Choosing a domain name can be daunting. Research the subject (after all, you're the type of marketer who researches, right?) and you'll be hit with a landslide of opinions, most contradictory. There is, however, two points that everyone agrees on:
Pick your domain before you launch your business.
This is especially true if your market niche has lots of competition. Research your domain before you commit to a business plan.
Don't wait too long if you like a domain.
While you're researching, you'll likely come across a couple of domains that attract you. You might be tempted to wait, since you haven't finalized or refined your business plan. Don't. A handful of domains isn't going to cost you much at an affordable registrar like GoDaddy, and once they're gone, they're gone. Chances are you can even resell the rejects at cost, if not a profit. Or "develop" them with unique content and point them to your main site for extra traffic.
Now that we have the easy part of the way, let's wade into murkier waters.
Q. Which TLD (top-level domain) is best?
A. If you're a juggernaut in the business world with a giant ad budget, the answer is dot-com (.com). If you're a smalltime business struggling for search engine positioning, the answer is still dot-com.
People do disagree on the value of a dot-com TLD. Some assert that dot-coms have no particular value in the search engines, which may be true.
However, the fact is, if you haven't yet seared your brand on the collective brow of the planet, dot-com makes you easier to remember. If you eschew dot-coms, then in some deep dark place inside, people will remember you as "that hard-to-remember URL with the ending that isn't dot-com." What's worse, if you pick an otherwise memorable domain ending in dot-net, -us, or (God forbid) -tv, some of your traffic will end up at that competitor who snagged the dot-com version of your domain. Okay, that's settled. Now for the controversial stuff. Which is best: the "keyword" domain, or the "creative-genius, snappy and brandable" domain?
Keyword Name vs. Creative-Genius Brandable Name
A Keyword Name is the boring, workhorse kind of domain. You seem them everywhere. They bristle with hyphens: "best-anchovy-pizza-in-siberia.com." Or "super-labrador-accessories-and-golfballs.biz." On the face of it, they're hard to brand. They're hard to fit on business cards. They're really hard to explain over the phone to Aunt Martha.
On the other hand, a Creative-Genius Brandable Name is the sexy kind of domain. The successes are sparkling: Yahoo!, Google, Amazon.com. You can shout these URLs across the room and the other guy will probably get it right. But note: the dot-com road is littered with hip, snappy business who failed to brand their product successfully, or get listed high in the search engines. Now their URLs all point to the same page: "server not found …"
The debate rages on, but the first question you must ask yourself is:
How will people find YOU?
It was recently reported that "direct navigation" web traffic has started to outnumber search engine traffic. In other words, more people visit sites by typing in the URL directly than they do by combing search engines for results. So more gurus are recommending ‘brandable' domains.
But think about this. As a small business owner, how will people find you? Word of mouth? Billboards on I-95? "Corporate sponsorships" on hockey arenas? Probably not: they'll find you through search engines. They'll type in "cheap purple widgets," and as a smart marketer, you will offer them a website optimized for the keywords "cheap purple widgets."
Still, this doesn't imply you should automatically pick a keyword domain. There are pros and cons to both types.
BRANDABLE: ADVANTAGES
The brandable domain is great for business cards. In fact, it's nearly compulsory if you're planning on offline marketing. In other words, if you're printing up stationary at Kinkos, you want a brandable domain name.
If you're also a marketing genius, this is a fit challenge for your talents. Finding a memorable, apt domain to brand your business is something no software-driven suggestion tool can do.
Most "hybrid" domains -- ones that are really crosses between keywords and brandable names -- are long gone. But if you create a unique idea for your brand, you can probably snag the dot-com name for yourself. Now all you have to do is burn that brand onto the world's collective forehead. If you do, you'll benefit from type-in traffic. That means that if someone hears about you, they can probably find you just buy typing in your domain.
BRANDABLE: DISADVANTAGES
The brandable name requires solid marketing skill, research and luck. Your name should be so catchy, it's almost viral. It should also convey your actual business – or you'll have to work hard (often meaning, spend money) to associate the two. Your name should be "tested" on coworkers, cousins and dishwasher repairmen to ensure it has no undesirable connotations. Finally, your name should be available as a domain, and not suffer from competitors with similar domains. Sometimes, pulling all this off is difficult.
KEYWORD: ADVANTAGES
By keyword names, we're not talking about the glorious generic keywords – the one-keyword kings such as drugs.com or business.com. No, we're talking keyword names you can afford.
This is where you buy the domain name www.cheap-purple-widgets.com in hopes of getting a top search ranking for cheap purple widgets.
Advantages are many. First, more keyword names are available. (They're ugly, and many people feel an aversion to hyphens.) Also, they do help you place higher in the search engines. It's true that search engines only give you a little credit for having a keyword in your domain, but "a little credit" counts.
Second, keyword domains leave no doubt in the searcher's mind about what you're selling. If you decided to call your widget business "Ableeza," a searcher might not get at a glance what it is you're selling, even if your rank is high.
Finally, if you can get people to link to you, those links will be valuable. No matter how Webmaster Joe describes you, the link part will always say, "cheap-purple-widgets." This is a powerful search engine strategy for moving higher.
KEYWORD: DISADVANTAGES
You won't get type-in traffic for a keyword name. You can't really explain it across a phone. It won't look pretty on a business card, and it's almost impossible to pair up with a cute logo. But if search engine traffic is going to drive your business, the keyword name is worth a long, hard look.
WRAP-UP
Regardless of which type you choose, don't play guessing games. If you go with a keyword name, use a search tool (like http://conversion.7search.com/scripts/advertisertools/keywordsuggestion.aspx) to determine what keyword phrases people are searching on.
If you choose a brandable name instead, test it out on a variety of real people first. Pay attention to their reactions. Reserve your domain early, since brandable domains go fast unless they're very unique.
In the long run, both types of domains can work for you, especially if offline marketing is an option and you have a knack for branding. Overall, though, the keyword domain is probably the easiest path to success for the small-business owner.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Bayesian Spam Filters Explained
In a word Bayesian spam filters are "intelligent". Bayesian spam filters are intelligent in so far as they're capable of comparing two sets of information and acting on the result. This is in direct contrast to the vast majority of other spam filters who use pre-built rules to decide which e-mail is spam and which is not.
Bayesian spam filters can take one group of legitimate e-mail and another group of spam and compare the values and data of each. The definition of legitimate e-mail that it creates at the end of this comparison session is what it uses going forward to scan your inbox for spam.
FYI Bayesian spam filters are named after Thomas Bayes an 18 century cleric who created something known as Bayes Theorem. In summary Bayes Theorem is as follows: .."in statistical inference to update estimates of the probability that different hypotheses are true, based on observations and a knowledge of how likely those observations are, given each hypothesis." In plain English it looks for obvious repeating patterns to form an "opinion" on something. In spam filter terms that "opinion" becomes a rule which keeps you spam free (or pretty close :-)
The really neat thing about Bayesian filters is that they're capable of learning. For example if they decided to block an e-mail because the filter perceived it as junk but the user marked it as valid mail the Bayesian filter then knows not to block that type of e-mail in the future. So, in time, this type of spam filter learns enough to block spam far more effectively. AOL have embraced this type of spam filter with the launch of AOL 9.0 and AOL Communicator- if the big dog wants it then it must be worthwhile?
So what Bayesian spam filtering options are available to you? Well quite a few to be honest and you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of the names involved :-) The first one on the list is AOL with their AOL Communicator product. The spam filtering features in AOL Communicator and AOL 9 are, to be honest, impressive. Think what you will of the provider themselves AOL Communicator is an excellent product and is suitable for use by both PC and Mac OSX users.
Next up we have Eudora. The nice folks at Qualcomm have designed an excellent e-mail client that also has built in Bayesian spam filtering. I've used Eudora in the past and it's a neat little package. Again the benefits here are advanced integrated spam filtering with your e-mail automatically. Mac OSX and OS9 users are in luck with Eudora providing support for both.
If you'd like to know more about spam filters or just spam in general please drop by our site at www.spam-site.com
Bayesian spam filters can take one group of legitimate e-mail and another group of spam and compare the values and data of each. The definition of legitimate e-mail that it creates at the end of this comparison session is what it uses going forward to scan your inbox for spam.
FYI Bayesian spam filters are named after Thomas Bayes an 18 century cleric who created something known as Bayes Theorem. In summary Bayes Theorem is as follows: .."in statistical inference to update estimates of the probability that different hypotheses are true, based on observations and a knowledge of how likely those observations are, given each hypothesis." In plain English it looks for obvious repeating patterns to form an "opinion" on something. In spam filter terms that "opinion" becomes a rule which keeps you spam free (or pretty close :-)
The really neat thing about Bayesian filters is that they're capable of learning. For example if they decided to block an e-mail because the filter perceived it as junk but the user marked it as valid mail the Bayesian filter then knows not to block that type of e-mail in the future. So, in time, this type of spam filter learns enough to block spam far more effectively. AOL have embraced this type of spam filter with the launch of AOL 9.0 and AOL Communicator- if the big dog wants it then it must be worthwhile?
So what Bayesian spam filtering options are available to you? Well quite a few to be honest and you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of the names involved :-) The first one on the list is AOL with their AOL Communicator product. The spam filtering features in AOL Communicator and AOL 9 are, to be honest, impressive. Think what you will of the provider themselves AOL Communicator is an excellent product and is suitable for use by both PC and Mac OSX users.
Next up we have Eudora. The nice folks at Qualcomm have designed an excellent e-mail client that also has built in Bayesian spam filtering. I've used Eudora in the past and it's a neat little package. Again the benefits here are advanced integrated spam filtering with your e-mail automatically. Mac OSX and OS9 users are in luck with Eudora providing support for both.
If you'd like to know more about spam filters or just spam in general please drop by our site at www.spam-site.com
Friday, October 20, 2006
Running a Program on a Remote Server Using SSH
How do you run a program on a remote server using ssh?
For this example we'll have two servers, one named Johnny and another named Cash. Both are running openssh. Our goal is to have a program on Johnny login to Cash and run a program on Cash. To make the task a little more complex we'll be using different users on each machine.
The first thing we'll need to do is generate public and private keys on Johnny. So, logged into Johnny as user 'boy' we create public and private keys by creating them in the .ssh directory as follows:
Johnny$> pwd
/home/boy/.ssh
Johnny$> ssh-keygen -t rsa -f sue
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in sue.
Your public key has been saved in sue.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
8d:e9:c0:g1:c7:1f:e3:b3:2f:38:12:aa:b5:3b:2e:b3 boy@Johnny
Johnny$>
In the example above we picked an arbitrary name, sue, to identify the files that hold the generated keys. When prompted to enter a passphrase (twice) we simply hit enter twice.
As the output of ssh-keygen indicates, the public key has been saved in a file named sue.pub.
The output of ssh-keygen implies, but doesn't indicate directly, that the private key is in a file named sue (Yes, a user named boy created a file named sue.)
Johnny$>ls -l
-rwx------ 1 sue suegrp 887 Oct 17 14:27 sue
-rwx------ 1 sue suegrp 223 Oct 17 14:27 sue.pub
The private key file, sue, will remain on Johnny for the reaminder of this exercise, but the public key must be moved to the remote server, Cash. Note that the .ssh directory itself, as well as the sue and sue.pub files should have permissions of 700.
Now you'll need to ftp the sue.pub file from Johnny to Cash. The user on Cash that we'll login as is user 'named'.
Johnny$> ftp Cash
Connected to Cash
220 Cash - Propery of Xyz. - Authorized users only
Name (Cash:boy): named
331 Password required for named.
Password:
230-Last unsuccessful login: Fri Oct 17 13:12:55 2003 on ftp from Johnny 230-Last login: Fri Oct 17 16:02:11 2003 on /dev/pts/1 from Johnny
230 User named logged in.
ftp> cd .ssh
ftp> mput sue.pub
mput sue.pub? y
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening data connection for sue.pub.
