iPAD killed the Photocopier
05 2010 Wednesday
12
By Jennifer Robinson in Technology
Not since the IBM PC was developed has a computer hit the market that can change the way we view the world. While people talk about Apple’s Tablet PC, the iPAD, being a competitor to the notebook, there are larger implications. The iPad is the first computer that can change the way we view documents. It combines the visual appeal of print and the interaction of the web together in a way no product has done before. The iPAD is the first step into a paperless world where all documents are viewed as data.
In the first 28 days since its release, Apple sold one million iPADS. This figure is even higher than iPHONE sales when it was launched. The iPAD succeeds where previous products such as Amazon Kindle have failed, but it was not greeted with universal approval when launched. “Isn’t it just a big iPHONE?” was the most common remark, whilst others tagged it ‘iLAME’. Dom Jolly even revamped his mobile phone sketch using the iPAD. The iPAD name, which Apple purchased from Fujitsu, has also been the butt of jokes on twitter, where users made fun of its resemblance to a feminine hygiene product. One twitter user posted “I am already going through 4 – 5 iPADS a day due to my heavy workflow”. However, Apple have a loyal following in desktop publishing with the Steve Jobs/Jef Raskin Apple Mac, and the iPAD appears to be exactly what Apple fans have been waiting for.
The tablet PC has been around for a while. Bill Gates’s Microsoft made the term popular in 2001 when it launched Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. HP-Compaq developed the TC1100 series. In 2007 Axiotron produced a Modbook, this was a heavily modified Apple MacBook Tablet. Frontpath manufactured a Linux based tablet called the ProGear.
The iPAD is the start of a new era that will see the transition from Print to Pixels, bringing the worlds of print and web publishing together. Beautiful pages where typography and design are not compromised can now be produced with interaction, animation and video streaming alongside articles. Notebooks don’t offer the same portability of the iPAD, and the iPAD is the best in the field for screen based reading.
Printers and Photocopiers could become a thing of the past in a few years with less and less output to paper. Books, newspapers and magazines will be completely reinvented online. By changing how we read documents, Apple have created the next big hardware battle. Already Chinese manufactured iPAD clones, working on Google’s Android Software, have started to appear. Microsoft Courier is set for release soon, a 7 inch dual screen booklet that will see Microsoft making further strides into hardware manufacture following on from Zune and Xbox.
The battle for the Screen Based Reader audience is unlikely to be defined by the operating system but by the hardware itself. Imagine a iPAD that is wafer thin and you can roll up and put in your back pocket like a magazine. That is what the future holds.
Flexible screen technology is very close to production with a team in Ireland close to a touch screen prototype. Samsung unveiled their 7 inch flexible LCD screen in 2005 and Fujitsu have a 3.8 inch flexible LCD panel that does not require a power supply. Ultimately, it’s the flexible screen technology in the near future that will see users finally turn away from paper based publishing. Apple have won ’round one’ of the screen based reader and have brought their product to market before Microsoft’s Courier, but this hardware battle has a long way to run. Google have already produced the Nexus One, an internet mobile dubbed the Google Phone, and the Android operating system may yet enter into screen based readers as well. Amazon potentially have the most to lose if the iPAD continues to grow, with Apple’s iBOOKS directly competing with another part of their core business, following the success of iTUNES, so presence in the screen reader market will be essential for Amazon.
Jennifer Robinson writes for Online Connect, specialist suppliers of document solutions and digital office photocopier machines visit their website for colour photocopiers.Free Tools For Your Online Business
03 2010 Wednesday
31
By Kathy Dobson in Technology
Internet marketing is simply exploding on the web and along with that explosion is access to many free products that will help you to succeed online. These tools save time, which in the end translates to making more money…and, isn’t that why we’ve entered this online marketing world in the first place? I’ve included a list of valuable tools that I have used to help you with your online marketing and the best thing about it is they are free!
Google Alerts: You can do so many things with this tool,not he least of which is the ability to “see” who is publishing your material, if anyone is talking about you and which sites have picked up your Ezine articles. If you are targeting certain keywords, you can set it up to show you when something has been posted on a website regarding the keywords you are targeting. Navigate to google.com/alerts and enter the keywords you want to track.
Google Analytics: Another great tool provided by Google. With this tool, you can track the kind of activity your site is receiving such as…who is visiting, where they are from, how long they stayed on your site and the best part…which keywords they used to find you. It is very easy to install…just follow the prompts and paste the code exactly where they tell you to on your website.
