The Discovery Channel storm chasers got their tornado intercept and barely survived. View the video below to see the Reed Timmer, Joel Taylor and crew literally get ‘hit’ by the funnel as the tornado is forming (only seconds before is would have been much worse). Congratulations guys and keep safe.

“INSANE video from inside the powerful Aurora, Nebraska tornado on June 17, 2009. The tornado intensified right on top of the TornadoVideos.net SRV Dominator, and the window was blown out as an intense mini suction vortex passed over the vehicle. A 138.8 mph wind gust was measured by the roof anemometer as the window blew out. Check out Storm Chasers on Discovery Channel this Fall for the video of the glass slamming into our faces.” VIDEO INSIDE A TORNADO!!! Aurora, NE Tornado, June 17, 2009 [tornadovideos.net].

Learn more at tornadovideos.net

Learn more at discovery.com/stromchasers

The Decibel iPhone 3G application from Gadget Frontier transforms your iPhone into a portable decibel meter. Decibel features an analog meter and digital display with peak, average and max in one clean interface. Having used Decibel it appears to be very accurate (probably due do the excellent microphone in the iPhone 3G). The Gadget Frontier website states:

“Even though we have tested Decibel with professional grade equipment with very good results, this application is for recreational use only. iPhone 3G is recommended since it has a better performing microphone than the first generation iPhone.”

Decibel was featured in the BBC show Panorama – The World’s longest running investigative TV show on April 20! The host Quentin Letts use Decibel on his iPhone to measure decibel levels in regards to UK’s health and safety regulations. Check it out on BBC (10 minutes into the show)!

Available now from the iTunes App Store for ¢.99, it is an excellent backup for any audio professional in the field and certainly more than adequate for the rest of us.  View the video review by thedigitallifestyle.tv below.

Note that the iPod Touch doesn’t have a built in microphone. To use Decibel with the iPod Touch will require an iPhone headset or plug-in microphone.

The Decibel App for the iPhone and iPhone 3G (Recommended) is available in Paid Version for (¢.99) from the App Store.

About the iPhone

Introducing iPhone 3G. With fast 3G wireless technology, GPS mapping, support for enterprise features like Microsoft Exchange, and the new App Store, iPhone 3G puts even more features at your fingertips. And like the original iPhone, it combines three products in one — a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device with rich HTML email and a desktop-class web browser. iPhone 3G. It redefines what a mobile phone can do — again. Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone. Courtesy, Apple.com

All brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

GOOGLE Website Submit

Properly Submitting your website to the search engines is a critical part of any successful Internet footprint. Each has their own particular procedure. Each is demystified below.

The first step is to establish a FREE Google account. Once the account is ready, point your web browser to Google webmaster central and click [Sign in to Webmaster Tools]. Follow the instructions to verify your website (file upload or meta tag). Verification gives you access to a wide range of helpful information about your website like; Pages with external links, Top search queries, What Googlebot sees, and Web crawl. Set your preferences under [Settings] and choose; target users in the US or worldwide, display your domain with the www, and include your website images in Google Image Labeler (remember to search engine optimize your image titles).

Once your preferences are set it’s time to upload your sitemap. Your sitemap.xml should contain a weighted and formatted list of every page. If you don’t already have one, creating your sitemap is easy with this FREE online sitemap tool. After the sitemap is compiled and uploaded, return to Google and enter the path to it. If the sitemap was uploaded to the root of your website, this will be http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml (if otherwise located, enter that). Be sure the check the status of your sitemap and correct any errors. Updating is done via the [Resubmit Selected] feature on the Webmaster Toools sitemap page.

There is one additional file to create and upload so that we are prepared for when the search bots visit your website.  Point your web browser to Generating a robots.txt file or Manually creating a robots.txt file and follow the instructions.  The purpose of the robots.txt file is to tell the search bots what portions of your website should “Allow” or “Disallow” indexing of content. Google is now aware of your content. Now let’s move to Yahoo.

YAHOO Website Submit

Yahoo also requires you to establish a FREE account. Once ready, point your web browser to Submit Your Site and click on [Submit Your Site for Free] then [Submit a Website or Webpage]. Enter your website address (URL) and login to your Yahoo account if prompted. You should see the following:

Thank you! Your URL has been added to our list of URLs to crawl. Please expect a delay of several weeks before your URL is crawled. Note that in the effort to maximize the quality of search results that appear on Yahoo! and our other distribution partners, we do not add every submitted URL to our search index. Therefore we cannot make predictions or guarantees about whether your URL will appear as a search result.

Now we need to authenticate your website to Yahoo. While in Yahoo Site Explorer, choose [My Sites].  Click on your website address (URL). Here you can check the Authentication Status and Number of Pages Indexed. Choose [Authentication] from the left menu. Follow the instructions to verify your website (file upload or meta tag).

Once your website is authenticated, return to the Yahoo Site Explorer and again choose your website under [My Sites]. Now choose [Explore Site] toward the bottom.  Voila, a full list of indexed pages as they appear in the Yahoo’s organic listings.  Click [InLinks] at the top to display a full list of incoming links to your website.  If the data is blank, simply give the Yahoo bots more time to do their work. The big two are done, MSN Live Search and Ask.com are next after the fold.

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