226 Transfer complete.
224 bytes sent in 0.000781 seconds (280.1 Kbytes/s)
local: sue.pub remote: sue.pub
ftp>bye
221 Goodbye.
Johnny$>
Now we'll telnet into Cash and concatenate the sue.pub file into /home/named/.ssh/authorized_keys file.
Cash$> pwd
/home/named/.ssh
Cash$> cat sue.pub >> authorized_keys
Cash$> exit
Connection closed.
Johnny$>
Let's recap what we've done so far.
1) We've created public and private keys on Johnny.
2) We've ftp'd the public key file, sue.pub, from Johnny to Cash.
3) We've telnetted to Cash, and concatenated the contents of sue.pub into authorized_keys
We're now ready to manually login from Johnny to Cash using ssh.
Johnny$> ssh -i /home/boy/.ssh/sue named@Cash
The authenticity of host 'Cash (xxx.yyy.zzz.aaa)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 65:11:7d:ef:ed:a3:cc:34:d1:b5:ba:c9:16:22:31:23.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
================================================================
*** NOTICE TO ALL USERS ***
================================================================
Cash$>exit
Connection to Cash closed.
Johnny$>
Now on Johnny, create a shell script called 'boynamedsue.sh' with the following one line of contents and chmod the script to 777.
ssh -i /home/boy/.ssh/sue named@Cash /usr/bin/ls -l
Next, execute the script on Johnny.
Johnny$> boynamedsue.sh
================================================================
*** NOTICE TO ALL USERS ***
================================================================
-rwxrwxr-x 1 named namedgrp 10020 Oct 17 14:35 namedfile1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 named namedgrp 680 Aug 14 16:18 namedfile.html
-rw------- 1 named namedgrp 1148 Aug 18 09:51 mbox
drwxr-xr-x 2 named namedgrp 512 Jun 17 13:38 old
Johnny$>
You just executed a program on Johnny, that logged into Cash and ran a program (unix 'ls -l').
The next step you'll want to take is to replace the '/usr/bin/ls -l' command in the boynamedsue.sh program with the path and name of the program that you want to run.
For this example we'll have two servers, one named Johnny and another named Cash. Both are running openssh. Our goal is to have a program on Johnny login to Cash and run a program on Cash. To make the task a little more complex we'll be using different users on each machine.
The first thing we'll need to do is generate public and private keys on Johnny. So, logged into Johnny as user 'boy' we create public and private keys by creating them in the .ssh directory as follows:
Johnny$> pwd
/home/boy/.ssh
Johnny$> ssh-keygen -t rsa -f sue
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in sue.
Your public key has been saved in sue.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
8d:e9:c0:g1:c7:1f:e3:b3:2f:38:12:aa:b5:3b:2e:b3 boy@Johnny
Johnny$>
In the example above we picked an arbitrary name, sue, to identify the files that hold the generated keys. When prompted to enter a passphrase (twice) we simply hit enter twice.
As the output of ssh-keygen indicates, the public key has been saved in a file named sue.pub.
The output of ssh-keygen implies, but doesn't indicate directly, that the private key is in a file named sue (Yes, a user named boy created a file named sue.)
Johnny$>ls -l
-rwx------ 1 sue suegrp 887 Oct 17 14:27 sue
-rwx------ 1 sue suegrp 223 Oct 17 14:27 sue.pub
The private key file, sue, will remain on Johnny for the reaminder of this exercise, but the public key must be moved to the remote server, Cash. Note that the .ssh directory itself, as well as the sue and sue.pub files should have permissions of 700.
Now you'll need to ftp the sue.pub file from Johnny to Cash. The user on Cash that we'll login as is user 'named'.
Johnny$> ftp Cash
Connected to Cash
220 Cash - Propery of Xyz. - Authorized users only
Name (Cash:boy): named
331 Password required for named.
Password:
230-Last unsuccessful login: Fri Oct 17 13:12:55 2003 on ftp from Johnny 230-Last login: Fri Oct 17 16:02:11 2003 on /dev/pts/1 from Johnny
230 User named logged in.
ftp> cd .ssh
ftp> mput sue.pub
mput sue.pub? y
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening data connection for sue.pub.
226 Transfer complete.
224 bytes sent in 0.000781 seconds (280.1 Kbytes/s)
local: sue.pub remote: sue.pub
ftp>bye
221 Goodbye.
Johnny$>
Now we'll telnet into Cash and concatenate the sue.pub file into /home/named/.ssh/authorized_keys file.
Cash$> pwd
/home/named/.ssh
Cash$> cat sue.pub >> authorized_keys
Cash$> exit
Connection closed.
Johnny$>
Let's recap what we've done so far.
1) We've created public and private keys on Johnny.
2) We've ftp'd the public key file, sue.pub, from Johnny to Cash.
3) We've telnetted to Cash, and concatenated the contents of sue.pub into authorized_keys
We're now ready to manually login from Johnny to Cash using ssh.
Johnny$> ssh -i /home/boy/.ssh/sue named@Cash
The authenticity of host 'Cash (xxx.yyy.zzz.aaa)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 65:11:7d:ef:ed:a3:cc:34:d1:b5:ba:c9:16:22:31:23.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
================================================================
*** NOTICE TO ALL USERS ***
================================================================
Cash$>exit
Connection to Cash closed.
Johnny$>
Now on Johnny, create a shell script called 'boynamedsue.sh' with the following one line of contents and chmod the script to 777.
ssh -i /home/boy/.ssh/sue named@Cash /usr/bin/ls -l
Next, execute the script on Johnny.
Johnny$> boynamedsue.sh
================================================================
*** NOTICE TO ALL USERS ***
================================================================
-rwxrwxr-x 1 named namedgrp 10020 Oct 17 14:35 namedfile1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 named namedgrp 680 Aug 14 16:18 namedfile.html
-rw------- 1 named namedgrp 1148 Aug 18 09:51 mbox
drwxr-xr-x 2 named namedgrp 512 Jun 17 13:38 old
Johnny$>
You just executed a program on Johnny, that logged into Cash and ran a program (unix 'ls -l').
The next step you'll want to take is to replace the '/usr/bin/ls -l' command in the boynamedsue.sh program with the path and name of the program that you want to run.
Make Money In Your Own Coffee Business
A 2001 survey by the National Coffee Association indicated that over 100 million people drink coffee on a daily basis and that nearly 60 million more occasionally consume coffee. Based on average drinking habits, the daily coffee drinker will consume multiple cups per day - totalling hundreds of millions cups of coffee being consumed every 24 hours.
Such enormous consumer demand coupled with the growing trend toward gourmet coffee presents an opportunity for the enterprising coffee lovers to take their double shots at generating income while working in an industry which makes their coffee passions percolate.
Coffee-loving entrepreneurs can choose from a wide range of opportunities available to find ones that best matches their tastes. Interested in starting small? Start with a couple machines and a cart. More grande ambitions? Consider a coffee shop franchise.
The Specialty Coffee Association of America's "Market Report" forecasts that the number of coffeehouses in the U.S. will grow to 15,000 by the year 2006. Will one of those coffeehouses be yours?
You can take a couple different paths can to starting your own coffee themed business. One option is to buy the equipment and supplies yourself, building your own identity and business systems. The other option is to purchase a franchise and benefit from their proven image, proven systems, and established supply chains. Let's look at some examples of coffee related businesses that you could start for yourself.
If you choose the independent route you can use a wholesaler such as Mr. Churro's to help get you started. Mr. Churro's is Miami-based wholesaler of professional grade machines for making espresso, coffee, and hot chocolate. Beyond acquiring equipment from Mr. Churro's you would need to work out other details of your business details on your own. For example, you would need to find a coffee bean supplier, find a suitable business location, and also learn how to run a coffee business.
For a more turn-key type of operation, The Coffee Beanery, a global franchise based in Michigan, provides franchisees with a wide menu of coffee based drinks as well as an attractive breakfast and lunch menus. The franchisee benefits from a proven image, a proven menu, a fully developed method of operation, and an established supply chain. It might cost more to purchase a franchise, but if you are new to business, the long term benefits might outweigh the short term higher startup costs.
Coffee News USA is a third type of coffee related business opportunity. Unlike the previous two examples, Coffee News USA does not involve making and selling coffee beverages. Instead, Coffee News is publishing opportunity in which the franchisee provides a free local edition of the weekly Coffee News newspaper to restaurants and coffee shops. The franchisor provides most of the content, and the franchisee sells advertisements to generate income.
These three business opportunities a just a few of the coffee related businesses that are available for coffee lovers. Most of the other opportunities are franchises, but not all franchises are created equal. Examining each business opportunity carefully can bring to light some important differences that might lead you to an opportunity that is better suited to you than another.
With over 300 million cups of coffee being consumed daily in the US, a coffee-related business opportunity should be a strong consideration for the enterprising coffee lover. Contact information for Mr. Churro's, The Coffee Beanery, Coffee News USA, and more than 400 other specific business opportunities is available in the eBook, "Mind Your Business 101: How to Select & Start Your Own Business," for only $16.98 USD at www.LinkertonPublishing.com.
Such enormous consumer demand coupled with the growing trend toward gourmet coffee presents an opportunity for the enterprising coffee lovers to take their double shots at generating income while working in an industry which makes their coffee passions percolate.
Coffee-loving entrepreneurs can choose from a wide range of opportunities available to find ones that best matches their tastes. Interested in starting small? Start with a couple machines and a cart. More grande ambitions? Consider a coffee shop franchise.
The Specialty Coffee Association of America's "Market Report" forecasts that the number of coffeehouses in the U.S. will grow to 15,000 by the year 2006. Will one of those coffeehouses be yours?
You can take a couple different paths can to starting your own coffee themed business. One option is to buy the equipment and supplies yourself, building your own identity and business systems. The other option is to purchase a franchise and benefit from their proven image, proven systems, and established supply chains. Let's look at some examples of coffee related businesses that you could start for yourself.
If you choose the independent route you can use a wholesaler such as Mr. Churro's to help get you started. Mr. Churro's is Miami-based wholesaler of professional grade machines for making espresso, coffee, and hot chocolate. Beyond acquiring equipment from Mr. Churro's you would need to work out other details of your business details on your own. For example, you would need to find a coffee bean supplier, find a suitable business location, and also learn how to run a coffee business.
For a more turn-key type of operation, The Coffee Beanery, a global franchise based in Michigan, provides franchisees with a wide menu of coffee based drinks as well as an attractive breakfast and lunch menus. The franchisee benefits from a proven image, a proven menu, a fully developed method of operation, and an established supply chain. It might cost more to purchase a franchise, but if you are new to business, the long term benefits might outweigh the short term higher startup costs.
Coffee News USA is a third type of coffee related business opportunity. Unlike the previous two examples, Coffee News USA does not involve making and selling coffee beverages. Instead, Coffee News is publishing opportunity in which the franchisee provides a free local edition of the weekly Coffee News newspaper to restaurants and coffee shops. The franchisor provides most of the content, and the franchisee sells advertisements to generate income.
These three business opportunities a just a few of the coffee related businesses that are available for coffee lovers. Most of the other opportunities are franchises, but not all franchises are created equal. Examining each business opportunity carefully can bring to light some important differences that might lead you to an opportunity that is better suited to you than another.
With over 300 million cups of coffee being consumed daily in the US, a coffee-related business opportunity should be a strong consideration for the enterprising coffee lover. Contact information for Mr. Churro's, The Coffee Beanery, Coffee News USA, and more than 400 other specific business opportunities is available in the eBook, "Mind Your Business 101: How to Select & Start Your Own Business," for only $16.98 USD at www.LinkertonPublishing.com.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Basic Problem in a PC
Basic Computer PROBLEMS
I have a p3 500MHz PC with 128MB RAM, 10.2 GB HDD Sony CD ROM 48x with window ME edition operating system. I have a problem- when I insert my audio cd, it shows the error message: “window cannot access the specified device path or file. You may not have appropriate permission the access the item.” Please tell me the solution of this error how can we configure the Yahoo! Account in outlook express. What is the pop mail and SMTP address of the Yahoo! Mail?