Google Adwords: Here’s Google again
If you are not already tracking certain keywords for your blog or website, then you should begin doing so. Great search engine optimization requires finding the best keywords and long tail keywords. There is a lot involved with SEO, but learning how to find the right keywords is a must if you want to experience serious success.
CamStudio: There is no question about it…the popularity of video on the Internet has exploded. CamStudio gives you the ability to learn and apply your video making skills before you move on to a paid program such as Camtasia. Obviously with Camtasia you are going to get more features, but CamStudio is a great starting place, and a good place to practice your video skills. Eventually, you will probably move up to a paid program, but you can’t beat free for starters!
FTP: FTP stands for file transport protocol. Simply put, it is what you use to transfer your files from your computer to your host/server. My own personal choice…the that I use is Filezilla. It is open source and free to use, but there are many more available such as Smart FTP. Just do a seach on FTP choices and study your options.
RSS reader: We all have favorite blogs that we like to return to and read the content, but trying to keep up as to when these blogs are updated can be a daunting task at best. An RSS reader will notify you of any new posts on your favorite blogs. Additionally, it will save you valuable time navigating to these blogs only to find out they have nothing new to offer yet. Google Reader is a good one and its free to use. Having access to RSS on your blog or website is equally important to your readers. You want them to have the ability to receive your blog posts when they are new. This tool will save you time and also save your readers time.
Traffic Virus 2.0: Traffic Virus 1.0 was one of the web’s first traffic generating pieces of software designed to launch your own viral advertising campaign. The newer 2.0 version is now available and the best part about it is it remains free…even though it has been improved upon with better features. You can’t beat that deal!
This is just a partial list of the free tools that I have taken advantage of to keep my own Internet marketing business running smoothly. As you can see, there is no shortage of free programs and material out there to get your business up and running on the web in no time. It’s up to you to take action.
For more free tools, just Google “free Internet marketing tools”…you might be surprised at what’s out there!
Kathy Dobson is a free spirited business owner and entrepreneur dedicated to helping others achieve financial and personal freedom through Internet marketing with an emphasis on membership sites. For further tips and resources and to get your own free rebrandable report “Membership Sites are Hot” visit: http://www.kathydobson.comCorporate Business Gifts – Will E-Readers Be The Top Tech Gifts This Christmas?
11 2009 Monday
2
By Titus Hoskins in Technology
E-Readers which are also called digital or electronic readers, lets users wirelessly download books and read them on hand-held devices resembling a glorified etch-a-sketch. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but these handy little digital readers have become extremely popular; according to a recent Time article, Amazon has already sold 1.7 million of the Kindle E-Reader since it was introduced in 2007.
And according to the same article, the Association of American Publishers states total revenue from digital-book downloads has risen 149% this year, while they estimate e-book readers sales to top 3 million by Dec. 31. Plus, according to Forrester Research around 1 million of these gadgets could be sold this holiday season, and sales in 2010 are projected to double, to 6 million.
“The year 2009 is a breakout year for e-readers,” says Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research. “But we’re still in the early stages.”
Those make for very impressive numbers and it could point to E-Readers as “the” hot Christmas gift this Holiday Season; at least where tech gadgets are concerned. Given its well received features and programs, an E-Reader could make for an excellent corporate business gift, especially if you could brand them with your company logos and stream them with your company’s newsletters and RSS feeds.
Then we also have the recent launch of the NOOK from Barnes & Noble which will give the Amazon Kindle some competition. The Nook has a 6-inch paper-like display which uses a 16-level grayscale that can support up to five fonts. You can use it to read PDFs, in addition to over 1 million books, newspapers and magazines available in Barnes & Noble’s eBook store. The Nook is currently priced at around $260.
How is it different from the Kindle: besides the flashy color icons, designer cases and color customizable back panel; the Nook does have some nice features such as a virtual bookmark called Reading Now that lets you pick up where you left off reading on the Nook, and it has Wi-Fi radio which customers can use at 700 Barnes & Noble’s locations and at 600 college stores in 50 states. There’s enough memory for holding 1,500 books (2 GB) and there’s a microSD slot which could give you another 16 GB more.
But this holiday season, gift buyers (corporate or otherwise) will have many more E-Readers to choose from other than the Kindle and the Nook. Where there’s a profit to be made, other companies will follow. Just like when Asustek invented the category of Netbook with its ASUS Eee-PC in 2007, other laptop makers and sellers quickly jumped on the bandwagon and the marketplace was flooded with netbooks or mini-laptops.
