Computers and internet
If you're new to internet marketing and you are looking at setting up your own website, you'll see there are a whole heap of providers out there.
You may have heard of GoDaddy; one of the biggest and best-known providers on the market. They offer good prices and claim over 8 million users. Recognised by the industry as a leader in the fight against online fraud such as phishing, and against spam, GoDaddy can be seen as a safe bet when looking for a provider. If you are considering your own site you will be looking at setting up Wordpress – GoDaddy offers support for MySQL and PHP, but do choose the Linux hosting option for PHP to work.
Alternatively, you may wish to consider Hostgator. Also offering competitive prices, they advertise unlimited disk space, bandwidth and guarantee 99.9 percent uptime. Hostgator also use the popular cPanel interface which is specifcally designed to make the entire process of hosting a website that much easier. Of course hostgator also supports PHP and MySQL, for when your Wordpress masterpiece is ready. 
Whichever you choose to go with (and there are many more out there besides the two I mentioned) do make sure they offer all the features you need; for instance not every provider offers PHP support out of the box. Also, if you were considering a bespoke content management system for your website, that system may not allow you to use your own server-side code and you may be forced to work with what they offer. You may also not like the interface on some CMS systems.
A couple of years ago I worked alongside some colleagues who were agents for one popular CMS, now owned by one of the biggest technology companies in the world. Although it was powerful, and great for someone who just wants a website out of the box, it wasn't long before I found the system too restrictive to work with for my marketing purposes. For instance, it did not support PHP, and the interface was difficult to work with; it was designed to resemble Microsoft Word and only provided a small window in which to enter content or code. The CMS was meant to be an all-in-one solution, and it was a tough sell to small businesses who may already have some parts working and were understandably reluctant to throw all that out in favour of a completely new setup.
For these reasons I have changed to using Wordpress myself; the system is remarkably straightforward to set up and there are all manner of 'plugins' you can obtain (free) which vastly increase the functionality. For a marketer such as myself, Wordpress fits the bill far better than a hosted CMS which may be more orientated towards an actual online store. Wordpress's roots are in blogging, and as any internet marketer will tell you, content is king. Frequently updating content is vital and the SEO-friendly nature of Wordpress makes it more suitable for this business.
But – I'm getting ahead of myself. To have a site, first you need a provider. Either of the two I suggested will suit the new internet marketer (or you can do your own investigations) and I shall provide links to both GoDaddy and Hostgator here:
I was just about to turn off my machine for the night when the news came through that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had lost his battle against cancer.
Apple are a company that, in a relatively short space of time, have become a household name with their products known (and much-desired) by almost everybody. Almost all of that enviable reputation is down to the marketing genius of Jobs himself. His initial successes with the Apple II in 1977, then the Macintosh of 1984, were impressive enough but it was only when he returned to the company in the 1990s that things really took off for the company.
It is easy to forget that in the 1990s, Apple were struggling badly. Jobs had been ousted in a power struggle some years earlier and despite some success in the early 1990s, the company had begun to flounder with a succession of failed products. Meanwhile their chief rivals in the personal computer operating system market, Microsoft, were going from strength to strength with their Windows operating system available to a wide variety of personal computers. Apple's operating system ran only on their own machines, and Apple largely missed out on the PC boom of the 1990s with their comparatively expensive hardware.
Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, when the company he founded after his departure from Apple (NeXT) was purchased by Apple in a deal worth $429 million, plus 1.5 million shares in Apple stock. Jobs was brought back into the fold, initially as an advisor, but soon found himself restored as interim CEO after sustained losses prompted the removal of the previous incumbent Gil Amelio.
The introduction of the iMac G3 in 1998 saw a revival of the company's fortunes; conceived by British designer Jonathan Ive and available in a range of translucent colours it established itself as a 'lifestyle' product. Future Apple devices would follow this trend throughout Jobs's tenure as chief executive, with newer versions of the iMac adopting innovative, eye-catching designs and running the Mac OS X operating system, built on technology brought over from NeXT when Apple purchased the company. With Ive in charge of designing the company's products from the iPod to the Macbook Pro, the company gained a reputation for innovation allied to sleek design.
