There are however ways to do it. If you do your research. It’s like starting any business. The first thing you need is a product with a market – be it information, downloads, or deliverables like books or gift-ware. Then you need to find out the best way to deliver it – the suppliers and technology you’ll need that actually work. Simply opening a web storefront on-line will add you to millions of other pages on the web. You’ll be lost in an aisle no one goes down.

A simpler way to work at home may be a traditional job done at home. Your job and pay is the usual but your office is a corner of your home. They also call this “telecommuting”. Some companies are shifting in that direction so you may be able to find such a job. But you’d have to demonstrate your ability to do the job, work unsupervised and know the needed technology.

A similar way is with independent jobs where the office can be in your home. Self-employed accountants, for example. This Workopolis article reviews the highest paying  work-from-home jobs according to Forbes. Some of them may surprise you. And most are skilled professions.

And finally, you can establish a web-based business. The key here to understand is that there’s a pretty low entry cost (if you do your research) but you need to learn your stuff. If your business is the web, you need to learn about web technology and be able to update, edit, tweak, and adjust your site. If you don’t, it would be like having to call in a contractor every time you need to move a shelf or sweep the floor of your store.

If you choose a blog-based web site (not a free one – this is business), this will reduce the coding required. But you’ll still need to get to know how to link and tweak and so forth. Again, the key here is research. There’s lots of help on-line.

Steve Pavlina wrote a classic article on making money from a blog. He also wrote on how to get high traffic. The articles have gotten a little old but the principles remain the same. They’re still among his most popular posts.

Here’s a site that specializes in Internet Marketing, to help you get the word out. Look around; the site will give you an idea of what it takes to be successful on-line. The author is a technology expert who’s sharing her own experience developing her markets. Changetheworldmarketing.com

Here’s one on best blogging practices: Bloggingwithoutablog.com

You also need to recognize your own strengths and weaknesses. Are you self-motivated enough to work mostly solo? If you don’t do the work, your bank account will drain surprisingly fast. You’ll need a lawyer and an accountant, plus anyone else who offers the skills you don’t have. Writing? Marketing? If the skill is central to your business offering, you need to ask yourself if that’s the right model for you.

Good luck!
David

We also now know that over 85% of stars are binary. And they’ve begun to see planets around distant stars.

Other key recent discoveries:
1 – In Europe they discovered that Neutrinos move faster than the speed of light. This is key because the speed of light has long been considered a fixed constant and a fundamental law.

2 – It’s been discovered that Mesons decay differently than anti-mesons. This would explain why we have more matter than anti-matter. But it also breaks the standard model of particle physics.

3 – Everything points to there being multiple universes. A lot of them. Not only is the universe turning out to be bigger and fuller than we ever thought, there’s more of them.

More

Update: a related video on the speed of light, the size of the galaxy and galactic motion.

This site has compiled 100 of what they consider the best TED talks, organized into 9 categories.

http://www.learnoutloud.com/content/blog/archives/2011/11/100_best_ted_talks.html

As they say, these talks will change how you see the world. And sometimes, things you can do to make the world a better place.
David

I’ve noticed more recently that in services like LinkedIn, I’m usually within 3 with anyone I look up, even from other industries. Facebook recently did the experiment again using an algorithm from an Italian university. As they have 721 million active users (!), that’s about 10% of the world, albeit the connected world. They found that 96% were within 4 degrees while 99.6% are within 5 degrees. Within a single country, the average drops to 3. Facebook of course takes credit for making people more connected.
We’re closer than we think. 
David

more

Here is Disruption and Engagement, 6 ways to prepare for the change.

15:31

On a first peruse, the only lack seems to be that software is currently only available for the Mac. You can post and host the images online though, making it available on most devices. Technology like this could really change photography; more so even than going digital.

Check out the Gallery to get an idea of how you can shift the image post picture.
Explore the Press link (bottom) and Blog for video clips and such.

Lytro.com
David

The Sistine Chapel

Happily, the reason they’re doing this IS open Web Standards, HTML5.  More

Perhaps Steve Jobs knew something when he left Flash off the iPad.
David

[Update: Good article on TechCrunch ]

From a news article on IBM donating “a complete draft protocol for asynchronous inter-device communication“. It’s called “Message Queuing Telemetry Transport.“

(the YouTube clip without his intro has over a million hits)