the greatest giver in the history of the world. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already invested tens of billions of dollars toward the eradication of disease and poverty in developing nations and eventually will give away all of Gates' wealth. How evil could that be?

10 Ways to Make Money on the Internet

Unless you're a freegan and have found a way to live entirely off the grid, you probably need some sort of steady income in order to survive. The traditional way to earn money, of course, is by having a job. You work for a company or start your own, and the work you do earns you money, which you spend on things like a mortgage, rent, food, clothing, utilities and entertainment.

Most people typically work from their company's central location, a physical space where everyone from that organization gathers to exchange ideas and organize their efforts.

But a few lucky souls have found ways to make money within the comfort of their own home. With the Internet, an ever-changing arena for businesses, some people looking to earn money are finding ways to do so. Some forms are best for part-time endeavors for those looking to make a little extra money on the side, while others can lead to full-time jobs and Internet success stories.

We've put together a list of our top 10 ways to make money on the Internet, in no particular order. We'll start with an old favorite.

10: Selling Stuff on eBay

Most people today are familiar with the concept: You have things you don't necessarily need but others are willing to buy, and you can auction off the items on eBay or other online auction sites. Simply gather your goods, create a seller's profile and start selling.

Selling stuff that you don't need but others are willing to buy is a popular way to make money over the Web.

It sounds simple, but it takes some practice to sell successfully. Creating persuasive and legitimate product pages for the goods you're selling will help get buyers interested. It's also important to set reasonable minimum bids to ensure that people will buy. And remember to deliver the kind of customer service that will garner positive feedback ratings and to communicate with buyers to let them know you're reliable. The more positive feedback you receive, the more people will be willing to do business with you. And that, of course, means more money.

9: Blogging

If you have a particular passion for something, whether it's a hobby or an obsession, and you have something to say about it, blogging could be a profitable way to pour out your endless stream of thought. The key here, as with many other services on the Internet, is in selling advertising.

After starting up a personal blog, many writers sign up for ad services like Google AdSense, which post those familiar sponsored links you often see at the top and on the sides of Web sites. The more times your blog readers click on those ads, the more money you'll make through the ad service. This works fine if you're a casual blogger, and you may make some extra spending money. But if the blog is consistently interesting, well-written and really takes off, you may be approached by companies who want to reach your fan base with graphical advertising around your blog. Some of the more successful blogs, like I Can Has Cheezburger? and Boing Boing, have become pop-culture phenomena, and their creators have been able to quit their day jobs and blog full time because of the money they make from advertisers.

8: Designing and Selling T-shirts

A you walk around most high school and college campuses, you're likely to come into contact with lots of words. But it won't be material from textbooks or term papers -- those are probably in backpacks or sitting unfinished at home. Instead, they're the simple phrases or logos -- most of which are ironic or amusing -- printed on the T-shirts on the backs of the students.

If you come up with your own t-shirt designs using editing software like Photoshop, some sites will press the shirts for you and share profits when they're sold.

Usually, the more unique and offbeat the design is, the more desirable the T-shirt is. The growth of the Internet has made it possible for vendors to sell T-shirts all over the world. In fact, sites like CafePress.com and SpreadShirt.com allow you to set up your own store, create your own designs and sell them yourself. If you can create your own shirt design with a clever catchphrase or come up with your own unique statement and people like it, you can start making money.

7: Freelancing

Freelancing is similar in some ways to blogging. For one thing, you get to work from your own home or office most of the time. But there are a few important distinctions. First, if you're thinking about freelance writing, chances are you need to have more experience than the average blogger. Many freelance writing positions cover specialized topics for online publications and many require expert knowledge on the subject. However, if you're passionate about things like travel or food and know how to write, a freelancing job can provide you with a good income.

Along a similar line, you might also consider self-publishing your original work rather than working on contract-driven tasks. Self-publishing offers many of the same benefits as freelance writing. This additional step is risky, though, because it requires marketing work to your target audience so they'll buy your work.
Writing's not the only way to make money freelancing, of course -- anyone with graphic design or programming experience can find contract jobs that pay well and provide challenging work, too.

6: Domain Name Flipping

Based on luck, strategy and business savvy, domain name flipping can be one of the more lucrative ways to earn a living online. The term comes from the real estate trick that involves buying old, undervalued houses, fixing them up to make them more attractive and modern-looking and selling them for a much higher prices.
 