Dr Birbals: do you get this problem only in the case of audio CDs only or is it an every time phenomenon. If this problem is specific to audio CDs, then you must first check your sound card drivers and the compatibility of the player you are using to play audio CDs. Regarding configuration of Yahoo! Account in the outlook express, the procedure is simple. If this is your first account in outlook express, then on starting outlook express it will automatically start configuring an e-mail account for you, which could be your Yahoo! account also. However, if you are using outlook express already and would like to set another account i.e. Yahoo! Then you should add identity and start configuring the account as normally you would do by the following simple steps. However, when you are asked to enter the POP address, then use pop.mail.yahoo.com. In case of SMTP address, please use the address smtp.mail.yahoo.com. Enter the user name, which would be the first part of your yahoo e-mail ID. Then complete the rest of the step and this will finish the configuration.
I have assembled computer with Celeron 333MHz, Yamaha sound card, 32MB RAM and 4.3GB hard disk. I am using window’98 as OS. My problem is that whenever I make a call to the USA, the voice from the other side comes but my voice doesn’t go. What is the reason and how to solve the problem? My vendor advised me to add another sound card to solve the problem. Is it right? Guide me which card suitable for the same. I used Yahoo! Messenger for making a call.
Dr Birbals: in your case there is a good possibility that you are using a half-duplex sound card in your system. In the half-duplex sound card, the sound travels in only one channel, which means that if you are speaking then the sound of other person could not be transmitted, unless you stop speaking. However, in case of full-duplex sound cards, the sound travels in both channels, thus facilitating proper two-way communication. Therefore you must check, if your sound card is half-duplex, then you may need another full-duplex sound card, otherwise you do not need new sound card.
I have p3 (550 MHz) 810 motherboard, assembled computer. My PC speaker 480 w of dolphin makes a noise when I play a song, movie or any other program requiring sound output whether I play song in winamp, media player or anywhere.
Dr. Birbals: since you have not mentioned what kind of noise you are getting, so it is difficult to pinpoint your problem. However, generally the problem of noise is associated with the some kind of short-circuit or loose connection. So get your PC checked for any such problem. Also please check the earthing of your electricity connection, as improper earthing could also result in some kind of noise with other problem in your PC.
I am having p3 550MHz Intel processor with 810 Vinton motherboard, 20GB HDD, 52xCDD, Motorola 56 KBPS modems with WIN ME as operating system. Recently I installed win 2000 professional but can’t be able to install the driver of modem. I tried installing the driver from the original Motorola CD but got the message “your driver may get clash with win 2000 version because the driver is not having digital signatures.” Please guide me what should I do to install the driver of the modem.
Dr. Birbals: digital signature an encryption and decryption process allowing both the positive identification of the author of an electronic message (who wrote the message) and verification of integrity of the message. Since this is a modem security measure, thus it has become a standard in modern operating system like windows 2000. There for you require drivers, which are compatible with windows 2000. There could be a possibility that the driver you are trying to install is not for windows 2000. Therefore in order to solve this problem, you should install the version specific to Windows NT or windows 2000. However as far as Motorola internal modems are connected, windows 2000 automatically detects it and install the correct version of driver from its database and thus it does not require you to install the driver manually. Thus, in light of this fact, it is better to let the windows 2000 detect the correct driver and install the same.
Q. No.1
I want to know that what do satellites in a PC speaker system do.
Q. No.2
Do they act as tweeters or just normal speakers so that the sound comes from all around the room?
Q. No.3
I have a creative sound blaster live sound card, it has support for satellites so I want to buy jetway artis speakers (with 4 satellite and sub-woofer included).will the satellite create Dolby surround sound or will they just sound as four speakers placed at the vertices of the room?
Q. No.4
Is a 33.6kbps external modem slower than a 56kbps internal modem?
Q. No.5
Does having more RAM in your graphic card, mean better performance?
Dr. Birbals: basically, satellite nothing to do with PC speakers; it’s only the satellite speakers, which are related to PC’s. The satellite speakers are magnetically shielded speakers, which are meant for use with video monitors. It delivers powerful audio playback from multiple piece system, normally three pieces. The use of this technology brings about dramatic improvement normal speakers that come bundled with your PC. They do not act as tweeters, however, but has its own technology to improve the sound quality. It is not just limited to Dolby surround sound, because it features are much advanced. Regarding your query for modems. It is a matter of fact that the 56kbps modems are faster than the 33.6kbps modems. It is irrespective of the fact whether it is an external modems or internal modem. However at places, where the downloading speed is very slow, the difference between 56kbps modem and 33.6 modem will not be much. Regarding your query related to higher video memory, it is indeed true that the higher video memory means better performance.
I am using internet connection from the VSNL. My problem is that while I am online, the telephone automatically gets disconnected and I have to redial. Again after few minutes of being online, I am disconnected. I have got two phone lines. This problem is with one phone line while no such problem occurs with other phone line. Win’98 is my OS and my computer is p2 with 333MHz.
Dr. Birbals: it is clearly evident from your mail that the problem in your case lies in your telephone line rather than your computer hardware. You must get your telephone line checked for any kind of phone joints, cuts, and improper extensions. Normally, it is happens because of these factors only. However, if you are satisfied of these factors, then you may opt to change the line of your telephone right from the nearest DOT point to your PC. I am sure these things will help you in getting this problem corrected. However, in order to avoid too frequent disconnection, you may also add the string S10=50 in the advanced option in your modem configuration. But, this in itself will not be able to solve your problem, if there is a defect in your telephone line.
I have Celeron 533with 1-0GB hard disk and 64 MB RAM. I have windows ME operating system. I have a problem that when I want to connect to the net, my system hangs. Please tell me how I can solve this problem.
Dr. Birbals: the problem of system hanging could be due to several reasons; please write back at what stage of connection dose your system hangs. Whether it hanging on dialing, or it hangs while hard shaking with the ISP server or at the time of logging on to the windows. This information would be essential to answer your question correctly.
I want to know how to get m Yahoo! Mail in my outlook express. I entered pop.mail, yahoo.com as many incoming server and smtp.mail.Yahoo.com as my outgoing server. When I press send and receive I get “outgoing mail failed.” For incoming it asks me my password. I entered it correctly 3 times yet could not get the mail.
Dr. Birbals: while entering the pop and SMTP server please take care that it is enter correctly and there are no space in it. In the setting of outlook express, you can save your password, which will save you from the botheration of entering your password again and will also not return this error. However, in case of sending mail through outlook express using Yahoo! Services; it sometime gives this problem, which is specific to Yahoo services only.
I have p3 computer. I have a problem while working on net. Whenever I try to open any site, mantra online opens as a default. Please tell me why does it open as a default and how can I get of rid on it
Dr. Birbals: this is actually not a problem and can be corrected easily by some simple changes in your browser settings. If you are using internet explorer, then simply open the internet explorer and check on the tool menu. Now click on the internet options and in the home page address box, either choose site of your choice or choose about blank. This will help you get rid of this problem. Similarly in case you are using Netscape communicator, then to change the default page, click on edit menu and then click preferences. In homepage location box, either enter the site address of your choice or leave it blank. This simple measure will help you get red of your problem.
I use my computer mostly for audio-CAD work, which is precise; precious I store the whole data on my hard disk. Other members of the family also use the same computer. From the safety point of view, I want to have some reliable backup arrangement that can be updated for additional work from time to time. At present there are about 2500 files that I want to store in the back-up also. Floppy disk are of low capacity, CD drive requires CD-writer and is expensive. So kindly advise suitable mode for backup.
Dr. Birbals: these days the hard disks normally have a large capacity so the easiest solution is to dedicate a specific partition of your hard disk for backing up your files. You can protect them with password and can even hide it so that it is not accessible to anybody. The second solution could be Zip drive, where you can keep your data in large capacity floppies and can even carry them with you. This option is a bit expensive, as you will have to additionally buy external Zip drive. However, the option of CD-writer is the best as you can store a large amount of data on your CD. Besides that the data on a CD is safest.
I have a p3, 667 MHz (based 100 MHz SD RAM) with 64 RAM on HP pavilion. My operating system is windowa’98 SE on 10.2 GB ultra DMA ATA 66 hard drive (about 7GB free space). I have an internet connection from the BSNL. I face a problem--- the system sometime freezes and then neither keyboard nor mouse work. I have to turn the power off. Please guide me whether increasing RAM to 128 will solve my problem?
Dr. Birbals: you must run scandisk first in thorough mode in order to check any problems in your hard disk. if the scan disk does not work properly in windows, then you must run it in DOS mode. If there is any problem, then scan disk will report about it. Moreover, you must also check the result for any bad sector in your hard disk as this could be one of the reasons for your problem. However, if everything is reported fine by scan disk, then the needle of suspicion would go to motherboard of your computer. This you will have to get checked from your hardware vendor. Your problem has nothing to do with increasing the RAM and thus increasing it to 128 MB will not actually solve your problem.
I have p3 500MHz processor, 64 MB RAM, win’98 SE internal modem (Motorola SM56PCI speakerphone). Usually when I try to connect to the internet, I get an error 678 showing the message “dialup network was unable to complete the connection. Double click the connect icon to connect again” and after sometime I am able to connect. Somebody told me that this problem is due to internal modem and if I use an external modem, I may be able to connect the very first time. You have mentioned some techniques to improve the modem. I tried to check my phone line using HyperTerminal, but when I selected direct to com x in “connect to windows”, I did not get the com x properties. I got a blank window instead. When I enter the said terms (ATZ, AT&FDT ISP’s number) it dials using tone dialing that I don’t have. So please tell me what to do with my internal modem to avoid that error and also how I can check my telephone line using HyperTerminal.
Dr. Birbals: this is very common confusion in the minds of many persons that the internal modems are not efficient and gives error. However this is not correct. Though undoubtedly external modems are better in terms of overall performance and ease of use yet the internal modems give identical result as far as the net speed is concerned. Whether it is internal modem or external modem, what is more important is chip set of the modem. If the internal modem good chipset like Rockwell, then there is no problem in it. The problem mentioned by you is not linked to the internet modem and there could be many reasons for such kind of error. Now the technique you are talking about is to check the line conditions and not the modem. So it will really not help you in analysng your modem. However for a precise solution to your problem, please write in detail including the message you get.
Whenever I start my computer I get message: “NO ISDN devices were found. Please install an ISDN device and run the configuration wizard”. I neither had ever installed nor wish to install ISDN device. Kindly advise how to get rid on this message to avoid clicking “OK” ach time.
Dr. Birbals: although for solving your problem information about your operating system and system configuration is necessary. However, it appears that while configuration your internet connection, you had opted for ISDN connection. I think of because of this reason you get the warning for ISDN device. As a solution of this problem either remove the ISDN connection wizard or reconfigure your dial-up networking.
I have windows ME installed on my computer. I want to configure my outlook express to get my mail from my account on rediff.com but I don’t know how to configure. Please tell me what to write in the incoming mail server and the outgoing mail server fields.
Dr. Birbals: rediff mail is a web-based e-mail services, so its pop and SMTP server names are not available. However, for configuring an e-mail account in your e-mail client, the information about these two servers is quite essential. So, practically it is difficult to configure rediff mail account in outlook express.
I have problem with playing the VCDs. It hangs the system, then it play for 4 to 5 seconds and hang again. The HDD and CD ROM drive’s LED glows continuously with full light when it hangs. All other CDs (program and audio) run well. I tried everything I know. I have installed right drivers for the device. My system is p200 MMX, 32 MB RAM, cirrus 5446 VGA with 2MB RAM, creative CD ROM drive and OS is win’95.