The real value of Jobs to the company was his forceful personality; able to get everyone to pull in the same direction and also able to market the firm's products brilliantly, his keynote presentation speeches which announced their latest product became major events in themselves. When the first iPhone was released in 2007, there were queues around the block. The company had managed to cultivate a fanbase of its own; people would queue for the new Apple gadget in the same way they might queue for a chance to buy a ticket for a concert by their favourite band.
Although the restrictions on Apple devices such as the iPhone and later iPad did irritate some people, their look, sleek design, ease of use and sheer desirability won over the masses. The company became synonymous with its chief executive as each new device was presented to the public by Jobs, his easygoing stage presence making him something of a technology 'rock star'.
When Jobs stepped down as chief executive in August, the company had recently been reported as having more cash reserves than even the United States government – a phenomenal turnaround from the late 1990s when the company was in danger of collapse. Today there are Apple stores in many major cities in the world; brightly-lit, welcoming places where people can actually see and touch the devices for themselves. Giving people the chance to experience the intuitive nature of Apple's devices for themselves is a strong incentive to want to purchase the devices.
Steve Jobs has left Apple in a far better state than he found it in 1998; his company's devices have found their way into almost every home over the past decade and his impact on the world of technology is colossal.
The 1984 advertisement heralding the original Macintosh:
Steve Jobs unveils the Macintosh:
The iPhone 4 unveiling:
Pixlr is a real godsend for internet marketers; it puts the basic features of popular editing software such as Photoshop in the hands of anyone with a computer – you no longer need to install anything, just navigate to www.pixlr.com/editor and away you go. If you are setting up a Facebook page this video will show how you can use the online editor to create your own graphic to use on the page. They are usually 200×600 pixels and so our graphic is created to those dimensions. Hopefully those of you who are using the editor have better taste than I did when making this demonstration – I do not recommend blending purple and yellow together!
I've just been playing about with Pixlr, a browser-based image editor. This tool is a real boon for anyone who wants to edit their photos or create a new graphic from scratch, but is either away from their regular computer with a software editor installed on it (such as Photoshop or the GIMP) or perhaps does not have an editor on the machine. This tool offers much of the familiarity of the Photoshop desktop, along with a tool palette with all the everyday options included, but is accessible from anywhere and is free, to boot. You can edit an image either stored on your machine, or from a URL, or from an image saved in your Facebook, Picasa or Flickr galleries, and once you have finished editing it you can also save the finished image online. The video shows a quick demonstration of Pixlr, I have used it to demonstrate that it can emulate layer masking in Photoshop, which means you can, for example change the colour of a car bonnet (as I have shown).
The video may be viewed in full-screen if desired – click the icon in the bottom right of the control bar to expand.
The other use for this tool is of course the ability to make customised graphics; if for example you have a Facebook page and need to create a sidebar or another image for use on it, you can do so on this editor and upload it. Network marketers will therefore find this to be a fabulous asset; a future video will show how the Pixlr tool can create a graphic in much the same way as would be done in Photoshop.
There are also plugins for Firefox and for Google Chrome so that you can screen-grab any image or graphic from the web and edit it in Pixlr.
Pixlr Screen Grabber for Firefox
Pixlr Screen Grabber for Google Chrome
For more sophisticated image editing, of course, the free tool cannot match the vast amount of options and settings in the Adobe product but, for a free utility accessible from any computer (provided it is Flash-enabled and of a reasonable specification) Pixlr is a real game-changer for people who wish to get creative. I look forward to getting more familiar with this editor over the coming weeks.
To try it out for yourself please follow the link below.
As I write this post Twitter are rolling out their new user interface. It will start showing for some users from tonight, but will appear for everyone over the next few weeks. The main change that is grabbing the attention is that you can now play embedded videos within your Twitter page (something that users of Power Twitter for Firefox/Chrome/Safari have already been able to do for some time); there are some more nice looking features coming too which include the ability to click a tweet and see additional information within a panel relating to the author of that tweet, and a new ‘mini profile’ panel which appears when you click a username. That means it will no longer take you away from your current page; it will give you the information about that user in its own box. They’ve also redesigned the interface to give easy access to mentions, searches, lists and retweets.
There is a preview video already up which gives a short overview of the changes to the interface; watch it here.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this improves the user experience, and with my training hat on (I’m currently giving training on the use of Twitter to local business people) it’s an exciting time to be involved in this industry.