In this case, the old and outdated place is not a house, but rather a domain name -- the main address for a Web page. With a little bit of searching, dedicated domain flippers locate unused, poorly maintained Web sites that have generic and recognizable identifiers and buy them. They usually pay a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars, but after extensive updates that make the site more business- and user-friendly, the domain name can fetch several times more than it was originally worth. The domain bird-cage.com, for instance, was bought for a mere $1,800 in 2005 -- after a redesign two years later, the site was sold for $173,000 to a bird cage vendor.

 

5: Financial Services

Financial services include accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll processing. Today, you can accomplish most of these services using specialized software. For businesses, this means hiring fewer people to handle these tasks. For individuals, it means doing it on their own and hiring a consultant online when necessary.

These cost-saving opportunities for consumers mean money-making opportunities for you. You can create a Web site on your own or work with an existing Web-based services group. Then, you can correspond with clients through that Web site and via e-mail.

If you want to offer financial services over the Internet, first make sure you're either trained or experienced in the services you're planning to provide. For example, you're probably not an expert on preparing taxes for a small family farm unless you've done so before or had training in farm-related accounting. In addition, make sure you know whether you'll need government licenses to offer certain services, and refrain from misrepresenting yourself or working illegally to avoid getting sued for fraud.

4: Customer Service

Many businesses support their products through a customer service department. In many cases, this means people who answer phone calls from customers. A growing number of businesses also offer customer service electronically through their Web sites and by e-mail.

At a Web site, customer service might include live chat sales and support. To use this, a customer clicks a link requesting to chat with a live person, and a customer service representative answers the request and speaks with the customer through a chat window. For e-mail customer service, the customer fills out a form at the Web site or sends e-mail directly to a particular address.

Since the live chat and e-mail depends only on having a reliable Internet connection and Web browser, businesses have looked increasingly at hiring home-based workers for these services. As a result, customer service contracting firms like Talk2Rep cover e-mail and live chat support in addition to inbound and outbound phone calls. While the pay rate is often minimal or commission-based, the growing demand for online customer service makes it a reliable source of income if you have a knack for it.

3: SEO Reviewing

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a growing area for Internet-based employment. SEO is a means of improving the results from a search engine so that they represent the closest matches and most reliable resources for the user's desired results.

SEO reviewers generally perform searches to assess ranking results, and may be asked to use services like Google Analytics to gauge the progress of their clients' efforts to improve Web presence.

As a contract SEO reviewer, working through a company like Leapforce, you can aid in this optimization. You start each evaluation task by judging a user's intent based on the key word combinations provided and your own knowledge of popular culture in the user's locale. Then, you use a set of given guidelines to evaluate how particular search results match that user's intent.

SEO reviewing can offer a steady income from home, but there are some risks. First, an SEO reviewer has to run reliable antivirus software and have a good, strong defense against malware. That's because viewing certain Web sites during evaluation tasks could introduce malware to the computer. Second, an SEO reviewer must be willing to view potentially offensive material, such as pornography. As a reviewer, you may be asked to check whether a given site contains malware or pornography, so you're putting your computer at risk as part of the job description.

2: Tutoring

With each passing year, there seems to be increasing pressure for elementary, middle and high school students to make good grades and prepare for a path to higher education. For some kids, this means getting help from a tutor to bridge any gaps in understanding in certain subjects.

Since more families often have reliable high-speed Internet connections at home, too, Internet-based tutoring services are growing. When you apply for these jobs, you usually have to take tests in your selected subject areas and submit to background checks. Though you could start your own online tutoring service, sites like Tutor.com have already done the legwork for you in terms of marketing. These sites match thousands of kids with tutors each week.

While many Internet-based jobs offer flexible hours or multiple shifts, tutoring services might require you to be online during a specific block of time or reward you for doing so. This encourages tutors to be available during the heaviest demand. For example, when Tutor.com has more tutors than tutoring requests, it places tutors on a waitlist and gives preference to tutors who work at least five of hours per week in the 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. EST time slot Sunday through Thursday.

 

1: Selling Handmade Goods

Earlier, we considered using sites like eBay to sell stuff that you don't need. You can also use Web sites to sell your original creations. Certain Web sites like Etsy.com and ArtFire.com are dedicated to matching the artists who create things by hand with the customers who appreciate and want to purchase their handmade goods.