Dr. Birbals: this problem is normally occurs in case of low memory. So in order to get rid of this problem you need to increase your memory if possible a better VGA card with higher VRAM. Moreover, you also need to increase the size of the panging file size. Also you should keep a good space on your hard disk free. So the first thing you should try to do is free up some hard disk space. As a rule of thumb you should always keep at least 10 percent of your hard disk capacity always free, though higher is better. If this solves your problem, its well and good, else you would be required to increase the memory.
I have a p3 500MHz PC with 128MB RAM, 10.2 GB HDD Sony CD ROM 48x with window ME edition operating system. I have a problem- when I insert my audio cd, it shows the error message: “window cannot access the specified device path or file. You may not have appropriate permission the access the item.” Please tell me the solution of this error how can we configure the Yahoo! Account in outlook express. What is the pop mail and SMTP address of the Yahoo! Mail?
Dr Birbals: do you get this problem only in the case of audio CDs only or is it an every time phenomenon. If this problem is specific to audio CDs, then you must first check your sound card drivers and the compatibility of the player you are using to play audio CDs. Regarding configuration of Yahoo! Account in the outlook express, the procedure is simple. If this is your first account in outlook express, then on starting outlook express it will automatically start configuring an e-mail account for you, which could be your Yahoo! account also. However, if you are using outlook express already and would like to set another account i.e. Yahoo! Then you should add identity and start configuring the account as normally you would do by the following simple steps. However, when you are asked to enter the POP address, then use pop.mail.yahoo.com. In case of SMTP address, please use the address smtp.mail.yahoo.com. Enter the user name, which would be the first part of your yahoo e-mail ID. Then complete the rest of the step and this will finish the configuration.
I have assembled computer with Celeron 333MHz, Yamaha sound card, 32MB RAM and 4.3GB hard disk. I am using window’98 as OS. My problem is that whenever I make a call to the USA, the voice from the other side comes but my voice doesn’t go. What is the reason and how to solve the problem? My vendor advised me to add another sound card to solve the problem. Is it right? Guide me which card suitable for the same. I used Yahoo! Messenger for making a call.
Dr Birbals: in your case there is a good possibility that you are using a half-duplex sound card in your system. In the half-duplex sound card, the sound travels in only one channel, which means that if you are speaking then the sound of other person could not be transmitted, unless you stop speaking. However, in case of full-duplex sound cards, the sound travels in both channels, thus facilitating proper two-way communication. Therefore you must check, if your sound card is half-duplex, then you may need another full-duplex sound card, otherwise you do not need new sound card.
I have p3 (550 MHz) 810 motherboard, assembled computer. My PC speaker 480 w of dolphin makes a noise when I play a song, movie or any other program requiring sound output whether I play song in winamp, media player or anywhere.
Dr. Birbals: since you have not mentioned what kind of noise you are getting, so it is difficult to pinpoint your problem. However, generally the problem of noise is associated with the some kind of short-circuit or loose connection. So get your PC checked for any such problem. Also please check the earthing of your electricity connection, as improper earthing could also result in some kind of noise with other problem in your PC.
I am having p3 550MHz Intel processor with 810 Vinton motherboard, 20GB HDD, 52xCDD, Motorola 56 KBPS modems with WIN ME as operating system. Recently I installed win 2000 professional but can’t be able to install the driver of modem. I tried installing the driver from the original Motorola CD but got the message “your driver may get clash with win 2000 version because the driver is not having digital signatures.” Please guide me what should I do to install the driver of the modem.
Dr. Birbals: digital signature an encryption and decryption process allowing both the positive identification of the author of an electronic message (who wrote the message) and verification of integrity of the message. Since this is a modem security measure, thus it has become a standard in modern operating system like windows 2000. There for you require drivers, which are compatible with windows 2000. There could be a possibility that the driver you are trying to install is not for windows 2000. Therefore in order to solve this problem, you should install the version specific to Windows NT or windows 2000. However as far as Motorola internal modems are connected, windows 2000 automatically detects it and install the correct version of driver from its database and thus it does not require you to install the driver manually. Thus, in light of this fact, it is better to let the windows 2000 detect the correct driver and install the same.
Q. No.1
I want to know that what do satellites in a PC speaker system do.
Q. No.2
Do they act as tweeters or just normal speakers so that the sound comes from all around the room?
Q. No.3
I have a creative sound blaster live sound card, it has support for satellites so I want to buy jetway artis speakers (with 4 satellite and sub-woofer included).will the satellite create Dolby surround sound or will they just sound as four speakers placed at the vertices of the room?
Q. No.4
Is a 33.6kbps external modem slower than a 56kbps internal modem?
Q. No.5
Does having more RAM in your graphic card, mean better performance?
Dr. Birbals: basically, satellite nothing to do with PC speakers; it’s only the satellite speakers, which are related to PC’s. The satellite speakers are magnetically shielded speakers, which are meant for use with video monitors. It delivers powerful audio playback from multiple piece system, normally three pieces. The use of this technology brings about dramatic improvement normal speakers that come bundled with your PC. They do not act as tweeters, however, but has its own technology to improve the sound quality. It is not just limited to Dolby surround sound, because it features are much advanced. Regarding your query for modems. It is a matter of fact that the 56kbps modems are faster than the 33.6kbps modems. It is irrespective of the fact whether it is an external modems or internal modem. However at places, where the downloading speed is very slow, the difference between 56kbps modem and 33.6 modem will not be much. Regarding your query related to higher video memory, it is indeed true that the higher video memory means better performance.
I am using internet connection from the VSNL. My problem is that while I am online, the telephone automatically gets disconnected and I have to redial. Again after few minutes of being online, I am disconnected. I have got two phone lines. This problem is with one phone line while no such problem occurs with other phone line. Win’98 is my OS and my computer is p2 with 333MHz.
Dr. Birbals: it is clearly evident from your mail that the problem in your case lies in your telephone line rather than your computer hardware. You must get your telephone line checked for any kind of phone joints, cuts, and improper extensions. Normally, it is happens because of these factors only. However, if you are satisfied of these factors, then you may opt to change the line of your telephone right from the nearest DOT point to your PC. I am sure these things will help you in getting this problem corrected. However, in order to avoid too frequent disconnection, you may also add the string S10=50 in the advanced option in your modem configuration. But, this in itself will not be able to solve your problem, if there is a defect in your telephone line.
I have Celeron 533with 1-0GB hard disk and 64 MB RAM. I have windows ME operating system. I have a problem that when I want to connect to the net, my system hangs. Please tell me how I can solve this problem.
Dr. Birbals: the problem of system hanging could be due to several reasons; please write back at what stage of connection dose your system hangs. Whether it hanging on dialing, or it hangs while hard shaking with the ISP server or at the time of logging on to the windows. This information would be essential to answer your question correctly.
I want to know how to get m Yahoo! Mail in my outlook express. I entered pop.mail, yahoo.com as many incoming server and smtp.mail.Yahoo.com as my outgoing server. When I press send and receive I get “outgoing mail failed.” For incoming it asks me my password. I entered it correctly 3 times yet could not get the mail.
Dr. Birbals: while entering the pop and SMTP server please take care that it is enter correctly and there are no space in it. In the setting of outlook express, you can save your password, which will save you from the botheration of entering your password again and will also not return this error. However, in case of sending mail through outlook express using Yahoo! Services; it sometime gives this problem, which is specific to Yahoo services only.
I have p3 computer. I have a problem while working on net. Whenever I try to open any site, mantra online opens as a default. Please tell me why does it open as a default and how can I get of rid on it
Dr. Birbals: this is actually not a problem and can be corrected easily by some simple changes in your browser settings. If you are using internet explorer, then simply open the internet explorer and check on the tool menu. Now click on the internet options and in the home page address box, either choose site of your choice or choose about blank. This will help you get rid of this problem. Similarly in case you are using Netscape communicator, then to change the default page, click on edit menu and then click preferences. In homepage location box, either enter the site address of your choice or leave it blank. This simple measure will help you get red of your problem.
I use my computer mostly for audio-CAD work, which is precise; precious I store the whole data on my hard disk. Other members of the family also use the same computer. From the safety point of view, I want to have some reliable backup arrangement that can be updated for additional work from time to time. At present there are about 2500 files that I want to store in the back-up also. Floppy disk are of low capacity, CD drive requires CD-writer and is expensive. So kindly advise suitable mode for backup.
Dr. Birbals: these days the hard disks normally have a large capacity so the easiest solution is to dedicate a specific partition of your hard disk for backing up your files. You can protect them with password and can even hide it so that it is not accessible to anybody. The second solution could be Zip drive, where you can keep your data in large capacity floppies and can even carry them with you. This option is a bit expensive, as you will have to additionally buy external Zip drive. However, the option of CD-writer is the best as you can store a large amount of data on your CD. Besides that the data on a CD is safest.
I have a p3, 667 MHz (based 100 MHz SD RAM) with 64 RAM on HP pavilion. My operating system is windowa’98 SE on 10.2 GB ultra DMA ATA 66 hard drive (about 7GB free space). I have an internet connection from the BSNL. I face a problem--- the system sometime freezes and then neither keyboard nor mouse work. I have to turn the power off. Please guide me whether increasing RAM to 128 will solve my problem?
Dr. Birbals: you must run scandisk first in thorough mode in order to check any problems in your hard disk. if the scan disk does not work properly in windows, then you must run it in DOS mode. If there is any problem, then scan disk will report about it. Moreover, you must also check the result for any bad sector in your hard disk as this could be one of the reasons for your problem. However, if everything is reported fine by scan disk, then the needle of suspicion would go to motherboard of your computer. This you will have to get checked from your hardware vendor. Your problem has nothing to do with increasing the RAM and thus increasing it to 128 MB will not actually solve your problem.
I have p3 500MHz processor, 64 MB RAM, win’98 SE internal modem (Motorola SM56PCI speakerphone). Usually when I try to connect to the internet, I get an error 678 showing the message “dialup network was unable to complete the connection. Double click the connect icon to connect again” and after sometime I am able to connect. Somebody told me that this problem is due to internal modem and if I use an external modem, I may be able to connect the very first time. You have mentioned some techniques to improve the modem. I tried to check my phone line using HyperTerminal, but when I selected direct to com x in “connect to windows”, I did not get the com x properties. I got a blank window instead. When I enter the said terms (ATZ, AT&FDT ISP’s number) it dials using tone dialing that I don’t have. So please tell me what to do with my internal modem to avoid that error and also how I can check my telephone line using HyperTerminal.
Dr. Birbals: this is very common confusion in the minds of many persons that the internal modems are not efficient and gives error. However this is not correct. Though undoubtedly external modems are better in terms of overall performance and ease of use yet the internal modems give identical result as far as the net speed is concerned. Whether it is internal modem or external modem, what is more important is chip set of the modem. If the internal modem good chipset like Rockwell, then there is no problem in it. The problem mentioned by you is not linked to the internet modem and there could be many reasons for such kind of error. Now the technique you are talking about is to check the line conditions and not the modem. So it will really not help you in analysng your modem. However for a precise solution to your problem, please write in detail including the message you get.
Whenever I start my computer I get message: “NO ISDN devices were found. Please install an ISDN device and run the configuration wizard”. I neither had ever installed nor wish to install ISDN device. Kindly advise how to get rid on this message to avoid clicking “OK” ach time.
Dr. Birbals: although for solving your problem information about your operating system and system configuration is necessary. However, it appears that while configuration your internet connection, you had opted for ISDN connection. I think of because of this reason you get the warning for ISDN device. As a solution of this problem either remove the ISDN connection wizard or reconfigure your dial-up networking.
I have windows ME installed on my computer. I want to configure my outlook express to get my mail from my account on rediff.com but I don’t know how to configure. Please tell me what to write in the incoming mail server and the outgoing mail server fields.