This recent trend towards E-Readers will prove no different; take for example Sony, who introduced the first electronic reader way back in 2004, will be introducing three new devices according to the Time’s article. The Sony Reader will have a Pocket Edition ($199), sporting a 5-inch-diagonal screen, Touch Edition ($299) which will be touchscreen-equipped and the Daily Edition ($399), which will feature wireless capability.
Asus is also entering the E-Reader market with a product called the Eee-reader which should be on the market for Christmas. Then there is the Fujitsu FLEPia which is the only commercially available E-Reader which has a color display. It’s only available in Japan and costs around $1,100. Ouch!
For the more modest consumer, the Irex Digital Reader will be hitting U.S. stores this month, October 2009. The DR800 will have an 8.1-in. touchscreen with wireless connectivity and will sell for $90 less than the similarly sized Kindle DX, which will set you back around $489. This is the price at the time of writing, expect those prices to drop as competition heats up.
On the horizon, there are many different versions of the e-reader that will hit the market. There is even a fold up model which will open like a book and another one called the Polymer Vision Readius which is also a phone but it has a flexible screen that folds up around the phone to make it extra portable.
Then we have the looming debut of Apple’s fabled iTablet which could be a game changer in the whole E-Reader arena. It could also be a Kindle or Nook Killer given Apple’s enormous popularity with tech savvy consumers who only want the latest gadget on the market.
One really has to question why all this popularity for the E-Reader, especially since we already have the small portable netbook on the market, which can be easily used for reading books. More specifically, we already have Tablet PCs which could easily fulfill this reading function. Granted they may be slightly larger, but they also offer all the features of a laptop, so why not just convert/use this device as an E-Reader?
Regardless, the E-Reader seems to be gearing up to be a top tech gift this holiday season. The perfect gift for family members, friends and employees alike… especially for the book-reading fanatics in your family or company. E-Readers are also the ideal gifts for those who simply must have the latest and newest tech gadget on the market.
For the latest corporate gift ideas and a handy Amazon gift-organizer try here: Corporate Business Gifts For Timely Special Savings/Deals/Coupons on Corporate Gifts…click here:
Executive Business Gifts Copyright 2009 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.Friendster Login Refused? — Friendster and Facebook Proxy Options
08 2009 Thursday
20
By Peter Nisbet in Technology
If your Facebook or Friendster login has been refused then you will need a Friendster or Facebook proxy to get you into the site. The same is true of MySpace and YouTube. Why is it that so many people are seeking proxies for these social networking sites?
Not so long ago, as employers took on younger people, they also appear to take on their habits. Many young employees believed (still do) that when they start to work for an employer they can take their surfing habits with them. At every opportunity they would use the company computer to access their Friendster account, login to Facebook or find what the latest big video was on YouTube. Obviously, their employers did not like this.
The result was that employers blocked certain URLs. This wasn’t difficult because the vast majority of companies use an intranet system, so all they had to do was block the server from accessing these websites. As company networks became more sophisticated it was even possible to identify the computer from which the Friendster login attempt originated.
Universities and colleges soon followed, and it finally became obvious that private computers, or at least those operated by private concerns such as educational and government establishments, and businesses, were no longer willing to tolerate their staff using their computers or terminals to access social networking sites. Friendster login was refused, and those of other social networking sites.
This seemed unfair to many, and still does, because such sites are a means of communication just as cell phones are, and many use Twitter for example to send small messages to their friends. So what was the answer?
Simple when you think of it. The colleges and employers and whoever else blocks the URLs you visit, can only see one deep. So, if you visit a website that is not blocked, your company’s server won’t block you. You can log on to that site. Now, take it a step further. If you now use that website to log on to another website, your firm or college’s spying software can’t see that. It still thinks you are on the original innocuous website. Nobody except you knows that you are actually logged on to Friendster.
In basic terms, when it is used to log on to Facebook it is known as a Facebook proxy, and it can also be used as a Friendster login. A search box on another website can be used as a proxy to enable you to access any other website at all. It need not be YouTube, Friendster or, but any URL you want to access.
The problem with proxy sites is that once they have been used for a period of time, they are found, and that URL is then added to the list of banned sites. “Banned” does not mean that you should not access them: it means that you CANNOT access them. They too are blocked from you in the same way that a Friendster login is blocked.
That is why you need a regular source of proxy sites – finding one by accident seems great because you can log on to Friendster, and that Facebook proxy is allowing you to contact your buddies from work, but it won’t last. Once it has been blocked then what do you do?