Sites like Etsy provide an easy setup option for creative types who want to sell their wares online. Setting up and maintaining a shop is simple.

If you're like most people, the word handmade probably brings to mind some traditional crafts like knitting, crochet, needlework, quilting, painting and sculpting. Handmade items don't stop there, though. You can also market woodworking, glasswork, metalwork and anything else you're capable of building at home. Be sure to focus on projects that you're already good at or that you have a passion for so you don't burn out producing each new item.

Existing Web sites like we mentioned before usually let you set up your own shop for free or for a very small fee for each item you list there. If you have a small home-based operation, this could be a better deal than setting up your own site. For many people, hosting and managing an entire Web site might be a full-time job by itself.

The biggest challenge for selling homemade goods is making back the cost of what you put into it. Not only do you want to be reimbursed for materials, but you also want to be paid proportional to the time you put into it. Keep track of your sales and purchases carefully in the first few months, and make adjustments as necessary to maximize your profit.

Speed Up Adobe Photoshop Loading

Adobe Photoshop is currently the best image editing  tools available with advanced features including filters and brushes. There are hundreds of brushers and filters available online for download and use. When you have installed too many filters or brushes, the loading time for Photoshop  increases considerably. Even though you might not be using certain plugins and filters, they are still loading when Photoshop is opened.

Adobe Photoshop SpeedUp significantly decreases the time it takes to load Adobe Photoshop by disabling the plug-ins that you may not need.

There are several options such as whether to load the Adobe Fonts, load the presets, and set the memory usage. You may restore to the original settings at any time.

Features;

• Enable or disable the plug-ins as needed
• Do not load Adobe fonts CMap and Base
• Do not load Photoshop Presets
• Optimize and reset Maximum Memory Usage
• Restore to original settings with a click of the Restore button at any time

It populates the list of plugins and other options which can be disable and make photoshop load faster on start up.

Download Adobe Photoshop SpeedUp

Automatically Reply to SMS in Android

There might be many instances where you receive an SMS on your phone, but could not reply back as you were in a meeting or driving or even watching a movie. If you use an Android phone, Butler SMS is the solution. It is an auto SMS response application for Android 2.2+. It comes with a very convenient widget that resides on your home screen and you can instantly activate it so that it will reply to any SMS received. There is no need to run an application and it offers easy access to turn on and off the widget.

ButlerSMS now has 3 modes. Normal, Movie and Drive mode. When your phone is plugged in to a car dock, ButlerSMS will turn on automatically. The movie mode places your phone in to vibrate mode automatically.

There is also Voice Reply feature where in you can use this to reply to SMS messages using your voice. (TTS must be enabled). Apart from you can also blacklist phone numbers and phone numbers in this list will not receive a auto reply from ButlerSMS.

Complete list of Features:

• Custom responses
• Personalized responses to individual numbers you set
• 3 different preset modes – Normal, driving and movie
• Widget for home screen to toggle normal mode on/off
• Text to Speech – Reads sms messages to you when enabled
• Reply Timer – App will not reply until after a preset time has elapsed (after their first sms) that is user changeable
• GPS Locator – This will respond to a user that sends a pass phrase that you control (pass phrase is set when gps locator is enabled and is cleared when it is disabled).
• Voice response – If TTS is enabled, you can send a sms msg via voice. This will unlock your phone to allow you to safely reply to a sms msg. The screen will timeout after 20 seconds of inactivity (not touching the screen) or after you send a voice reply.
• Improved TTS by controlling audio volume – When a SMS is received, the audio volume will be muted while your sms is read to you. The volume will raise when it is done reading.
• Blacklisting – (Or whitelisting) Numbers in this list will not be replied to.
• Re-organized the GUI on the settings page.
• Voice Reply is now an option that can be turned off

The application is available in the Google Play store for $1, but you can download it free of cost from XDAhere.

Battery Optimizer for Windows

When it comes to a Windows Laptop, Battery life  is one of the most important aspects. Although manufacturers provide the expected battery life when you buy the laptop, you seldom get the desired results. This is because of the settings and usage patterns which vary from user to user. Battery Optimizer is a freeware app for Windows, which is an advanced laptop optimization utility that uses advanced diagnostics and testing to guide you to get better Battery life.