Dr. Birbals: rediff mail is a web-based e-mail services, so its pop and SMTP server names are not available. However, for configuring an e-mail account in your e-mail client, the information about these two servers is quite essential. So, practically it is difficult to configure rediff mail account in outlook express.
I have problem with playing the VCDs. It hangs the system, then it play for 4 to 5 seconds and hang again. The HDD and CD ROM drive’s LED glows continuously with full light when it hangs. All other CDs (program and audio) run well. I tried everything I know. I have installed right drivers for the device. My system is p200 MMX, 32 MB RAM, cirrus 5446 VGA with 2MB RAM, creative CD ROM drive and OS is win’95.
Dr. Birbals: this problem is normally occurs in case of low memory. So in order to get rid of this problem you need to increase your memory if possible a better VGA card with higher VRAM. Moreover, you also need to increase the size of the panging file size. Also you should keep a good space on your hard disk free. So the first thing you should try to do is free up some hard disk space. As a rule of thumb you should always keep at least 10 percent of your hard disk capacity always free, though higher is better. If this solves your problem, its well and good, else you would be required to increase the memory.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Web Designing Tips by: Pawan Bangar Web Design Tips: Easy That’s how you’d like life to be, right? Especially when you’re creating a website on yo
Web Design Tips:
Easy That’s how you’d like life to be, right? Especially when you’re creating a website on your own. But that doesn’t mean you want the site to look severe and just functional. you want it to be pretty , smart and also respond and move when you interact with it, while saying all that you want to say to its visitors . There are little tips and Features incorporated into software just for people like you.
Love what Flash can do but don’t know how to use it ? Macromedia thought of you and built a feature into Dream weaver that lets you create cool animated Flash buttons just by entering parameters. Want to have button respond to a mouse-over but have no idea or patience to create one with graphics software? You can make a quick and easy mouse-over button right from within FrontPage. What do you do if you need to optimize 150 images within an hour? No need to panic, image ready can help you out with a little droplet. Check out the different tips that make life easier or better for you as a Web designer.
• Animated Flash Button & Macromedia Dream weaver:
Dream weaver lets you create some custom vector graphics from within the software. You can make Flash and embed them into your Web pages. There are different kinds of style that you can choose for these from the available set-play back type of buttons .Arrow shaped button, shopping cart button And so on, or make some of your own.
Making a smart interactive button is simple in Dream weaver, select insert-interactive Image-Flash Button. Form the window that opens select different button style by looking at the preview image below. Customize the button the way you want it by adding the name of the button, the Font color and font size , then specify the URL that the button has to link to . The button is saved with SWF extension you can preview the button in your browser to see if it looks the way you want.
• Easy Mouse-Over Buttons :
Mouse-over and Front Page? Oh Yes. The software has quit a few convenient features up its sleeve, one of which is “Hover buttons.” Granted, these buttons don’t have snazzy graphics they look like typical button blocks, but they react to mouse-over and you can archive it very simply. Here’s how.
Select Insert –Web component. in the window that opens , select Dynamic Effect in the component type and select the Hover Button effect on the right . Type in the text that should appear on the button, choose a font for the text, specify the URL to link to on clicking, and select the size and color of the button. In the drop-down menu for Effect, Glow is the default selection. Try it – you can select the color of the glow-check the button in preview mode-the button light up when you move your mouse over it. There are several other effects available that are worth checking out, especially the bevels quite neat!
• Cool Effects With DHTML :
DHTML or Dynamic HTML offers some cool effects that could make your Web pages stand out click? Or your page to load with a transition Effect? DHTML will do this for you along with other little tricks. After you’ve built your Web page, from the menu bar, select Format-Dynamic HTML Effect. A tool bar appears in the work area. Choose an event from the first drop down list. This could be on ‘click’ double-click.’ Mouse over or page load. Depending on the event selected here, the next Drop-Down list offers the possible effect that can be achieved , This could be a change in the color and style of the font if it is text, a border added around it , or in case of an image , you can replace the image with another one by a swap .
Most of the effect toggle Meaning if there was a font change on click, another click will change the font back to what it was before. However, some effects are one-time like the disappearing act of an image or button .you select ‘fly out’ from the effects list for this . On ‘page load’ you could have the selected text drop in word by word, or hop in, spiral in, zoom out, and so on. This is especially useful for advertisements or parts of the page that you want to draw the user’s attention to.
• Animation In Reverse :
You’ve made an animation using image Ready-may be a tween of position, opacity or effects or a manually placed and manipulated animation backwards? No need to re-tween or manually place the frames backwards; simply click on the little arrow in the animated palette and select Reverse Frames. You can also create a rubber band effect by copying the forward sequence (small arrow > copy Frames), pasting it at the end of sequence (small arrow > Paste Frames > ‘Paste after selection ‘) and then, by selecting the newly pasted sequence and applying Reverse Frames on this.
• All It Takes Is A Droplet :
Want to optimize several images with the same settings? Create a “droplet “and save time.
Open the optimize palette in Image Ready with your image open. Set the optimization to what you want-file type (JPG, GIF or PNG), quality (low, medium, high), lousiness, dither and so on while previewing the result in the “optimized” tab of the main in the Optimize palette. This creates what is called a “droplet” that contains your optimization settings. Save this droplet anywhere you want, say on your desktop.
Now drag the folder containing the images to be optimized onto this droplet. All the images in the folder will get optimized the way you specified. This may take a while depending on the number and size of the images in the folder. You can also drop images one at a time onto the droplet.
• Precise Hot Spots :
Want to link different parts of an image to various URLs? You can do this by slicing the image and assigning links to the relevant slices, but the disadvantage of this is the lack of precision: slice is necessarily rectangular. Also, slices are pieces of the image.
Say you’re working on a Web page for children about the different parts of ancient castles. You would like the parts-dungeons; moat, guard towers, and so on-to have precise rollovers and links so that the information is conveyed correctly. Rather than slices such an images and allot links, use image maps, select the polygon Image Map tool in Image Ready and outline the part you want to talk about precisely . Even circular image maps work fairly well in some areas. You can adjust points of the map edge after finishing the shape, too .in the image map palette, you can specify the URL to link to along with ALT text. To preview your work, save Optimized as a HTML file and check it in a browser.
• Optimize Your Web Graphics Easily :
Despite the cable Internet connections and high-speed modems, Web graphics are still limited speed-wise. The sites that load fastest and work most efficient have well-optimized graphics .GIF images are generally good for line drawings and illustrations while JPG ones are best suited for photographs. Besides file format, there are various factor that affect the optimized image like the ‘lousiness’-the amount of data in the image that you’re willing to sacrifice for smaller file size-the number of colors you need minimum, whether you can have dithering or not, so on .
In Photoshop, to try out different optimization settings, click Save for Web . A window opens up showing the current image along with various options and menus on the right . in the image window itself, you can see two tabs: 2-up tab to see two versions-the original and the optimized-for comparison along with time needed to load the image according to various modem speeds . The 4-upshows you 3 versions against the original. These previews are useful and convenient, rather than having to manually save the image repeatedly in different ways and comparing each of them.
• Making A Banner Ad:
We’re all familiar with banner ads that we see all over the Web: a strip with an image and text that changes into another and another conveying some information. Clicking on this ad takes you to the site that the company is advertising for. You don’t have to use GIF Builder or any other graphics software to animate such an ad. You can make it easily using Front Page. Select Insert-Web component-banner ad manger. In the window that opens, specify the size of the ad, the transition effect, the number of seconds to display each image, the URL to link the ad to and add the images you’ve prepared. That’s it.
This feature could also be used you want to share a few photographs coiled also be used when you want to share a few photographs or images but don’t want the images to be save-able on the cline’s side; right-click will not work on these images. Although the images may be found in the cache, at least they won’t be able to be copied directly.
Easy That’s how you’d like life to be, right? Especially when you’re creating a website on your own. But that doesn’t mean you want the site to look severe and just functional. you want it to be pretty , smart and also respond and move when you interact with it, while saying all that you want to say to its visitors . There are little tips and Features incorporated into software just for people like you.
Love what Flash can do but don’t know how to use it ? Macromedia thought of you and built a feature into Dream weaver that lets you create cool animated Flash buttons just by entering parameters. Want to have button respond to a mouse-over but have no idea or patience to create one with graphics software? You can make a quick and easy mouse-over button right from within FrontPage. What do you do if you need to optimize 150 images within an hour? No need to panic, image ready can help you out with a little droplet. Check out the different tips that make life easier or better for you as a Web designer.
• Animated Flash Button & Macromedia Dream weaver:
Dream weaver lets you create some custom vector graphics from within the software. You can make Flash and embed them into your Web pages. There are different kinds of style that you can choose for these from the available set-play back type of buttons .Arrow shaped button, shopping cart button And so on, or make some of your own.
Making a smart interactive button is simple in Dream weaver, select insert-interactive Image-Flash Button. Form the window that opens select different button style by looking at the preview image below. Customize the button the way you want it by adding the name of the button, the Font color and font size , then specify the URL that the button has to link to . The button is saved with SWF extension you can preview the button in your browser to see if it looks the way you want.
• Easy Mouse-Over Buttons :
Mouse-over and Front Page? Oh Yes. The software has quit a few convenient features up its sleeve, one of which is “Hover buttons.” Granted, these buttons don’t have snazzy graphics they look like typical button blocks, but they react to mouse-over and you can archive it very simply. Here’s how.
Select Insert –Web component. in the window that opens , select Dynamic Effect in the component type and select the Hover Button effect on the right . Type in the text that should appear on the button, choose a font for the text, specify the URL to link to on clicking, and select the size and color of the button. In the drop-down menu for Effect, Glow is the default selection. Try it – you can select the color of the glow-check the button in preview mode-the button light up when you move your mouse over it. There are several other effects available that are worth checking out, especially the bevels quite neat!
• Cool Effects With DHTML :
DHTML or Dynamic HTML offers some cool effects that could make your Web pages stand out click? Or your page to load with a transition Effect? DHTML will do this for you along with other little tricks. After you’ve built your Web page, from the menu bar, select Format-Dynamic HTML Effect. A tool bar appears in the work area. Choose an event from the first drop down list. This could be on ‘click’ double-click.’ Mouse over or page load. Depending on the event selected here, the next Drop-Down list offers the possible effect that can be achieved , This could be a change in the color and style of the font if it is text, a border added around it , or in case of an image , you can replace the image with another one by a swap .
Most of the effect toggle Meaning if there was a font change on click, another click will change the font back to what it was before. However, some effects are one-time like the disappearing act of an image or button .you select ‘fly out’ from the effects list for this . On ‘page load’ you could have the selected text drop in word by word, or hop in, spiral in, zoom out, and so on. This is especially useful for advertisements or parts of the page that you want to draw the user’s attention to.
• Animation In Reverse :
You’ve made an animation using image Ready-may be a tween of position, opacity or effects or a manually placed and manipulated animation backwards? No need to re-tween or manually place the frames backwards; simply click on the little arrow in the animated palette and select Reverse Frames. You can also create a rubber band effect by copying the forward sequence (small arrow > copy Frames), pasting it at the end of sequence (small arrow > Paste Frames > ‘Paste after selection ‘) and then, by selecting the newly pasted sequence and applying Reverse Frames on this.
• All It Takes Is A Droplet :
Want to optimize several images with the same settings? Create a “droplet “and save time.
Open the optimize palette in Image Ready with your image open. Set the optimization to what you want-file type (JPG, GIF or PNG), quality (low, medium, high), lousiness, dither and so on while previewing the result in the “optimized” tab of the main in the Optimize palette. This creates what is called a “droplet” that contains your optimization settings. Save this droplet anywhere you want, say on your desktop.
