Inside Macintosh Shareware Aug 2005

A new issue of Inside Macintosh Shareware has arrived.
You may read it on the insidemacgames.com website.

2checkout Fraud Service Upgrade

This is an information that we got from 2CO today:

As a part of 2Checkout.com's (2CO) continuing commitment to increased credit card and consumer identity security, 2CO is pleased to announce that we will be upgrading our fraud detection process shortly. The fraud detection upgrade will mean more accurate fraud reviews which will translate into increased sales acceptance for many vendors at the same time reducing charge backs. It also means that consumers can shop with more confidence ... and increased consumer confidence means more overall sales.

There are no additional fees for this upgrade and the implementation will be announced on the Log in page "Latest News" section.

Minor notification and operational changes for sales approvals and subsequent shipping will occur once this process begins.

The changes are as follows:

New Sales Approval Notification Process-- Once the upgrade begins, your order receipt notification and shipping process will change slightly. You, our vendor, will receive an email notifying you of a sale(s). It will now be FOLLOWED by an email that describes which sales are PASSED, which are not passed (FAILED), and those that are pending further investigation (ON HOLD).

You should NOT ship until you receive an email from 2CO that indicates a sale is PASSED. NOTE: Orders that take place before the fraud upgrade activation date are not subject to the new fraud detection scheme; please process as before.

Google AdWords New Keyword System Released

Google has implemented their new keyword status system for Google AdWords. This is how they describe the changes:

We've simplified our keyword states and introduced quality-based minimum bids, giving you more control to run on keywords that you find important. With these improvements, your keywords will now either be active or inactive, depending on their quality and maximum cost-per-click (CPC).

We suggest you log in to your account to view these changes. Any keywords that were previously normal, in trial, or on hold are now labeled as either active (triggering ads) or inactive (not triggering ads). Any keywords that were disabled before implementation will remain labeled as disabled in your account for several weeks. This gives you the opportunity to review and activate any disabled keywords you'd like to run on before we delete them. However, we will no longer disable any new keywords you enter into your account.

Here are some resources that will help you get better acquainted with the new keyword status system:

How do you find that changes? Are they good for your business, or not?

Shareware powers renewable energy systems

A shareware program developed by the government of Canada has updated five modules on renewable energy systems.

A downloadable shareware program that was developed by the government of Canada in 1996 has updated five modules on renewable energy systems and introduced a new module on combined heat & power.

The RETScreen International Clean Energy Decision Support Centre was created to build the capacity of planners and decision-makers for implementing renewable energy projects. The shareware is a decision-making tool that claims to reduce the cost of pre-feasibility studies and to train people to analyze the technical and financial viability of possible projects.

Within the past two months, RETScreen has updated its models on solar water heating, biomass, passive solar, ground source heat pumps and solar air heating, and added a model for combined heat and power (cogeneration). A tenth module on refrigeration is expected soon.

The software has 61,000 users in 207 countries, and can provide comparative assessments of projects using wind energy, small hydro, solar PV, biomass heating, solar air heating, solar water heating, passive solar heating and ground-source heat pumps. The shareware is available in 21 languages and accounts for rules under the Kyoto Protocol (including Clean Development Mechanism, Joint Implementation and emissions trading). It also contains a product database with data for 5,880 power, heating and cooling systems around the world, and its weather database provides access to meteorological data covering the entire surface of the planet, including 4,720 ground-monitoring stations and NASA satellite data.

RETScreen says its software has saved stakeholders C$600 million around the world in the past decade, and has facilitated implementation of 1,000 MW of projects worth $1.8 billion, and reduced CO2 emissions by 630 kilotonnes per year to date, with a projected displacement of 20 megatonnes of CO2 per year by 2012.

New at Froogle - Merchants Help Center

We invite you to explore our new Froogle Merchants Help Center. With answers to more than 200 commonly asked questions, the Help Center covers everything from getting started with a feed to advertising on Froogle. You can browse through questions or search for answers by entering keywords related to your question into the search bar.

Top 5 Questions section is a glimpse at the questions searched for most often in the Help Center. If you're not sure what question to ask or just curious about possible stumbling blocks on the way to getting your products on Froogle, the Top 5 is a great way to find guidance.

To view the Froogle Merchants Help Center, please visit http://www.google.com/support/froogle

European Shareware Conference 2005

The 5th European Shareware Conference 2005, held by the ESWC, will take place on the 5th and 6th of November 2005 in Brussels, Belgium.