A full review of the new Twitter interface will appear here once I get access to it and have had chance to get to grips with it!
Google unveiled a new feature tonight: Google Instant. The change means that Google now serves up search results IMMEDIATELY you commence typing in the search box, as opposed to only serving results when you press the button. It appears to be an extension of their existing suggestion feature, where it would serve up search terms in a drop-down box based on what you’ve already typed in. That still happens, but now, as you type, search results appear and change the more text you input into the search field. Fans of the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ feature may wonder what’s happened to that button; the feature is now incorporated into those suggested search terms in the drop-down box. Mouse over the search term and you will see the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ feature there.
To make use of this new feature you must be signed into Google; those using the standard search page without having a Google account will remain unaffected. Of course the option can be disabled if you are signed in; it is enabled by default.
Google claim that the new feature will save around two to five seconds per query. For internet marketers, the implications are as yet unknown, but as the existing suggestion feature is often used for keyword research, it’s very possible that this new feature could be used to aid that process along. I’m keen to see how this changes the rules and how we can get the best from this new tool, and I look forward to trying it out over the coming weeks.
Here is Google’s introduction and demonstration video which explains the new feature:
Give it a whirl and see what you think of it!
Nowadays, personal computers and the internet are an essential part of our lives. People do many things online such as chat, do their shopping, or their banking. However the more things we do online, , the more open we are to potential security threats . The threat could be a hacker using your PC as a ‘zombie’; a platform from which to launch attacks on other personal computersor they may want to access your private data, a practice commonly called ‘phishing’. All of us who use a PC to do anything online should know of the dangers, and here we will list some techniques to help you protect yourself.
1) Back up your important information and store it away from the computer. Modern computers are equipped with DVD-R drives and this simplifies the task of storing your data to a blank disc to be filed. Alternatively, consider an external hard drive.
2) Update and patch your operating system, browser, and software frequently. Windows now includes an automated update where the latest patches are downloaded to your machine for you to apply on the next restart. Alternatively you can access it from the Control Panel (Start-Control Panel-Windows Update). For older versions of Windows (e.g. XP) you can check online for patches at windowsupdate.microsoft.com. Keep in mind that older versions of Windows may no longer be supported by Microsoft, so for most effective security protection keep your operating system as up-to-date as you can. In the same way keep your browser updated; most browsers have an option to check for updates from the Help menu.
3) Install a firewall. A good firewall will block viruses and trojans from getting onto your machine, and anything you are unaware of that is trying to access the internet without your knowledge will be stopped. Windows Firewall is included with Vista and Windows 7 (and is by default turned on), but you may wish to consider a third- party product such as the well-regarded ZoneAlarm (www.zonealarm.com).
4) Check your browser security settings. If you’re using Internet Explorer go to Tools then Internet Options, then choose the Security tab. By default, the level is set to ‘medium-high’. Set this to ‘high’ to block Active-X and Javascript, which can be used by hackers to plant more trojans on your machine. You are able to maintain a list of ‘trusted sites’ (click the green tick for this zone) and add the addresses of those sites you do trust and they will not be blocked the same way as untrusted websites. Firefox security settings are accessed by clicking Tools then Options, then selecting the Security tab.
5) Make sure you have antivirus software. Highly important! Most personal computers come with a version of McAfee or Norton which is valid for 30 days, but to keep receiving updates you have to subscribe to them. If you do not have these or wish to use a free antivirus solution, AVG or Avast both offer free versions; when you install either of these it is vital that these are set to automatically update so that the latest antivirus patches are downloaded regularly.
6) Beware of email attachments. A typical way of passing a virus around is via an email attachment, it is possible to scan these using your anti-virus software but in general, if you do not recognise the sender, do not trust the attachment. In addition, you may get a mail from an address that appears genuine, but is actually a hacker impersonating a genuine company (this is a typical ‘phishing’ method).
7) Don’t run programs from unknown sources. Again, your anti-virus software should be able to scan and detect viruses hidden in downloaded files, but use good sense. In addition, beware of forwarding on a program, the source of which is unknown to you, it could have a funny joke in it but if a friend or co-worker gets a virus from it, you could land yourself in trouble.