Now drag the folder containing the images to be optimized onto this droplet. All the images in the folder will get optimized the way you specified. This may take a while depending on the number and size of the images in the folder. You can also drop images one at a time onto the droplet.
• Precise Hot Spots :
Want to link different parts of an image to various URLs? You can do this by slicing the image and assigning links to the relevant slices, but the disadvantage of this is the lack of precision: slice is necessarily rectangular. Also, slices are pieces of the image.
Say you’re working on a Web page for children about the different parts of ancient castles. You would like the parts-dungeons; moat, guard towers, and so on-to have precise rollovers and links so that the information is conveyed correctly. Rather than slices such an images and allot links, use image maps, select the polygon Image Map tool in Image Ready and outline the part you want to talk about precisely . Even circular image maps work fairly well in some areas. You can adjust points of the map edge after finishing the shape, too .in the image map palette, you can specify the URL to link to along with ALT text. To preview your work, save Optimized as a HTML file and check it in a browser.
• Optimize Your Web Graphics Easily :
Despite the cable Internet connections and high-speed modems, Web graphics are still limited speed-wise. The sites that load fastest and work most efficient have well-optimized graphics .GIF images are generally good for line drawings and illustrations while JPG ones are best suited for photographs. Besides file format, there are various factor that affect the optimized image like the ‘lousiness’-the amount of data in the image that you’re willing to sacrifice for smaller file size-the number of colors you need minimum, whether you can have dithering or not, so on .
In Photoshop, to try out different optimization settings, click Save for Web . A window opens up showing the current image along with various options and menus on the right . in the image window itself, you can see two tabs: 2-up tab to see two versions-the original and the optimized-for comparison along with time needed to load the image according to various modem speeds . The 4-upshows you 3 versions against the original. These previews are useful and convenient, rather than having to manually save the image repeatedly in different ways and comparing each of them.
• Making A Banner Ad:
We’re all familiar with banner ads that we see all over the Web: a strip with an image and text that changes into another and another conveying some information. Clicking on this ad takes you to the site that the company is advertising for. You don’t have to use GIF Builder or any other graphics software to animate such an ad. You can make it easily using Front Page. Select Insert-Web component-banner ad manger. In the window that opens, specify the size of the ad, the transition effect, the number of seconds to display each image, the URL to link the ad to and add the images you’ve prepared. That’s it.
This feature could also be used you want to share a few photographs coiled also be used when you want to share a few photographs or images but don’t want the images to be save-able on the cline’s side; right-click will not work on these images. Although the images may be found in the cache, at least they won’t be able to be copied directly.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Your Business At Stake
We do believe in healthy sense of paranoia. Not the paranoia, which makes us feverishly try to distinguish ourselves from our competitors, but the paranoia, which makes us feel the iron hand of competition and gives us the stimulus to constantly develop and improve.
It is difficult to survive in the media, where everybody claims he is the best and where somebody is indeed better than you. It prompted us the idea of carrying out a kind of analysis of the products offered on the Web, similar to Esvon Classifieds. In no shape of form, we are going to judge or criticize the web applications, listed below.
The search engine has brought us to the following software products:
http://www.interactivetools.com/products/realtymanager/
The first impression is that Realty Manager is quite a professional solution. Scanning the pages, and studying this product more carefully we learn that the script is realized using Perl and text files and its functionality is really worth being paid for. PHP/MySQL and Perl/text files solutions don’t have any distinction in kind when it comes to their functionality. But PHP code is more consistent and modular and it runs faster. The advantage of PHP is also the ubiquity of web server platforms supporting PHP and MySQL. Fact: Over 25% of the internet's web sites are running PHP and nearly 63% of the internet's web sites are running the Apache web server, so give it a thought.
Those, who have encountered the problem of a script running slowly, probably know, that the faster grows your database of users, the slower your script works. In the end, it just breaks. (it happens because it is based on text files). Thus, such solution can be used only when the web site you are going to build is simple.
Moreover, with their license you are not allowed to edit scripts; it can be a disaster for you when you want to customize your solution.
The web site itself is very informative; it seems to give the overall description of the application. In general, this software script is enough if your web portal needs don’t go far. Yet, it is quite simple and friendly but has much fewer functions than Esvon Classfieds does.
http://www.mojoscripts.com/products/mojoestate/index.shtml
The web site layout and the product presentation resemble a bit the previous one. The application is Perl/MySQL solution, which however costs less. The price, as we have already indicated, is not a No.1 factor for making decision. But $199 seems nevertheless too little for a powerful script with “tons of features”.
MojoEstate includes a lot of features: internal mailbox system, saved search system, multimedia file gallery, advanced admin and member panels, powerful search facility, detailed who-is-online display, auto-generated thumbnails for uploaded images, etc.
We won’t enumerate all the product features, described at the web site. When a visitor reads the content, it is often enough for him to know what is described. But developers and more competent users know that it’s just a surface. When it comes to the product in action, they might face with the problem of handling extreme amounts of traffic the database queries, which can bring your server down. Some customers just may skip this peculiarity.
The product is also presented in a well-structured manner and seems to be a good cost-effective solution for budget-minded people.
http://www.smartisoft.com/products.php?product=phpBazar
We see that the script manufacturers have preferred PHP code in this case. As we have already mentioned, we also consider it to be better for such kind of applications in view of its open source technology and the fact that it is firmly implanted in the LAMP family (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) of open source web development platform technologies.
The given page describes the product features. It is a long and detailed five-scroll list. The demo is actually well presented, yet has an erotic shadow. If you are looking for a PHP script to build exactly this kind of web portal, then you are all set. But if you are in search for a program, say, for a real estate site, such demo confuses a bit… Driven by common sense you get back and click “I am not over 18”. I was a bit taken aback when I was redirected to a disney web site.
http://www.e-classifieds.net/products/index.html
We should surmise that this solution looks professional. The abundant choice of editions is a good prove to it. Still, the researches show, that the bigger the selection is, the more difficult it is to make a decision. And it is really so. Say, you decide that you need one solution and proceed to the following edition to make sure you did not skip the features that are necessary to your online business. And it turns out that you did. You change the decision. While you proceed to the third one, you might discover that it has the features of the second edition, but lacks for the features of the first. You feel frustrated.
Yet, you can see the demo of every edition directly without filling in any web form before it. It contributes to the web site popularity and makes the product more available.
The script is also realized using Perl and text files and the customer support of the manufacturer costs $75 - $100 per hour. Maybe this rate is the confirmation that the company really guarantees an irreproachable performance of their product, and you won’t have to refer to them too often; but support is required more often than you might think, since the situations differ.
http://www.esvon.com/products/cl/
Of course, we do pay attention to what the program looks like, but its internal mechanism does play a great role. The Esvon specialists have seen to this. You can’t see it, but you can be sure Esvon Classifieds script runs well and allows you to avoid the typical problems, the web applications owners might encounter.
The well thought out and powerful script, its modularity and flexibility are the best qualities distinguished by our customers. It is difficult, however, to judge ourselves, thus, we will enumerate the features, which were marked by our customers as practically unique in comparison to other similar solutions:
* Static HTML pages generation allows you to have the fast web site, indexed in search engines by more keywords and much more accessible to web surfers.
* The script allows you to handle much more site traffic/visitors queries, then other existing applications; the fast running PHP code is also marked as an important peculiarity of the program. Just as an example, Esvon Classifieds has unique category tree building engine: it is very fast, with only 2 SQL queries to build an unlimited-level category tree with ads amount per category calculation; it will ensure you that your server won’t be brought down by amount of database queries executed!
While we were preparing this article, we received one more email from our customer, where he compares our product with GeoClassifieds (http://geodesicsolutions.com/products/index.htm), and marks the following features as award winning in Esvon Classifieds: template system, Gd or imagemagick thumbnail images, very good support, reviews writing and voting, blocks engine, absolutely custom database fields settings.
http://geodesicsolutions.com/products/index.htm
GeoDesic product features are very attractive. Here it is: the case, when you should go deeper. A typical user can claim that it doesn’t matter, what’s inside; it just should work and do what he expects from it. But the deeper approach reveals, that the script is not able to process properly growing database queries, its templates are not very flexible, it runs slow and it is unable to generate static content.
Using such script you take risk to be very soon removed from the shared web server, since your traffic might exceed the maximum allowed server load limit very quickly.
Thus, be meticulous while choosing the script fro your online business.
We hope, that this analysis has contributed to your knowledge of what you are looking for on the Web. In the end, you decide, we just help you to see deeper; we hope that we do.
It is difficult to survive in the media, where everybody claims he is the best and where somebody is indeed better than you. It prompted us the idea of carrying out a kind of analysis of the products offered on the Web, similar to Esvon Classifieds. In no shape of form, we are going to judge or criticize the web applications, listed below.
The search engine has brought us to the following software products:
http://www.interactivetools.com/products/realtymanager/
The first impression is that Realty Manager is quite a professional solution. Scanning the pages, and studying this product more carefully we learn that the script is realized using Perl and text files and its functionality is really worth being paid for. PHP/MySQL and Perl/text files solutions don’t have any distinction in kind when it comes to their functionality. But PHP code is more consistent and modular and it runs faster. The advantage of PHP is also the ubiquity of web server platforms supporting PHP and MySQL. Fact: Over 25% of the internet's web sites are running PHP and nearly 63% of the internet's web sites are running the Apache web server, so give it a thought.
Those, who have encountered the problem of a script running slowly, probably know, that the faster grows your database of users, the slower your script works. In the end, it just breaks. (it happens because it is based on text files). Thus, such solution can be used only when the web site you are going to build is simple.
Moreover, with their license you are not allowed to edit scripts; it can be a disaster for you when you want to customize your solution.
The web site itself is very informative; it seems to give the overall description of the application. In general, this software script is enough if your web portal needs don’t go far. Yet, it is quite simple and friendly but has much fewer functions than Esvon Classfieds does.
http://www.mojoscripts.com/products/mojoestate/index.shtml
The web site layout and the product presentation resemble a bit the previous one. The application is Perl/MySQL solution, which however costs less. The price, as we have already indicated, is not a No.1 factor for making decision. But $199 seems nevertheless too little for a powerful script with “tons of features”.
MojoEstate includes a lot of features: internal mailbox system, saved search system, multimedia file gallery, advanced admin and member panels, powerful search facility, detailed who-is-online display, auto-generated thumbnails for uploaded images, etc.
We won’t enumerate all the product features, described at the web site. When a visitor reads the content, it is often enough for him to know what is described. But developers and more competent users know that it’s just a surface. When it comes to the product in action, they might face with the problem of handling extreme amounts of traffic the database queries, which can bring your server down. Some customers just may skip this peculiarity.
The product is also presented in a well-structured manner and seems to be a good cost-effective solution for budget-minded people.
http://www.smartisoft.com/products.php?product=phpBazar
We see that the script manufacturers have preferred PHP code in this case. As we have already mentioned, we also consider it to be better for such kind of applications in view of its open source technology and the fact that it is firmly implanted in the LAMP family (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) of open source web development platform technologies.
The given page describes the product features. It is a long and detailed five-scroll list. The demo is actually well presented, yet has an erotic shadow. If you are looking for a PHP script to build exactly this kind of web portal, then you are all set. But if you are in search for a program, say, for a real estate site, such demo confuses a bit… Driven by common sense you get back and click “I am not over 18”. I was a bit taken aback when I was redirected to a disney web site.
http://www.e-classifieds.net/products/index.html
We should surmise that this solution looks professional. The abundant choice of editions is a good prove to it. Still, the researches show, that the bigger the selection is, the more difficult it is to make a decision. And it is really so. Say, you decide that you need one solution and proceed to the following edition to make sure you did not skip the features that are necessary to your online business. And it turns out that you did. You change the decision. While you proceed to the third one, you might discover that it has the features of the second edition, but lacks for the features of the first. You feel frustrated.
Yet, you can see the demo of every edition directly without filling in any web form before it. It contributes to the web site popularity and makes the product more available.