Better by far to find a website that offers a free Friendster login or a Facebook proxy that you can rely upon. Such sites will carry out checks on the proxies they offer, and change them when they have been found out. You will always have a tried and tested proxy that works.
For more information on Friendster login and Facebook proxies, visit Pete’s web page Friendster Login where you will also find great info on Twitter, MySpace and blogging.My Favorite SEO Tip This Year
08 2009 Thursday
20
By admin in Technology
Did you know that submitting an inexpensive iPhone app will get your website or blog top quality one way links from Apple and over 100 other websites?
Did you know that by making an iPhone app to give away that promotes your company can reach hundreds to thousands of high value potential customers month after month.
Build one iPhone app and submit it to iTunes and you can develop some powerful one way links to your website along with exposing your company to thousands of new people. It is not hard to do and it can cost less than $500.
How do you build your own iPhone app?
You’ve probably heard how expensive they are to make. There is one type of app that is more about the content than the code. Of the Day Apps. You can create a tip of the day, quote of the day or even coupon of the day relatively easily and have it made in to an iPhone app for under $500. There are a million ideas for what you could offer.
The materials needed are the text and some images. In fact, you can use minimal graphics by using the same background image for all text. Making an of the day app is not too difficult and just about anyone can do it. If you need graphic help, you might consider using www.99Designs.com and making your app graphics a contest. Once you find an artist you like, you may be able to develop a long term relationship.
Choose an idea that supports your business and make it fun and valuable.
Make it worthwhile and brand it well. The app needs to have value for customers and most of your customers will not appreciate “over branding”. You need to get your message across but your app’s first priority should be its value to the customer.
However, there are some nice branding opportunities that are not too obtrusive. First, when the app loads, there is a splash page that shows for a few seconds. It should have the app title and some info about the app but it can also serve as a quick branding message with a company logo. The main homepage is the tip of the day screen. This changes every day, of course. The screen here is usually an image with text on the top of it but it can also be a pure html page. This is where you give your customer what they want “subtly” branded. Then there is the About Us page. This is all yours to say and show what you want. So, it’s not very hard to make an app of value that can be a great branding tool as well.
Make Your iPhone App Inexpensively.
You have three options for creating an Of The day App. The first one is to buy a script and install it on your server. A good place to find a script is Hot Scripts. You’ll have to configure the script for mobile use but you can find a script for no cost and save some money.
The second approach is to use an Of the Day App service like OfTheDayApps.com. Here you can build a web app using an admin backend without any knowledge of html, css or php. For under $500, your web app can be made in to a native iPhone app and submitted to iTunes.
The third option is to hire an iPhone Application Developer. You can have your app made exactly the way you want it and you can have the coding and the graphic work done by professionals. This is, of course, a more expensive option starting in the two to three thousand dollar range.
Do the Apple Two Step.
Once you have your app ready to go, there are two things you can do to promote it.
Step One – Submit your web app to Apples Web App directory.
You can sign up for an account and submit your site quite easily. The only thing you’ll need extra is an icon for your site. This icon is for people saving your site to their desktop or phone screen.
Step Two – Make a Native iPhone app and submit it to iTunes App Store.
This is the big Kahuna. It will cost money but it will also get you incredible exposure. Not only will people see and download your app by the hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of times, you will also get a lot of one way links back to your main website. Check it out at iTunes. There is a link to every developer’s main site with their app. On top of that, as soon as you get accepted to iTunes, your app will begin to appear in the hundred or so app directories out there and almost all of them include the same type of homepage link.
Conclusion
Once you get your first app in the app store, you will probably be hooked. The traffic you will see coming to your site, the quality links and the panache of being an iPhone Application Developer are nearly intoxicating. You don’t usually have this much fun building links and driving traffic.
Finally, how many sites compete with you in Google? Where there may be over a million pages showing up for almost any competitive search these days, in iTunes, popular searches many times result in under a hundred results. Now is the time to act. The iTunes App Store is just over a year old and the opportunity is there if you take it. How long will it be a lucrative option? Who knows? But, right now, the opportunity is waiting for you.
Resources:
- Of The Day Apps: http://www.OfTheDayApps.com
- Hot Scripts: http://www.hotscripts.com/search/all/%22of+the+day%22
- Apple Web App Directory: http://www.apple.com/webapps/
- iTunes: http://www.iTunes.com
- iPhone App Coders & Developers: http://www.AppPublishing.com
Bill Broadbent has been marketing online since 1998 and has sold millions of dollars in consumer goods since then. He has been mentioned and interviewed in many media outlets and publications from the NY Times, National Geographic, and USA Today to NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News and even The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Lately, his interest has turned to the mobile revolution and he is developing mobile applications at http://www.AppPublishing.com.
