As one who has dabbled in the waters of Internet marketing and wondered if there was a real business there, it didn’t take long to realize the field is infected with scam artists who make outrageous claims that prey on those who are looking to find a legitimate business they can use to supplement their income.

Perhaps the best expose I have seen on this is in this powerful and very illuminating subject is called “Scamworld.” The video dissects the get rich quick claims and exposes how the only people making significant money from online marketing are those who prey on would-be online marketers.

Watch the report.

Here’s a warning: Once you get on the mailing lists of these Internet hypsters, you’ll never get off. The big shots in the business all work with one another and pass mailing lists back and forth.

Summer is rapidly approaching and with it, a lot of folks are heading out for camping trips. Whether you’re in a luxury motor home or roughing it in a tent, we found some great apps to take along to help plan and navigate your outdoor adventures.

For Droid and iPhone users, try the We Camp Here app. It displays a map of nearby campgrounds. Click and you get detailed campground information. You can read and write reviews, call for reservations, view the campground website or even get turn by turn driving directions to get you to the campground.

Looking for a free place to spend the night in your RV? Try a Walmart parking lot. This free app for the iPhone and Droids shows you which Walmarts in your area let you spend the night. It also lists which amenities are nearby.

What would a camping trip be without some great food? The Coleman Camping Cookbook is a great free app that features a meal planner, detailed menus and pictures for cooking everything you can possibly imagine.

One other cool app from Coleman: The Creepy Campfire Tales iPhone book. Gather the kids around the fire and scare the bejeebers out of them as you read from a collection of spooky stories, complete with sound effects.

There’s more. Just do a search for camping apps and you’ll find plenty of others.

We keep our computers and calendars in sync, wouldn’t it be nice to keep our family and home lives synchronized, too? That’s the idea behind a trip of apps thatmake some pretty good downloads for busy Moms with smartphones.

The name of the Life 360 app says it all. It’s free and works on the iPhone, Droids, Windows phones and the BlackBerry. Install it on all your family’s phones and you can call up a map that shows their locations. You can have the kids check in from specified places at specified times, they can ask for help, you can send group messages to everyone and even send attention getting alerts with call immediately notices.

The Cozi Family Organizer is also free and works on all major platforms. It gives everyone a shared family calendar on their smartphone, color coded no less. You can send the kids to-do lists for chores, even a place to journal family happenings with photos.

Finally, young Moms will appreciate the free Instant Playdates app for the iPhone and Android smartphones. Coordinate calendars with other Moms, map out meeting spots, retrieve playmate contact info and send out playdate invites and RSVPs. So handy.

Beware of Socialcam on Facebook.

It is an incredibly intrusive app that posts stuff on your timeline without you knowing it.

If you made the mistake I did and clicked a video sent by a friend, it installs as an app.

To remove it, as I just did, go to your account settings under apps and delete it.

Consider it spam!

Same with a similar video app called Viddy.

If you want this junk, fine. but I can’t believe anyone would want it.

And I’m not the only one complaining about this very rude app. Used as a smartphone app to share pictures, as many do, is one thing. But as a Fecbook app, it’s on my list of the most obnoxious. In the Socialcam fine print it says:

“This app may post on your behalf, including videos you watched, videos you shared and more.”

Believe me, there is no “may” about it. It will post to your Facebook status update. It will tell the world what you watched. And, as it warns, it can post other stuff. That’s what “more” means. See why I hate these kind of pushy apps? You should, too.

Best rule to follow: If you have to “authorize” an app to see whatever it is you’ve clicked on… DON’T DO IT. Unless, of course, you know exactly what you’re getting into and what that app will do in your name.

I think it’s brilliant. A Seattle company is putting QR codes on headstones in cemeteries.

Living Headstone memorials have a digital link embedded in a traditional headstone that takes its users to a Facebook style webpage containing information that you and friends add about your loved ones, such as: an obituary, history, photos, or even comments by friends and relatives, heck, you can even share content via Facebook or Twitter.

Think Internet connected headstones.

Lifetime subscription to the Living Headstones personal web page is $75.0. That’s a bit steep but watch other companies offer the same thing much cheaper.

As the weather warms, so does our time outside. And our need to know just what the weather will be like, where we are…and when. There are scores of weather apps available for smartphones and tablets. This week, we look at three of the most powerful premium weather apps that you may want to consider.

One of the handiest weather apps I’ve found is called DarkSky and it answers the number one outdoor question I have every summer, namely, if rain is in the forecast, just when will it start…or how long can I stay outside and be dry. This app gives you to the minute notice.  It’s expensive as apps go, at $399, but offers brilliantly clear animation and radar animations and forecasts that are right down to the minute for your location. For the iPhone and iPad, coming soon for Android devices.

