The computer revolution, and especially the Internet revolution, has created business opportunities for thousands of... More > everyday citizens. To create and sell goods or information, it is no longer necessary to have a "bricks and mortar" store. Likewise, to launch a mail order business, it is no longer necessary to have a fleet of trucks. In fact, you do not even need to maintain specific office hours when your business is open to the public. All you need is a personal computer and a presence in cyberspace. Your business will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even if you happen to be sleeping at the moment. Genealogists are hungry for information. Genealogy information is often available in old printed books and records, printed works that are not covered by copyright laws. Many genealogists are willing to pay reasonable fees to obtain these books and other publications. < Less

Genealogists often have a need to make reproductions of old family documents, such as wedding certificates, military... More > discharge papers, immigration documents, and especially of old photographs. Another common requirement is to make copies of pages in a book, be it a published genealogy book or entries from the book of deeds at a county courthouse. Scanners are not the only way to create digital images. You may already own a great analog-to-digital image conversion tool. Perhaps you even carried it on your last family vacation. It's called a digital camera. < Less

I recently read an article in which the author claimed to describe data preservation techniques. He correctly pointed out... More > that floppy disks, CD-ROM disks, magnetic media, and other forms of digital storage all have limited lifespans. He then concluded by claiming that the only method of storing data for long-term preservation was to print everything on paper.Wrong! < Less

Would you like to publish the results of your genealogy research? Does your genealogy society or family name organization... More > want to publish data in book form? Publishing genealogy books has long been an expensive proposition. Genealogy authors often have paid in advance $2,000 to $10,000 or more to a book publisher in order to have a book published. However, today those "up front" expenses can be as low as zero, thanks to online services. In fact, if your book is ready to be sent to the publisher, you might be able to make it available for sale within the next ten minutes. Would-be purchasers can order your book directly from you or your web site, from the publisher's web site, or from Amazon, Borders, or Barnes and Noble. < Less

week I added a rather extensive combination of hardware and software to my primary Windows PC. The word "genealogy" did not... More > appear anywhere in the new product's description or user's manuals. Nonetheless, I believe my new acquisition will revolutionize how I store and manage my genealogy documents. I am now more organized than ever before. I also expect to spend less time and effort in managing and citing the many photocopies of documents that I have accumulated over the years. In short, I am converting my 4-drawer filing cabinet full of photocopied documents and other pieces of paper into a modern document management system. I am now able to retrieve any document within seconds. I can also directly attach these documents to the various records in almost any modern genealogy program. < Less

Genealogists using any of Apple's handheld computers or cell phones have a number of genealogy programs to choose from. I... More > have written reviews in the past of FamViewer, MobileTree, Shrubs, GedView, and other programs. These allow a genealogist to carry his or her entire database in a shirt pocket or purse at all times.

Most of these programs have two different methods of copying data from a desktop computer to the handheld. I would term these as (1.) the easy way and (2.) the hard way. I am a firm believer in using the easy way of accomplishing most any task. < Less

JPG has become very popular in the past fifteen years and for very good reasons. Storing images in JPG format consumes much... More > less disk space than many other file formats. That was very important some years ago. However, as disk prices have plunged, the requirements for squeezing as much out of each kilobyte as possible have decreased.

As good as JPG is, we do need to keep in mind that it also has significant drawbacks. Primarily, the “advantage” of image compression is also a disadvantage. < Less

Subtitle: Everything you wanted to know about encryption but didn't know who to ask

This article tells how to encrypt... More > information stored on your computer, stored on a jump drive in your pocket, or being sent across a network connection.

Encryption is the one thing that allows computer users, financial services, and even governments to securely move information around the Internet and to store that information safely, away from prying eyes. < Less

Do you, your employer, or your local genealogy society have information that you would like to offer to others online for a... More > fee? Do you have questions about how to do that or how to charge money or how to handle credit cards? Do you want to know how to control access to the information? If you would like to save some time, money, and frustration with these tasks, this article can help! I have decided to share with you some of my own “lessons learned” in finding and implementing a solution that has worked well for me and for many others. < Less

.ISO files are often used when transferring CD and DVD images over the Internet (for example, most downloads provided by the... More > Microsoft Developers' Network (MSDN) are in .ISO format). So are many operating systems, such as Linux. An .ISO file is simply a convenient method of delivering the contents of an entire CD-ROM disk in a single file that can be downloaded. The file can later be converted back to a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disk. < Less