Use Descriptive URLs to Bolster Your Search Engine Rankings!
03 2009 Friday
6
By Phil in Technology
Dynamically generated pages, such as those made by PHP scripts, usually have URLs that aren’t very readable, like “mysite.com/script.php?id=3951&page=2″. The URL doesn’t say anything at all as to what the page is, other than showing that it’s generated by a script. If you want to make your dynamic pages more search engine friendly, rewrite your scripts to use descriptive URLs!
A URL like “mysite.com/blogpost/3951-People-Know-What-This-Is.html” would be a lot better, wouldn’t it? Right off the bat, you know what the page is about. If you’re scrolling through your recent pages, you can find exactly what you’re looking for a lot easier. More importantly though, search engines love URLs like these, so you get a nice rankings boost!
As a PHP programmer, I’m going to detail this technique with PHP, but the same principle applies to whatever serverside scripting language you use.
To start, have the script execute as a file without the extension, instead of with the .php extension (or or .jsp, or whatever extension your language uses). On Apache servers, you can use a ForceType statement in the .htaccess file to make the script execute as application/x-httpd-php. This tells Apache to run the file as a script instead of just spitting out your code.
Right now, your script should work properly as “mysite.com/script?id=3951&page=2″. It’s no longer readily apparent which language your site uses, but you can still tell that it’s a dynamic page. Let’s fix that next, by using PHP’s explode function to break up the argument list. Using this, the arguments to your script will look like folders on your server instead of parameters to a script:
$args = explode(”/”,$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
Now, if you were to access “mysite.com/script/3951/2″, $args would become an array with “3951″ and “2″. You can replace the slash with a hyphen to separate arguments without making them look like directory entries, or use a second explode statement to break down some of the arguments in a different way.
Finally, write some code that converts the title of the content (be it the blog post name, forum topic, etc.) into an argument, substituting dashes for spaces. Some people use underscores instead of dashes, but the search engines don’t see underscored words as separate terms, so you end up with the search engine thinking “This_Is_My_Post” is one big word.
Add a pinch of code at the top of the script to make ensure that the URL matches the one you want it to be (so it redirects thread/4614-wrong-name-1 to thread/4614-This-is-my-posts-name-1), then add .html to the end of it (so it looks like an innocent html file) and you’re good to go!
To prevent stuffing the url with words that don’t really matter, use the string replace functions to remove words such as “I”, “The”, and “And” from the URL.
Most search engines won’t completely index your website if it’s all stuffed into argument lists, so by having URLs that look like normal filenames you both ensure that all of your pages are indexed and increase your search engine optimization. Making your URLs readable by humans is juts an added bonus. Make sure to update the links within your site to reflect your new URLs, so your page doesn’t turn into a smattering of redirects.
About the Author: Phil runs a web development resource site. Find yourself asking, Where do I buy web hosting? Read all about it on Phil’s site!
Data Recovery: 10 Most Effective Computer Backup Tools
02 2009 Wednesday
11
By Donna Gunter in Technology
Despite my best efforts, this past week I lost both my primary and secondary computer systems. After losing my primary desktop several years ago, I vowed I would never let myself be caught without an operating PC. As they say, “the road to h*ll is paved with good intentions,” and I once again was caught with my proverbial pants down without an operating computer when my desktop, which had been exhibiting some problem signs in the last month, died suddenly and would not turn on.
I then went to my laptop, which I had admittedly been lazy about keeping updated, and turned it on. Immediately the Windows update process started, and asked me install Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. Having done that successfully on my desktop, I wasn’t too worried about any installation problems on the laptop. However, upon completing the installation, the blue screen of death appeared, which is NEVER a good sign with a Windows-based system.
After trying for about an hour without success to revive my laptop (which is only 8 months old and still under warranty), I knew that I was in trouble and starting looking for alternatives. Fortunately, my husband keeps a laptop on hand that he uses for gaming when we travel, and he generously offered to let me install my programs and files on it until I could repair one of my computers.
After finally acknowledging that there was no way I could have foreseen this situation, I decided that I needed to s*ck it up, get over, and move on. So, I’m making do with a partially customized laptop that will do until one or the other of my PCs is returned.
Despite having gone through similar situations previously, I still learned a few new things along the way about data recovery and computer backup. Here are the 10 most effective tools that saved my bacon during my recent computer meltdown.