The ultimate source for weather info is NOAA, of course, and NOAA Weather Radar for iPhone sand iPads offers 1 tap access to every single NOAA Weather Radar site in the continental US for precise local weather and radar. But what makes it worth the still $2.99 pricetag is it’s ability to warn you of potentially hazardous weather with audible alerts that sound even if your device is asleep.

Finally, the most expensive weather app, the $4.99 WeatherGeek Pro for iPhone and Android. It’s claim to fame is that it uses the same weather model data meteorologists use to develop their forecasts. As the name suggests, it’s for serious weather hobbyists who want raw access to various levels of formations from precipitation to atmospheric conditions.

If you think there’s too much information out there about you on the Internet, the capabilities of some new iPhone apps sure can reinforce that. On the other hand, if you’re into leveraging your iPhone as a tool to meet new people, you’ll be excited by the latest apps that let you take social networking to whole new level.

Facial recognition is what we’re talking about and it’s scary-powerful. Take Glancee, for example. It’s a free iPhone app that shows you who is nearby, tells you a bit about them from their Facebook profile, what their interests are, what friends you have in common, and let’s you then instantly communicate with them. You can meet people this way… or, I suppose, stalk them!

Kismet is a similar app. It accesses profiles from social media sites, shows you who’s close to you, what they do, what you have in common and let’s you zap a message to them right on the spot. Or, I guess, walk right up to them face to face.

Speaking of Faces… a little less intrusive is the Face.com app called Klik that automatically detects and recognizes faces in photos, as you snap them, as pulled from your Facebook account and then tagged there. When you’re not taking photos, it displays feeds for nearby, friend and your photos.

Whether you like they or are made uneasy by these fa facial recognition apps, know this: They will only get more powerful and pervasive.

When it comes to business, the proof is in the pudding. Or more accurately, it’s all about the hard data but that isn’t as fun to say. To show your potential investors, stock holders or your managers that your current project is a success, they want to see real evidence that is easy to understand.

That is where Arcadia Charts comes in. If you have never hard of it before, here is what ArcadiaCharts does, ArcadiaCharts, interactive JavaScript and GWT charts which run in all browsers without plugins .

Something that is really great about ArcadiaCharts is that it allows you to define a chart using only a few lines of JavaScript or GWT code. This makes it so that the layout information is contained in pre-defined theme files which area adaptable.

Additionally, you will not need Flash to use ArcadiaCharts. This means that it will work on iPads too which is great for one on one presentation. Basically, it will run on all HTML5 complaint platforms which means that you will be able to get it to work in all of today’s modern browsers.

If you are ready to give it a try, ArcadiaCharts is free for non-commercial use and can be downloaded at www.arcadiacharts.com. A commercially usable version is also available on their website.

As the weather begins to warm up, surveys show an estimated three out of every four Americans will be planting their own flowers, fruits, and vegetables. With that much interest, it’s no wonder more people are turning to smartphones or tablet apps to help them grow their gardens just right.

The Gardinate app for Android and iPhone smartphones is a gardening database that helps anyone cultivate a green thumb as they grow flowers and veggies. Based on your climate and growing zone, it tells you when and how to plant just about anything, and when it will be ready for harvest. Cost is $1.99.

For Android Users, My Plant Diary is a free and handy app that lets you note, graph and track the growth of your plants, even documenting it with a photo. For the iPhone, iVeggiegarden is a similar, much more elegant but, at $9.99, much more expensive app.

For drawing up a garden plan, try Garden Tracker for the iPhone. This 99-cent app lets you design your own gardens, decide what goes in what row, track the progress and even fight the pests that are also after your veggies.

I have become a huge fan of the Verizon wireless network after a 2,300-mile to and from trip to Florida that had me camping out in some pretty remote spots in the Appalachian mountains going down and coming back.

I never lost 3g connectivity. Ever. Which is much more than I can say about my old AT&T days.

But better than that, I was pleasantly surprised by the 4g connectivity I got on my iPad.

The route took me on interstates and back roads in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and the Emerald Coast of Florida’s panhandle. As far as I was aware, whenever I checked, I was never out of VZW data connectivity for the iPad or my iPhone.

In a very rural Tennessee state park south of Nashville, I used the iPad and the strong 4g connection to set up a private hot spot for my MacBook Pro laptop. From a picnic table, I streamed live Easter Sunday church services and later used the hotspot to update a bunch of websites I run.

Couldn’t be happier with Verizon.