Unlike other free tools to improve battery, this app has advanced features which actually tells you how much extra Battery life you can save by turning certain hardware and services off on your laptop. You can then save those settings as a profile so that you can quickly and easily optimize your setting for your current usage at any time. The app has the diagnostic mode which will check your laptop battery.

The profile feature is pretty good and you can create multiple profiles and then switch between them when you want performance or battery life.

Features that Battery Optimizer offers that no one else does:

1. Accurate estimates on how much battery life can be gained/lost by changing laptop settings
2. Advanced monitoring of  battery usage over time
3. Shows time left on your battery when your operating system doesn’t
4. Easy battery usage management

Battery Optimizer is designed to fix a problem that plagues most people, short laptop battery life. It is a very good app if you are looking to get better battery life.

Download Battery Optimizer here.

Lipstick Pistol - The Kiss of Death

The link between the international espionage and outlandish gadgetry that continues to inspire Mr. Bond and co. is no accident - assassination devices like this KGB issue Lipstick Pistol from the mid-60's are proof of this deadly Cold War ingenuity. Part of the new International Spy Museum collection in Washington, D.C., the 4.5mm single shot weapon disguised as a tube of lipstick was referred to as "The Kiss of Death. Used by KGB operatives during the Cold War, the existence of the weapon was first detected at a border crossing into West Berlin.

Lipstick was one of many options for concealing weapons during clandestine operations - torches, pens, tobacco pipes and cigarette packets were also used, but if we had to choose one device NOT to use it would be the KGB's single shot Rectal Pistol which was encased in rubber and hidden exactly where the name suggests. Not something you want to go off prematurely.

The International Spy Museum opened its doors in April 2002 after more than 30 years in development and is the first public museum in the US solely dedicated to espionage and the only one in the world to provide a global perspective on the profession.

5 Ways to Spot a Hacked ATM

ATM skimming is a profitable crime and netted thieves more than $1 billion in 2008 alone.

In James Cameron's sci-fi film "Terminator 2," a young John Connor hooks a fancy piece of gear into an ATM. His high-tech hacking device isolates a PIN number, and soon the ATM is spitting out $300 of someone else's money, a nice pile of cash to fuel an afternoon of teenage delinquency. "Terminator 2" may be science fiction, but ATM skimming is the real deal; in 2010 more than $200,000 was stolen from four Bank of America ATMs in Long Island, New York.

ATM thieves aren't outfitted with John Connor's strictly-Hollywood gadgetry, but they don't have to be. Using counterfeit card readers and hidden cameras, real ATM skimming is almost as easy as it looks in the movies. To make matters worse, skimming devices are usually well camouflaged and easy to overlook -- but with some help and a little bit of knowledge, you'll hopefully be able to spot a suspicious ATM when you see one.

5. Watch Out for ATMs in the Open

We've all seem them before: those lonely street corner ATMs, bathed in a weak pool of flickering light. Those ATMs tucked away in dark corners could easily hide opportunistic muggers -- or skimmers. If an ATM looks shady or suspicious, or is simply poorly lit, it's probably best to avoid it altogether.

Use only those ATM machines that are well-lit, and preferably ones attached to banks or financial institutions.

When you're on the lookout for an ATM to use, think about how accessible it is. How easy would it be for a thief to gain access to the ATM? Is it in a locked building at night, or completely unguarded? Is it built for privacy in a way that would easily hide a credit thief while they install a skimmer?

It would be downright paranoid to assume every outdoor ATM is dangerous, of course. Just do your best to avoid the ones that look especially seedy. More importantly, you need to be aware of hidden cameras masquerading as everyday objects at ATMs that look completely safe. Read on to learn more about how to recognize them.

4. Check for Hidden Cameras

ATM skimmers typically consist of two parts: one that steals data from your card, and one that obtains your PIN number. In many cases, PIN numbers are recorded by hidden cameras placed above or near the keypad. When you arrive at an ATM, look around the machine. Are there any innocent-looking objects -- the kind of stuff you'd typically ignore without a thought -- placed a little too close to the machine? Spy cameras don't take up much space, and there are things all around us we pay no attention to that could easily hide an illicit recording device. For instance, a brochure holder near an ATM is perfect for hiding a camera.