1. Automatic backup software. I’ve been using 2 online backups, Carbonite and Syncplicity. I have had to restore from Carbonite previously, and I found the process to be lengthy and somewhat confusing. So, several months ago I began using Syncplicity because it offers online access to all backed up files as well as the ability to synchronize an unlimited number of computers. However, it has taken a week to restore 20 GB of data with Syncplicity, and some of the data was wasn’t really restored, despite what Syncplicity told me in my account. However, I can easily download this missing info to my computer from the online vault. One process that makes this backup system easier is that I store all of my data files in My Docs so I don’t have to hunt them down in Program Files, or wherever they are typically stored.
2. Email client software. I still use the dinosaur Eudora for my email client. Old habits die hard, I suppose. However, somehow I missed marking some key Eudora folders to back up, and so I was initially using my webmail access providing by my hosting company to access email because of this oversight with Eudora. I began to tire of that quickly, as I had no way to create additional folders in those systems, so I then decided to manually configure Eudora and open folders and emails as I need them in the program. This experience has made me very tempted to change all of my incoming and outgoing email servers on all domains to Gmail just to have access to everything online, come hurricane, flood, tornado, or computer crash.
3. Bookmark service. I’m an avid researcher and resource collector, so having access to my bookmarks, or favorites file, is vital to my day-to-day operations. I had been using Spurl, but because of frequent periodic outages of their service, I’ve changed to Foxmarks. I like that this service offers me the ability to access all of these online, as well as have them at my fingertips any time I need them from my Bookmarks menu as well as easily synchronize them to any computer.
4. Contact management. Even though I don’t use Outlook for email, I do use it for calendar and contact management. I had been using Plaxo as an online backup for my contacts, but it doesn’t permit me to store my notes about each contact. I’ve been using Airset now for several months, and it regularly syncs my contacts (with notes) and my calendar to their online service. I found this much more convenient than trying to restore a backup PST file to Outlook and then repeating that again when my primary computer is returned. Instead, I just make changes to contacts and my calendar on Airset, and I’ll just sync that to Outlook on my desktop.
5. Passwords. I’ve been using Roboform for years to help me manage my passwords. I’ve got my Roboform data in My Docs, so it was a breeze to reinstall Roboform and copy the data folder to the new computer and permit me to access all of the sites requiring a password and username. Finally, something that worked seamlessly!
6. Project Management. Smartsheet has been my project management service for the last few months. I love that it has the ability to create an item and allow you to attach a document and discussion to that item. Rather than having to hunt down information about a project, all I had to do was log into my Smartsheet account and there it was.
7. Software licenses. Roughly 99% of the new software I install is downloaded and I don’t get a physical copy on CD. Therefore, I make sure that I have the downloaded version in a My Downloads folder that’s a part of My Docs file, which is backed up regularly. And, I make a PDF copy of the software license that I get by email and store in a Software folder, also in My Docs. Lastly, I purchased a very inexpensive program, Registration Vault, that lets me store all of my software license and purchase info and permits me to back up my data to My Docs. As I had to reinstall software on a new computer, it was easy to restore the Registration Vault files, get my software license number, and have a fully functioning piece of software within minutes.
8. Accounting. I use Quickbooks for my accounting needs, and while they do offer an online version, I haven’t yet moved to that. Instead, I back up Quickbooks after every use in the My Docs folder. When I needed to invoice consulting clients at the beginning of this month, all I had to do was reinstall Quickbooks and restore my latest backup. I instantly had everything I needed again at my fingertips.
9. Alternate free services. Some software I use, like CuteFTP and TraxTime, don’t permit data backups. So, I really do have to start all over with my FTP info and my time tracking info when my computer dies. Rather than installing these programs on the new computer, I just used some free alternatives to get me through. FireFTP, a Firefox add-on, has worked quite well for me as my FTP client, and MyHours.com has stood in fairly well for TraxTime, although it requires a few more steps for operation than TraxTime.
10. Email marketing. While not a tool, I discovered that both text and HTML versions of email broadcasts matter in email marketing. I wasn’t initially able to get my normal email client up and running, so I was reading my email from my webmail systems. I’ve got 2 hosting accounts, and the newer one has a fairly sophisticated webmail system and let me read HTML emails with no problem. The other, however, doesn’t permit HTML viewing. So, those emails sent only in HTML were ones that I was unable to read. If you’re wise and your email marketing program permits you to send emails out in both plain text and HTML, do it, even though it might seem like a needless pain. You just never know how members of your list might be forced to ready your emails.