8 ) Set your machine to show filename extensions. By default, Windows hides file extensions ‘for known file types’. This should be disabled, you do this by going to Tools, then Folder Options, and selecting the View tab in Explorer. In Vista or later, the menu bar is hidden – to reveal it, press the ALT key once and it will show in Explorer, then proceed as described.
9) If you’re not using the computer, turn it off! Nothing can get to your computer while it’s switched off, so when you’re not using it, shut it down.
10) Make a bootable CD or pen drive so that if your machine ever does get damaged, you can still start it up. Modern computers no longer use floppy drives which often were used so that you could boot from a floppy if the worst happened, so you would need to use your CD drive or USB pen drive instead. A good way to get to your computer is to have a bootable operating system on a CD or DVD, such as Ubuntu. It will run live from the disk, so if you cannot start your machine normally, you can still reach the files and if necessary retrieve them. Ubuntu is a free operating system based on Linux, and you can get it at http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download
These are some of the basic steps we should all take so that if things do go wrong, we can recover.
No matter how careful you are, there’s a good chance your computer will eventually have some sort of spyware hidden away. Even my own machine has been hit, which goes to prove the point. There are too many Windows computers out there with no protection against spyware, and this is why it is spreading rapidly. Alarmingly, they are cropping up ever more frequently. According to a 2005 study by AOL and the National Cyber-Security Alliance, 61 percent of surveyed users’ computers had some form of spyware. 92 percent of surveyed users with spyware reported that they did not know of its presence, and 91 percent reported that they had not given permission for the installation of the spyware. (source: wikipedia)
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware) defines spyware thus:
“Spyware is a type of malware that is installed on computers and collects little bits of information at a time about users without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user, and can be difficult to detect. Typically, spyware is secretly installed on the user’s personal computer. Sometimes, however, spywares such as keyloggers are installed by the owner of a shared, corporate, or public computer on purpose in order to secretly monitor other users.
While the term spyware suggests that software that secretly monitors the user’s computing, the functions of spyware extend well beyond simple monitoring. Spyware programs can collect various types of personal information, such as Internet surfing habits and sites that have been visited, but can also interfere with user control of the computer in other ways, such as installing additional software and redirecting Web browser activity. Spyware is known to change computer settings, resulting in slow connection speeds, different home pages, and/or loss of Internet or functionality of other programs. In an attempt to increase the understanding of spyware, a more formal classification of its included software types is captured under the term privacy-invasive software.”
There are less harmful forms of spyware like tracking cookies, but these are still compromising your privacy However much of the spyware out there is dangerous. It is vital to keep this off your machine, or if it is on there already, it must be destroyed before it can do damage such as reveal your bank details. Here are some tools you really should consider installing on your machine to scan for and delete unwanted spyware. Bear in mind you may need to run several of these tools to eradicate problems completely; no tool will find everything so it is best to run them in conjunction.
i) Ad-Aware from Lavasoft is a well-known anti-spyware tool, as of July 2010 it is at release 8.3. It’s available in several versions including a free version for personal use only. (http://www.lavasoft.com) For those who pay, there are added features such as a firewall, anti-rootkit detection and even parental control.
ii) Spybot (http://www.safer-networking.org) is a widely-known freeware tool for the detection and removal of spyware.
It is currently at release 1.6.2, and updates are frequently released. It also now includes TeaTimer, which alerts the user to any changes in the Windows Registry. As the registry should only be changed when a program is updated, installed or uninstalled, an unexpected alert can thus mean spyware is present. It is known to conflict with some commercial security programs however, such as Norton or McAfee, so it may be worth considering the use of another anti-virus program such as AVG or Avast to run alongside Spybot.
iii) Malwarebytes Anti-Malware comes in two forms: a paid and a free version. The free version, although functional, must be run manually whereas the paid form can be set up to run scheduled scans as well as provide real-time protection. It is intended to detect spyware or malware that other programs miss, so even if you find that scans on your existing tools show as clean, consider running this tool too as you have more chance of finding a deeply-hidden bit of spyware the more tools you use.