The script is also realized using Perl and text files and the customer support of the manufacturer costs $75 - $100 per hour. Maybe this rate is the confirmation that the company really guarantees an irreproachable performance of their product, and you won’t have to refer to them too often; but support is required more often than you might think, since the situations differ.
http://www.esvon.com/products/cl/
Of course, we do pay attention to what the program looks like, but its internal mechanism does play a great role. The Esvon specialists have seen to this. You can’t see it, but you can be sure Esvon Classifieds script runs well and allows you to avoid the typical problems, the web applications owners might encounter.
The well thought out and powerful script, its modularity and flexibility are the best qualities distinguished by our customers. It is difficult, however, to judge ourselves, thus, we will enumerate the features, which were marked by our customers as practically unique in comparison to other similar solutions:
* Static HTML pages generation allows you to have the fast web site, indexed in search engines by more keywords and much more accessible to web surfers.
* The script allows you to handle much more site traffic/visitors queries, then other existing applications; the fast running PHP code is also marked as an important peculiarity of the program. Just as an example, Esvon Classifieds has unique category tree building engine: it is very fast, with only 2 SQL queries to build an unlimited-level category tree with ads amount per category calculation; it will ensure you that your server won’t be brought down by amount of database queries executed!
While we were preparing this article, we received one more email from our customer, where he compares our product with GeoClassifieds (http://geodesicsolutions.com/products/index.htm), and marks the following features as award winning in Esvon Classifieds: template system, Gd or imagemagick thumbnail images, very good support, reviews writing and voting, blocks engine, absolutely custom database fields settings.
http://geodesicsolutions.com/products/index.htm
GeoDesic product features are very attractive. Here it is: the case, when you should go deeper. A typical user can claim that it doesn’t matter, what’s inside; it just should work and do what he expects from it. But the deeper approach reveals, that the script is not able to process properly growing database queries, its templates are not very flexible, it runs slow and it is unable to generate static content.
Using such script you take risk to be very soon removed from the shared web server, since your traffic might exceed the maximum allowed server load limit very quickly.
Thus, be meticulous while choosing the script fro your online business.
We hope, that this analysis has contributed to your knowledge of what you are looking for on the Web. In the end, you decide, we just help you to see deeper; we hope that we do.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Are You Well Protected?
Winter…the official start of the cold and flu season. Though, technically speaking, things got started a little early. Close to a million computers, mostly home PC users, have been infected.
For many of us our computers are our business. We keep in contact with customers and clients via email, do extensive internet research, and transmit important files electronically.
We know what to do to protect our bodies from viruses. There are some simple strategies, and even free precautions we can take to protect our businesses by keeping our PCs virus free.
Adopting the following six checkpoints will help keep your computer healthy and your business uninterrupted.
Use a Firewall
At its most basic level a firewall is a software security system that acts as a barrier between your computer and the outside world (the internet) by monitoring all incoming network traffic. A more advanced firewall will also monitor outgoing traffic. How you use your computer will determine whether basic or advanced firewall protection is needed.
What a firewall does is make your computer invisible while on the Internet. If hackers can't see you, they cannot attack you.
Windows XP has this software installed; however, it may need to be enabled. If you have XP and would like to enable the firewall, directions are on the Microsoft website.
For non XP users, firewall software can be purchased. McAfee and Zone Alarm are two very popular products. Zone Alarm has a free downloadable firewall, basic version, available on their website, www.zonealarm.com.
Before installing a firewall, you may be interested in learning your computer’s vulnerability. This is something that can be checked for free and in just a few minutes. Visit the website of Gibson Research Corporation, www.grc.com, and under Hot Spots, click on Shields UP. It takes a little bit of scrolling to get to but is well worth the extra seconds. In minutes your PC is scanned and its vulnerability rated.
Antivirus Software
Antivirus software is the "shot" after the epidemic. This software protects your computer from known threats. Many PCs come with antivirus software already installed. Some of the more popular versions are Norton, PCCillin and McAfee.
If you have it pre installed or have purchased it, great. Please be sure to keep it constantly updated with the latest virus definitions. This is important because these definitions are formed in response to the latest viruses. If you don't have this protection, please consider getting it.
Once this software is installed on your computer, you will be automatically notified when new virus definitions are available. Then it is just a matter of a few clicks to download the new definitions.
Likewise you will be notified when your antivirus software is about to expire. The software needs to be updated annually. The initial purchase, renewal, updates and installation can all be done online.
Spyware Eliminator
Why am I getting all of these pop ups? Certain websites that you visit or free software (shareware) that you download, and, in some cases, hardware purchased from major manufacturers will also install tracking devices on your computer (spyware). Spyware is annoying but not illegal.
An internet search will reveal the many choices available for spyware elimination software. The important thing is to get one and use it consistently. Spybot and PestPatrol are popular choices.
I really like Spybot Search and Destroy. Besides the fact that it is free, once spyware is identified, the software will provide a detailed description of just what it is. This is helpful just in case it identifies something that you don't want to get rid of.
Backup, Backup, Backup
How often do you backup? What files/programs do you backup? What media do you backup to?
We all know the importance of backing up our information yet so many of us don’t do it. There may be a ton of reasons why it's not done but the one reason it should be done on a regular basis is that it can be a timesaver, possibly a business saver if your computer system is corrupted for any reason.
If you happen to be using Windows XP Professional, the backup procedure is quite simple. For users of XP Home Edition, it is a bit more involved. Complete instructions, however, are on the Microsoft website.
Typically, data files are what most people need to back up and having well organized files will certainly simplify the process.
Whether you backup to disk, zip disk, DVD, writeable CDs, external file drive or utilize one of the online services, it is important to get into the habit of backing up on a regular basis.
Weekly Updates of Windows
Windows users are automatically notified of current updates for the Windows operating system when your computer is turned on. With just a few clicks your operating system is updated.
However, when certain patches become available for your particular applications software (XP, 2000, NT, etc), as was/is the case with the recent worm viruses, a visit to Microsoft's website is necessary.
Once there, Microsoft will scan your computer, tell you what updates are available, and you then have the option of installing them on your system. In some cases, you will need your installation CDs to complete the download.
With the recent run of viruses and with more expected, it is imperative to check for these updates weekly on the Microsoft website as well as do the automatic updates.
Be Careful of Email Attachments
Email is such a widely accepted method of communication, and this has not gone unnoticed by hackers who use email as a means of mass virus spread.
For this final checkpoint, your due diligence is the only software required.
Always delete any email from unknown senders and be very careful of any attachments you are not expecting from any known senders. As we have seen, hackers can quite easily access Outlook address books to spread viruses.
By the way, including a fake email address in your address book will not prevent your PC from spreading viruses. This is an urban legend. If you’re interested in the full story, check out this link: www.snopes.com/computer/virus/quickfix.htm
When it comes to the health of our computers, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Effective prevention software along with plain old common sense, used consistently, can keep you protected.
For many of us our computers are our business. We keep in contact with customers and clients via email, do extensive internet research, and transmit important files electronically.
We know what to do to protect our bodies from viruses. There are some simple strategies, and even free precautions we can take to protect our businesses by keeping our PCs virus free.
Adopting the following six checkpoints will help keep your computer healthy and your business uninterrupted.
Use a Firewall
At its most basic level a firewall is a software security system that acts as a barrier between your computer and the outside world (the internet) by monitoring all incoming network traffic. A more advanced firewall will also monitor outgoing traffic. How you use your computer will determine whether basic or advanced firewall protection is needed.
What a firewall does is make your computer invisible while on the Internet. If hackers can't see you, they cannot attack you.
Windows XP has this software installed; however, it may need to be enabled. If you have XP and would like to enable the firewall, directions are on the Microsoft website.
For non XP users, firewall software can be purchased. McAfee and Zone Alarm are two very popular products. Zone Alarm has a free downloadable firewall, basic version, available on their website, www.zonealarm.com.
Before installing a firewall, you may be interested in learning your computer’s vulnerability. This is something that can be checked for free and in just a few minutes. Visit the website of Gibson Research Corporation, www.grc.com, and under Hot Spots, click on Shields UP. It takes a little bit of scrolling to get to but is well worth the extra seconds. In minutes your PC is scanned and its vulnerability rated.
Antivirus Software
Antivirus software is the "shot" after the epidemic. This software protects your computer from known threats. Many PCs come with antivirus software already installed. Some of the more popular versions are Norton, PCCillin and McAfee.
If you have it pre installed or have purchased it, great. Please be sure to keep it constantly updated with the latest virus definitions. This is important because these definitions are formed in response to the latest viruses. If you don't have this protection, please consider getting it.
Once this software is installed on your computer, you will be automatically notified when new virus definitions are available. Then it is just a matter of a few clicks to download the new definitions.
Likewise you will be notified when your antivirus software is about to expire. The software needs to be updated annually. The initial purchase, renewal, updates and installation can all be done online.
Spyware Eliminator
Why am I getting all of these pop ups? Certain websites that you visit or free software (shareware) that you download, and, in some cases, hardware purchased from major manufacturers will also install tracking devices on your computer (spyware). Spyware is annoying but not illegal.
An internet search will reveal the many choices available for spyware elimination software. The important thing is to get one and use it consistently. Spybot and PestPatrol are popular choices.
I really like Spybot Search and Destroy. Besides the fact that it is free, once spyware is identified, the software will provide a detailed description of just what it is. This is helpful just in case it identifies something that you don't want to get rid of.
Backup, Backup, Backup
How often do you backup? What files/programs do you backup? What media do you backup to?
We all know the importance of backing up our information yet so many of us don’t do it. There may be a ton of reasons why it's not done but the one reason it should be done on a regular basis is that it can be a timesaver, possibly a business saver if your computer system is corrupted for any reason.
If you happen to be using Windows XP Professional, the backup procedure is quite simple. For users of XP Home Edition, it is a bit more involved. Complete instructions, however, are on the Microsoft website.
Typically, data files are what most people need to back up and having well organized files will certainly simplify the process.
Whether you backup to disk, zip disk, DVD, writeable CDs, external file drive or utilize one of the online services, it is important to get into the habit of backing up on a regular basis.
Weekly Updates of Windows
Windows users are automatically notified of current updates for the Windows operating system when your computer is turned on. With just a few clicks your operating system is updated.
However, when certain patches become available for your particular applications software (XP, 2000, NT, etc), as was/is the case with the recent worm viruses, a visit to Microsoft's website is necessary.
Once there, Microsoft will scan your computer, tell you what updates are available, and you then have the option of installing them on your system. In some cases, you will need your installation CDs to complete the download.
With the recent run of viruses and with more expected, it is imperative to check for these updates weekly on the Microsoft website as well as do the automatic updates.
Be Careful of Email Attachments
Email is such a widely accepted method of communication, and this has not gone unnoticed by hackers who use email as a means of mass virus spread.
For this final checkpoint, your due diligence is the only software required.
Always delete any email from unknown senders and be very careful of any attachments you are not expecting from any known senders. As we have seen, hackers can quite easily access Outlook address books to spread viruses.
By the way, including a fake email address in your address book will not prevent your PC from spreading viruses. This is an urban legend. If you’re interested in the full story, check out this link: www.snopes.com/computer/virus/quickfix.htm
When it comes to the health of our computers, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Effective prevention software along with plain old common sense, used consistently, can keep you protected.
Sunday, October 8, 2006
Tools for the ‘Sucstressed’
Tools for the ‘Sucstressed’
by: Roxie Hickman
‘Sucstressed’. That's the word I came up with as I was trying to find just the right words to describe my ideal client. Who are the ‘sucstressed’? They are successful business owners that are working solo.
It's a term, I think, that describes many small/home office business owners, micro business owners as well as professionals that are constantly on the go.