As you might gather, I’ve discovered that online services have provided me with the greatest backup to help me through this computer crisis. My lesson? Duplicate as much as you can in online systems. In this way, you’ll have access to your data when you travel, when you have a computer crash, or when you’re faced with a natural disaster.
Internet Marketing Strategist & Boomer Biz Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses that they love by demystifying the tools & strategies needed to market and grow their businesses online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.comThe Android Phone
01 2009 Wednesday
7
By Anna Williams in Technology
Google and T-Mobile have teamed up to create a new breed of cell phone. The T-Mobile G1 is the world’s first Android Phone. An “android” is traditionally defined as a robot with human qualities. Perhaps the name was chosen because of the capabilities of this new phone.
It’s known as the T-Mobile G1 Android, the Android Phone, the G1 Phone, or (more informally) the Google Phone.
The G1 Phone integrates fully with your Google accounts. Here are a few of the features and capabilities of this new cell phone:
- An Android phone allows you to browse the Internet just as you would on a normal computer.
- It allows one to run several applications at the same time, on one phone. You can switch between applications, and you can also be notified when something new occurs on one of those applications.
- It allows you to chat and share photos on applications such as Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, etc.
- It allows you to copy URLs and share them with friends via a chat line, using a simple touch-screen interface.
The following Google applications can be accessed and used directly by the Android Phone:
- Google Maps
- YouTube
- Gmail
- Contacts
- Calendar
- IM (Instant Message)
All of these Google applications will be available to you with a single logon – and they will be automatically synchronized with the web. What that means is that any change you make in one of your google accounts from your phone will also show up the next time you log on from any other computer.
For example, when you are out and about with your phone and you meet a new contact, you might want to save their contact information. All you do is save it into your Google Contacts on your G1 phone. That information will be available to you online, in your Gmail account, and in any other applicable Google account, accessible by any computer in the world.
Any information you save on your phone in this way will appear on your computer as well – and vice-versa.
If you lose or break your phone, your data will still be there waiting for you on your Google account, which you can access from anywhere in the world. And there is no need to worry about your information being stolen, as its password-protected.
Here is another example of the a use of a Google Android phone. Once you have a contact address saved into your Google account, you can easily find that location on a map – using Google Maps, of course. And what’s more, you can access street level events in any area where this is available.
This makes it a breeze to get directions to a new location! Simply find your contact on a a map with a couple of clicks, and use a street-level view to find your way if needed!
Another example of the use of the this phone is the integration of the cell phone with your Google Calendar. Any event you save on your Google Calendar will be available to you on your phone, wherever you are. So you can access your schedule easily, on the go and from anywhere, as long as you have your phone with you.
No more schedule books! And you can probably say goodbye to those tiny notebooks and pads of paper you carry around to save your information.
What’s more, once you save information on your Android phone, there’s no need to transfer it over after you get home. Its all there, safely stored on your Google account, for ready access whenever you need it.
Anna Williams is a photographer and an artist who has traveled extensively in her life, and now works as an Internet Marketer. She thus appreciates the value of portability where digital equipment is concerned. She currently works as an Internet Marketer. Visit her website at Websites and Webhosting.How Facebook Proxy Bypass Servers Work
01 2009 Tuesday
6
By Peter Nisbet in Technology
Facebook proxy bypass servers are necessary if you have some reason to hide the IP address either of your internet connection, or of the site to which you are trying to connect. Why should anybody want to do this, and how do Facebook proxy providers work?
Why Use a Proxy Bypass?
If you work for an employer and have unmonitored internet access, then you can be barred from accessing certain internet addresses, such as those of the commonly used social networking sites. Facebook, Friendster, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube are the more common sites that employees tend to visit in company time. Your employer can stop this by preventing your computer from accessing the internet (IP) addresses of these sites.
If you have internet access at school, college or university, you will be even less supervised than at work, and few students have not tried to use school or college computers to access social networking sites. There again, the relevant IP addresses have a block or filter placed on them which only a proxy bypass can circumvent.
A block generally refers to a blanket bar placed on the entire network accessing specific addresses, while filters permit access to individual terminals, the users of which might have a legitimate use for them. Most sites are filtered while a few can be blocked, and a Facebook proxy might be needed by a student, for example, but not a faculty member.
The target websites themselves can place blocks on individual IP addresses, and if Friendster or Facebook has banned you and your internet address for some reason, then you can’t even re-register using a different name and email address unless you get a new internet connection with a different IP address. Facebook proxy bypass servers can enable you to re-register without changing your IP address. You can also access your home page using your regular login details.