Make sure to use these tools in addition to any existing tools you have in order to maintain your security; it is insufficient nowadays just to rely on your current anti-virus solution. Above all, be sure to actually run these scans frequently; it is even more important to do so if your computer is shared with other members of your family. (http://www.malwarebytes.org)
Despite all this however, it may be that it proves impossible to remove some particularly nasty forms of spyware. Some programs are detected, removed, then recreate themselves on the next reboot and it’s nigh-on impossible to figure out what is causing it. If all else fails, the only solution is a complete rebuild of your computer. For this reason, it is essential to take regular backups of your important data (preferably to external hard drives or recordable DVD) so that if the worst happens, you can rebuild it and restore your data once that is done. The best time to ensure you are protected from spyware is to get it set up when your computer is new or newly-rebuilt.
In 2010 the hottest buzz phrase is that of a Social Media Manager. What is it all about? Many have heard the term, but know little about what an exciting opportunity it is for small businesses. Such a role was not even placed on the main job sites until the early part of 2010, making it the freshest way to make money with a small home business. Here are 5 reasons why becoming a Social Media Manager might just be the best thing you’ve ever done for your finances and your state of mind.
1. Work from home – Over 4 million people currently work from home either making a primary or secondary income and that number is expected to rise sharply in the next year or two. Becoming a Social Media Manager will let you stay at home while earning a substantial income at the same time. The average salary for a Social Media Manager is somewhere between $25-$65 an hour.
2.Flexible Hours – You shouldn’t need telling how cool it is to be able to set in place your own schedule when you want to make a second income in your free time. That independence alone makes it worth the effort of owning and running a small internet business. Whether you are wanting for a full time income or simply a second income then you will have the ability to do the work when and where you want!
3. Be a Pioneer in an Exploding Industry – This is possibly the one most exciting reason for becoming a Social Media Manager. The industry is still in its infancy, you can be one of the first to go out into the world of business and offer this service. As the industry develops, you will be experienced enough to adapt to – and profit from – the changes as they come up. Lucky? It could be, but this is the right place and the right time.
4. Changing the lifestyle of your clients. It’s not unreasonable to expect that if you can increase the sales of a local business by, say 30 or 40%, it will certainly impact positively on that business’s owner. It may well change what schools their kids go to, or what they do with their quality time. Your service is incredibly valuable and clients are going to see that quickly. You should be very pleased of this fact as it will bring you a lot of referrals.
5. Earn too much – be realistic. You’re being paid to play on Facebook and Twitter simply because companies need to do it in order to improve their profits. If they don’t hire someone like you they could lose huge profits. Therefore, if you know how to set up their social media presence, post pictures, comments and videos, you are now a valuable resource . Do you see the potential of starting your own small internet business as a Social Media Manager and how easily you could change your life forever?
6. Easy to Find Clients – The demand for a Social Media Manager as I said before is over the top and there are not enough people to accommodate these needy organizations. The basic fact is that most people did not foresee that social media would have an overwhelming impact in such a short time and that is why there is that major gap between the supply and demand.
7. Actually Have fun Working – People are always talking about having fun with their small internet business. Imagine being able to use YouTube, Twitter or Facebook all day – and get PAID for it? It’s a whole new ball game as far as making your business fun is concerned.
This could just be the ideal opportunity for you to start working from home in an exciting new industry. Once you gather a handful of clients, you’re on the road to a regular income, to supplement and possibly replace your current employment.
I’ve been a little busy lately preparing slides for a presentation I am helping with this week (to do with Social Media), and I wanted to be able to capture my own screen; the idea being not only to use them in the presentation itself but make the resulting video available later.
A great piece of free software (released under the GPL) to accomplish this is Camstudio; it records your screen and also allows you to speak as you are doing so, so if you wanted to walk a new user through, say, setting up a new Twitter account then this software captures all you are doing on screen. Once you have it captured you can then edit it with your Windows Movie Maker (assuming you’re on a recent version of Windows!)
There are other software packages out there which offer more features for a price, but if you want to produce demonstration videos for people and don’t have deep pockets then this software is a real boon.
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+Ronnie Soo
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Former IT technician turned internet marketer and blogger, with an interest in the ever-changing world of search engine optimisation and the use of Social Media for business.
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Former IT technician turned internet marketer and blogger, with an interest in the ever-changing world of search engine optimisation and the use of Social Media for business.
Copyright © 2011 Ronnie Soo. All Rights Reserved.