Always cover the keypad when you input your pin number into the ATM machine.

Anything close enough to get a good shot of the keypad could potentially hide a camera. Just take a quick look at anything near the ATM, but don't get too worried about someone eyeing your PIN. Thankfully, protecting yourself from these cameras is incredibly easy. Just remember to always use one hand to cover the keypad as you enter your PIN. Even better, use a wallet or checkbook -- just keep your PIN safe from prying eyes, be they human or electronic.

Sometimes ATM thieves go even further with their camera-hiding schemes, going so far as to camouflage their illicit add-on as part of the ATM itself.

3. Look for Odd Protrusions Around the ATM

When you arrive at an ATM, look for any off-color plastic near the top of the machine. Anything there? Even an innocent-looking object that appears part of the ATM could be housing a tiny camera recording your keypad input. Because they're better camouflaged than objects sitting in broad daylight, molded pieces can be designed to blend in with a specific ATM and hide a spy cam.

Even if it may blend in at first glance, take a second to study anything placed above the ATM. Does the color look a little off? Does it simply look out of place? Most telling would be a pinhole positioned above the keypad. Believe it or not, a tiny hole is enough for a camera to peek through and record dozens -- or hundreds -- of people every day entering their PINs. As we previously mentioned, remember to cover the pad as you input your PIN.

Unfortunately, cameras aren't the only tools at the ATM skimmer's disposal -- fake keypads can be used to record PIN inputs, too. Those can't be defeated by using your hand as a shield. But just as you may be able to notice an odd camera-hiding protrusion above the ATM, you may be able to tell that the keypad is unusually raised up around the surrounding ATM panel. If there's any evidence that the keypad has a fake overlay on top of it, steer clear of that ATM.

In extreme cases, the keypad may not be all that's fake -- some ATM skimmers use entire fake front panels to hide their electronics.

2. Study the Instructions and Diagrams on the ATM Panel

Amazingly, some thieves go as far as replicating large portions of ATM machines. A big piece of plastic fitted over the front of the ATM can obscure the data-stealing electronics. Behind these panels, the police often find magnetic strip readers and storage devices for recording the data of every card slotted into the ATM. Smart thieves will model these molds to closely match the original ATM, but the replica may not be perfect.

The better the replica, the harder it will be to distinguish from the real thing. Taking a few seconds to study the ATM could make all the difference, though. If you notice odd discrepancies between the printed directions on the face of the ATM, strange color shifts between portions of plastic, or the kind of bulging that could indicate a fake panel, it wouldn't hurt to switch to a different teller machine. If two identical units are placed side-by-side, compare them -- do the diagrams and images match?

While some thieves use entire front panels to try to mask their handiwork, others opt for a smaller-scale approach: false card readers slipped innocently over the real debit card slot.

1. Study and Jiggle the Card Slot

Here's the final, major step you can take to protect yourself from ATM skimmers -- be wary of the card slot. Fake card readers will swipe and record the personal data on your debit card. If thieves also obtain your PIN number, your debit card has been compromised. Because the fake card readers have to fit over the original slot, there are a few ways you can check for them.

Beware of a fake card reader that might have been placed over the actual card reader.

If the slot seems to be protruding further out from the ATM than it should, rock it back and forth. Does it seem attached or too flimsy? If it's wiggly, it might be a fake add-on. Again, our previous tips could help out here, too. Does the card slot match the instructions on the face of the ATM? If there are identical ATMs nearby, glance at them. Do they share the same card slot design?

In the event you ever discover a card skimmer, don't just flee the ATM for safer pastures. There's no telling how many people could fall victim to a skimming scheme until the foreign devices are discovered by someone else. If the ATM is at a bank, informing a bank employee is the easiest solution. Even if the bank isn't familiar with card skimmers, they can still shut the ATM down. If you're not at a bank, check the face of the ATM and its display screen for a contact number. If the installer can be contacted, they can alert the proper authorities and take care of the skimmer.

Remember, ATM thieves need access to both your PIN and the personal information stored on the magnetic strip of your debit card to access your account. By protecting your PIN and staying observant every time you use an ATM -- keeping an eye out for hidden cameras, fake panels and card readers -- you'll hopefully keep your money safe, and out of the hands of thieves who steal more than $1 billion annually through credit card and ATM fraud.