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Now that all group matches for Euro 2008 have concluded, it is time to tally the actual results against the predictions I’ve made in the Countdown towards Euro2008. Those in brackets are my initial predictions.

Group A
Winner: Portugal (Portugal)
Runner-up: Turkey (Czech)

As expected, Portugal took top spot and was the first team to book a quarter-final place after winning their first two games. They were able to rest eight of their first team players for the last group game, giving co-host Switzerland their first victory in European Championsip.

I’ve predicted the Czechs to take the runner-up position in this group but Turkey deserves their place in the quarters after their epic battle against the Czechs in the Mother of all Comebacks in Euro2008.

Group B
Winner: Croatia (Germany)
Runner-up: Germany (Croatia)

Croatia raised more than a few eyebrows with their intelligent play against the Germans and maintains 100% record by winning all 3 group matches to take top spot in Group B.

Pre-tournament favorites Germany stuttered and sputtered en route to the last eight after a dour narrow win against hopeless co-host Austria.

Group C
Winner: Holland (France)
Runner-up: Italy (Romania)

The Group of Death tag doesn’t come without good reason, for 3 teams were fighting for the runner-up berth until the last match, and my predictions for this group were totally off!

A new look Holland team did not self-destruct with their famed in-fighting in the dressing room as in previous tournaments and not only win but win with style over their more illustrious opponents!
Reigning World Champions Italy barely scrap through when they ended an era of French football.

Group D
Winner: Spain (Spain)
Runner-up: Russia (Sweden)

The Spanish matadors stuck to the script and top Group D winning all 3 matches. Defending champion Greece returned home pointless with only one goal to show for their ultra-defensive strategies.

Gus Hiddink proved his coaching pedigree by motivating the rumbling Russians into the last eight to set up a mouth-watering quarter-finals against his motherland Holland.

Euro 2008 Quarter-Finals
The group games are all water under the bridge now. Let’s move on to the Quarter-Finals match-ups and let me gaze into my crystal ball and get my predictions.

QF1 : Portugal vs Germany
My prediction: Portugal

QF2: Croatia vs Turkey
My prediction: Croatia

QF3: Holland vs Russia
My prediction: Holland

QF4: Spain vs Italy
My prediction: Spain

I’m pretty confident my predictions will be spot on in this round. Enjoy the football, and the betting, in the knock-out stages!

I have been using Firefox almost exclusively (with the only exception being sites that I cannot use it for as they specifically require Internet Explorer) since converting from IE which was almost force down the throats of all PC users. Without a shadow of a doubt, FireFox has become my preferred choice of web browser.

Hence, it was with much anticipation that I looked forward to the released of FireFox 3 on 17 of June 2008, and what did you know? I got the latest version of course, and in the process of downloading the browser helped set a world record for the most software downloads in 24 hours!

So if you have been looking for a more secure web browser, or want to be in the forefront of cutting-edge surfing experience, or maybe you just think it is time for a change then take the plunge and give the new Firefox 3 a whirl.

Download Firefox 3

Written by Garry Conn

Time and time again people insist on trying to convince me that StumbleUpon traffic is useless traffic. While I’ll agree to some extent, it can be useless if you’re not properly taking advantage of the exposure. So here’s the deal. The common complaint about StumbleUpon traffic is that it doesn’t convert into money. Typically, bloggers will write something cool or interesting and have it submitted into StumbleUpon resulting in thousands and thousands of visits in a very clustered and quick time frame.

The problem that people face is that the content or the theme of the story being submitted into StumbleUpon isn’t something that generates sales, leads or even Google AdSense clicks. Many people feel like it is utterly useless traffic that does nothing but waste bandwidth. While I’ll agree with you on one side, I am also going to disagree on the other and here’s why.

StumbleUpon Traffic Eventually Leads to PageRank

Of all the things that I have had submitted into StumbleUpon, very commonly I see multiple people turn right around and write a post about what I stumbled on their own blogs. These are backlinks. Backlinks are important towards building up PageRank. The more PageRank an individual page has the more authority and power they have in delivering their own backlinks to other pages that are more important to you (e.g. pages that make you money). You may recall an article I wrote about how you can make money online by editing your old posts? Well there you go, that is the key to the topic in this article.