How a Facebook Proxy Bypass Server Works
If computer A connects to website B, then the IP address of both A and B are known to each other. All it takes to sever that connection is for either to block the other. However, if A connects to site C, and C connects to B, neither A nor B sees each other – they both see only IP address C.
Therefore, a block or filter against B will not be triggered by the address of C, to which you are connected. Neither will any block place by B on A be triggered, because as far as B is concerned it is connected to C and not A. The term ‘proxy bypass’ is therefore a bit of a misnomer because it is more of a proxy ‘router’; many different computers can be rerouted by a central connection to a number of social websites (or any type of website in fact).
For example, if you are finding it difficult to connect to a specific website, such as a search engine, you can do so through a proxy. The principle behind a Facebook proxy is just the same as that of you connecting your computer to a router in a network to connect to the internet – all computers connected to that router will have the same address, and when you use a modem attached to your computer to bypass the router through a different internet connection, you will have a different IP address.
Proxy bypass sites don’t last forever. Once they have been detected and also blocked, you have to find another. However they can last for a long time, and new Facebook proxies are coming online as fast as they are being blocked. For that reason you should find a site that offers you a number of alternatives.
So next time you have difficulty accessing a specific website, whether it is Facebook, YouTube or anything else a proxy can help you. Bear in mind that they are rarely specific, and take the form of an address bar into which you enter the internet address of the site you want to access. In the case of a Facebook proxy bypass server you enter the Facebook address, but it usually also works with any other website address.
Peter Nisbet – More information on Facebook proxy servers and others are available on Pete’s web page Facebook Proxy where you will also find several working proxies that are regularly updated.Use Online Surveys To Build Customer Trust And Loyalty And Thrive During The Recession
11 2008 Wednesday
19
By Darrell Howell in Technology
The ongoing financial crisis and talk of recession has left a lot of Internet marketers worried about whether they will be able to stay in business over the coming months and years. Many people who now work from home on the Internet are also worried about whether or not they will be able to continue selling their products and services.
However, an economic crisis also offers opportunities as well as dangers. In times of anxiety and economic uncertainty the business that responds to customers’ needs and wins their trust is the one that will survive and prosper in the midst of doom and gloom.
Because of the interactive nature of the Internet it offers many opportunities for online marketers to get to know their customers and website visitors, learn what they want and respond to their needs by engaging them in a friendly, informal dialogue that develops into a relationship of trust.
This relationship building process can be done in several ways, for example by inviting people to comment on your blog posts and then responding with follow-up comments. Another option is to participate in forums that attract your target market. Social network marketing sites, email, instant messaging and Skype all offer the Internet marketer opportunities to communicate with clients at various levels of intensity in order to discover where they are coming from and build rapport with them.
The key is to build trust by listening and then following up with products and services that meet their needs at prices that suit their pockets. Remember, it takes time to build trust. Trust is a two way process that is both rational and emotional. You cannot win a prospect’s trust without putting in some preliminary spade work. Rushing at them with products first is not a great way to raise your credit rating with your prospects.
One good way of getting to know your target market better is to set up an online survey and offer your prospects an incentive to complete it. The great thing about online surveys is that they take full advantage of the interactive nature of the internet and are cheap or even free to run as well as being easy to set up. You can use online platforms such as Surveypro.com or Surveymonkey.com to set up and manage your survey from.
You can use a customer survey to find out about your customers’ impressions of the products or services you offer. Another approach is to keep the survey focused firmly on the customer. Either way, make sure you have a clear focus from the beginning so that everybody knows why they are taking the survey.
Offer your prospective survey takers an incentive to do the survey such as a free report or ebook that can be downloaded on completion.
Keep the survey short, invite “yes” or “no” answers by asking closed-ended questions, include some multiple choice questions and assure participants that any private information they give you will remain confidential.
When you look over the results keep an eye out for trends and surprises.
Publish the results of the survey on your website or blog and invite comments.
The whole process of survey taking and reporting should be treated as a trust-building exercise and an opportunity for increased interaction with your client base.
A successful survey campaign will also have brought you a lot of valuable information about your target market which you can now use to present your prospects with goods and services that more closely match their needs and win their loyalty.
So, in recessionary times, a customer survey is an excellent tool for building stronger ties with your target market, winning the trust of your clientele and thriving in the midst of recession.
Darrell Howell is an Internet Marketer and Blogger. Check out his Blog at http://www.blueridgemoney.info Sign up for a free Internet Marketing Newsletter here.
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