How To Make Money From StumbleUpon Traffic?

First off you need to get it out of your head that the ACTUAL StumbleUpon traffic will make you money. On that aspect, you are right. StumbleUpon traffic does not convert into leads, sales or even Google AdSense clicks. However, its in the actions of other Stumblers that will eventually lead to you making money. I agree with you, who cares about the “Burst Fire” flood of traffic that you get from StumbleUpon. Only thing that traffic does is suck your server system resources and eats up your bandwidth. However, when you stumble upon a box do you think inside it of outside of it?

Stumbling Upon A Box and Thinking Outside of It!

Thinking out of the box here… If you want to make money, you have to consider the value of StumbleUpon traffic. While it is obvious that many already know that the actual traffic doesn’t convert, its in the upcoming weeks and months that you should be concerned with.

The strategy is in creatively writing content that is geared towards a high concentration among Stumblers while also balancing another strategy in future link building to pages that will make you money. While on the surface most people quickly balk at using StumbleUpon as a means for making money online, I am here to tell you that it can be the best thing since the invention of the wheel.

Write Content For Stumble With A Trojan Horse Inside For Google

When you write content for the purpose of getting Stumbled, write your content in a way that carefully uses keywords and phrases that you can eventually use to link to relevant pages that will make you money. The Stumble traffic wave typically only lasts a few days. By then Google will have already crawled and indexed you page. A day or two later, Google will have also crawled all the pages from the other bloggers who have pointed links to your post that was submitted into Stumble upon.

If you carefully wrote your post to include targetable keywords, after a week when the Stumble traffic dies down to nothing, you can simply go back and plug those few selected keywords with links to other pages that you have created for the purpose of making money. In due time, because so many people pointed links to the original post you submitted into StumbleUpon, that page will eventually earn PageRank.

Pages Submitted To Stumble Are Very Likely To Establish PageRank

Pages that earn PageRank establish authority. Pages that are linked from other pages with PageRank also too will earn PageRank. So when you submit your post into StumbleUpon, do so in a way where you know that in about 7 days you’ll be going back to plug in links that point to the pages that really count in making money. Because you linked to those money making pages from a page that is soon to be established with PageRank, those additional money making pages will go for the ride as well.

The result will be in having pages built for making money online that end up ranking very well in the search engines. Search engine traffic in many ways is perfect traffic for the fact that if you get traffic from a search engine, it is more likely that they are interested in buying what you have to offer for the fact that they came to your page as a result of searching for it.

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I had planned to do a post after all group matches in Euro 2008 have been played, but the epic battle between Turkey and Czech played out last evening in their last group game fighting for a spot in the last eight was just too great a match not to blog on its own.

At 0-2 down and staring elimination in their face, the Turks completed the Mother of all comebacks, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat to win 3-2! Trust the Turks to produce such dramatic climaxes in this winner-takes-all match to earn second spot in Group A and a quarter-final clash with Group B winner Croatia.

I won’t attempt to do a running commentary on the match, because no amount of words will do justice to this Mother of all comebacks. If a picture tells a thousand words, then I dare say a video will show you what transpired in those thousand words. The following video captured highlights of the epic battle for us to relive again and again.

What a beautiful game of football indeed!

In the other Group A match, co-host Switzerland gain their first ever victory in European Championship at the expense of a weaken Portugal side which had booked their place in the quarter-final.

Singapore will be hosting the world’s first Formula 1 night street race on 28 September 2008. It would be a momentous occasion, one with historic significance for Formula 1 fans all over the world and especially so for local F1 fans who will be witnessing super fast racing machines zooming past up to speed of 300km/hr at their own backyard for the first time.

For F1 fans who can’t wait for this historic event to arrive, you can drive the Singtel Simulator in the comfort of your home by downloading the simulator for free. Singtel touts it as the closest you’ll come to racing a Formula One car.

Captured in the following video is the Singtel Simulator in action, complete with a replica of a F1 race car. Gentlemen! Start you engines!