When you are busy with your business, it can be daunting to stay on top of all the details…it’s daunting to even think about the details. Throw in a computer that won’t do what you want it to do, the inevitable technical issues, and a system that lacks organization and you’ve got the makings of a stressful situation.
Working solo does not have to be synonymous with stress.
I'm a micro business owner, and my only interest is success…so I'd like to share some tools I use that help me to not be 'sucstressed'. Oh, by the way, they are all free.
The Newbie Club
Are you and your computer good friends or just mere acquaintances?
It’s fair to say that my computer is a key component in my business, and I think that’s pretty much consistent with other solo business owners. It can be frustrating to not know your way around a piece of equipment that you rely on to get things accomplished.
The Newbie Club, www.newbieclub.com, is an ezine (I know, not another ezine) whose motto is “…you’re a newbie not a dummy”.
One of the few I read entirely, the Newbie Club’s ezine contains about four or five tutorials, written in plain English. The articles de-mystify your computer. Whether you want an explanation on file extensions, a smoother download process, or simply grab some graphics off the web to wallpaper your desktop, this ezine will walk you through it step by step.
The tutorials help me to become more comfortable with my computer because it helps me to understand, in plain English, the why behind what and how.
Tek-Tips
The Newbie Club is great at providing general information. There will be times, though, when we need more specific information on a particular application...times when we need technical support.
I belong to a great online community of my professional peers and help is never more than just a click away. Here’s an example, I was tweaking my website and needed some HTML code. After checking various other resources and not quickly finding what I wanted, I posted a question to my virtual assistant email list and within minutes, I had my answer and was able to do what I needed to do with my website.
For many of us working solo, a free technical support resource is simply not available. If that’s your situation, Tek-Tips, www.tek-tips.com, could be the solution. Tek-Tips is an online, technical support forum where you can find or get answers to your technical challenges.
A couple of the features I really like about Tek-Tips are the list of experts and email notification when an answer to your question has been posted. So if, for example, you are having a problem with an Excel application, you can go straight to a Tek-Tips Excel expert, post your question, and be notified by email when an answer is available or search the forums…possibly your question has already been answered.
Membership to Tek-Tips is free for now. The site is easy to get around in because it is so well organized.
Turbo Notes
Effective organization is key for any business, even more so for small and micro businesses. We have a ton of things on our to do lists, (personal and business) notes jotted down on scraps of paper, or a running list in our heads.
Whatever system you currently work with…pencil and paper, Outlook’s calendar and task lists, or the mental thing, Turbo Notes, www.turbonote.com, would be a great addition.
These notes are the electronic version of Post-Its. They sit right on your desktop and can be used as reminders for things you simply must do and don’t want to forget. Like the paper version, they have a variety of colors (yellow, red, violet and green). So if you are into color coding your tasks, these work well.
Unlike the paper version, with Turbo Notes, you can set an alarm on your notes. Instant messages can be sent to other Turbo Note users, and you can set up a hot-link to your often accessed files. Need to do some math? Turbo-Note also has a calculator function. I’ve only been using Turbo Notes a short time and already this little program has made a big impact.
I'm sure there are other uses I haven't discovered yet. What I do know is that Turbo-Note is easy to install, easy to use, and there is a free trial version.
Trax Time
There are solo business owners, believe it or not, that get so busy they lose track of time spent on billable work. The direct result is a loss of money. That’s not good business.
Early on in my business I was introduced to this piece of software, Trax Time. Trax Time, www.traxtime.com, is your computer’s own personal punch clock.
With Trax Time each client is entered as a project. Then it is a matter of punching in and out as you work with that particular client/project throughout the day.
Trax Time has the ability to run a variety of reports. The reports can then be copied and pasted into other documents. For example, my statements are sent out via email. A report for the month is created, and three clicks later it’s pasted and on it’s way via email. I have my statement and the client has an accurate accounting of the time spent on his/her projects.
Trax Time has many more useful features. The bottom line, time is money and for the solo professional Trax Time, or a similar software program, is a must.
Smooth Operation
Our businesses can operate smoothly and relatively stress free with economical and effective resources at our fingertips. All of the free resources in this article are just a mouse click away.
About The Author
Roxie Hickman, Virtual Assistant (VA), is the owner of The Virtual Connection. The Virtual Connection (www.thevirtualconnection.net) specializes in working with the ‘sucstressed’ (successful professionals who are stressed because they’ve been doing it alone). The Virtual Connection provides offsite executive, administrative, and personal assistance (virtual assistance).
roxie@thevirtualconnection.net
This article was posted on December 21, 2003
Read More Articles from the "Computers and Internet" Category:
Misspelling On Ebay – Use It To Your Advantage
by Thomas Haselhorst
Windows XP: Use the Security Center to View Virus Protection
by John Chapman
World On IP Community versus Telecoms' Monopoly
by Patrizia Demaria
Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: A Guide To RAM, ROM, NVRAM, And Flash
by Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
Say 'Hello' To Fiber Optic Cables And Goodbye To Copper Cables
by James Croydon
How To Create A Great Looking Blog That Will Earn You More Cash
by Maggie Wallace
Sirius Satellite Radio vs XM Satellite Radio – Which Streams Should You Choose?
by C. J. Gustafson
Link Popularity Reports
by Henry James
Accept Credit Cards Online without a Merchant Account
by John Lynch
Buying A New Computer 101: The Basics
by Ian Bunk
<< Back to "Computers And Internet" Index
by: Roxie Hickman
‘Sucstressed’. That's the word I came up with as I was trying to find just the right words to describe my ideal client. Who are the ‘sucstressed’? They are successful business owners that are working solo.
It's a term, I think, that describes many small/home office business owners, micro business owners as well as professionals that are constantly on the go.
When you are busy with your business, it can be daunting to stay on top of all the details…it’s daunting to even think about the details. Throw in a computer that won’t do what you want it to do, the inevitable technical issues, and a system that lacks organization and you’ve got the makings of a stressful situation.
Working solo does not have to be synonymous with stress.
I'm a micro business owner, and my only interest is success…so I'd like to share some tools I use that help me to not be 'sucstressed'. Oh, by the way, they are all free.
The Newbie Club
Are you and your computer good friends or just mere acquaintances?
It’s fair to say that my computer is a key component in my business, and I think that’s pretty much consistent with other solo business owners. It can be frustrating to not know your way around a piece of equipment that you rely on to get things accomplished.
The Newbie Club, www.newbieclub.com, is an ezine (I know, not another ezine) whose motto is “…you’re a newbie not a dummy”.
One of the few I read entirely, the Newbie Club’s ezine contains about four or five tutorials, written in plain English. The articles de-mystify your computer. Whether you want an explanation on file extensions, a smoother download process, or simply grab some graphics off the web to wallpaper your desktop, this ezine will walk you through it step by step.
The tutorials help me to become more comfortable with my computer because it helps me to understand, in plain English, the why behind what and how.
Tek-Tips
The Newbie Club is great at providing general information. There will be times, though, when we need more specific information on a particular application...times when we need technical support.
I belong to a great online community of my professional peers and help is never more than just a click away. Here’s an example, I was tweaking my website and needed some HTML code. After checking various other resources and not quickly finding what I wanted, I posted a question to my virtual assistant email list and within minutes, I had my answer and was able to do what I needed to do with my website.
For many of us working solo, a free technical support resource is simply not available. If that’s your situation, Tek-Tips, www.tek-tips.com, could be the solution. Tek-Tips is an online, technical support forum where you can find or get answers to your technical challenges.
A couple of the features I really like about Tek-Tips are the list of experts and email notification when an answer to your question has been posted. So if, for example, you are having a problem with an Excel application, you can go straight to a Tek-Tips Excel expert, post your question, and be notified by email when an answer is available or search the forums…possibly your question has already been answered.
Membership to Tek-Tips is free for now. The site is easy to get around in because it is so well organized.
Turbo Notes
Effective organization is key for any business, even more so for small and micro businesses. We have a ton of things on our to do lists, (personal and business) notes jotted down on scraps of paper, or a running list in our heads.
Whatever system you currently work with…pencil and paper, Outlook’s calendar and task lists, or the mental thing, Turbo Notes, www.turbonote.com, would be a great addition.
These notes are the electronic version of Post-Its. They sit right on your desktop and can be used as reminders for things you simply must do and don’t want to forget. Like the paper version, they have a variety of colors (yellow, red, violet and green). So if you are into color coding your tasks, these work well.
Unlike the paper version, with Turbo Notes, you can set an alarm on your notes. Instant messages can be sent to other Turbo Note users, and you can set up a hot-link to your often accessed files. Need to do some math? Turbo-Note also has a calculator function. I’ve only been using Turbo Notes a short time and already this little program has made a big impact.
I'm sure there are other uses I haven't discovered yet. What I do know is that Turbo-Note is easy to install, easy to use, and there is a free trial version.
Trax Time
There are solo business owners, believe it or not, that get so busy they lose track of time spent on billable work. The direct result is a loss of money. That’s not good business.
Early on in my business I was introduced to this piece of software, Trax Time. Trax Time, www.traxtime.com, is your computer’s own personal punch clock.
With Trax Time each client is entered as a project. Then it is a matter of punching in and out as you work with that particular client/project throughout the day.
Trax Time has the ability to run a variety of reports. The reports can then be copied and pasted into other documents. For example, my statements are sent out via email. A report for the month is created, and three clicks later it’s pasted and on it’s way via email. I have my statement and the client has an accurate accounting of the time spent on his/her projects.
Trax Time has many more useful features. The bottom line, time is money and for the solo professional Trax Time, or a similar software program, is a must.
Smooth Operation
Our businesses can operate smoothly and relatively stress free with economical and effective resources at our fingertips. All of the free resources in this article are just a mouse click away.
About The Author
Roxie Hickman, Virtual Assistant (VA), is the owner of The Virtual Connection. The Virtual Connection (www.thevirtualconnection.net) specializes in working with the ‘sucstressed’ (successful professionals who are stressed because they’ve been doing it alone). The Virtual Connection provides offsite executive, administrative, and personal assistance (virtual assistance).
roxie@thevirtualconnection.net
This article was posted on December 21, 2003
Read More Articles from the "Computers and Internet" Category:
Misspelling On Ebay – Use It To Your Advantage
by Thomas Haselhorst
Windows XP: Use the Security Center to View Virus Protection
by John Chapman
World On IP Community versus Telecoms' Monopoly
by Patrizia Demaria
Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: A Guide To RAM, ROM, NVRAM, And Flash
by Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
Say 'Hello' To Fiber Optic Cables And Goodbye To Copper Cables
by James Croydon
How To Create A Great Looking Blog That Will Earn You More Cash
by Maggie Wallace
Sirius Satellite Radio vs XM Satellite Radio – Which Streams Should You Choose?
by C. J. Gustafson
Link Popularity Reports
by Henry James
Accept Credit Cards Online without a Merchant Account
by John Lynch
Buying A New Computer 101: The Basics
by Ian Bunk
<< Back to "Computers And Internet" Index
Acres of Gold
A few years ago I stumbled upon a goldmine.Now this precious commodity was not something that you could touch, but rather one to look at.This goldmine has made more successes out of the average man than any other vessel in history.
This goldmine is so obvious many of us miss it or take it for granted.What could it be ? The internet !
With a good computer, an internet connection and your creativity you can do so much. There are countless ways in which you can display your talents for the world to see.
Their have been countless life changing inventions throughout history. The net deserves to be among the most innovative. Anyone from a ten year old to your Grandpa can use it to their advantage.
It is changing lives. The Internet can be like a drug, it may not “hook you” the first time. But as you start to use it regularly, you can't seem to live without it (that's me alright!).
And what's best about it is that it belongs to everyone. Not the government, nor corporations or secret societies. It is for us all to have.
We should be careful what purposes we use it for though.It can be used to educate, inform and communicate to improve people's lives. Don't use it for wrongful purposes. Why create a shortcut when you can blaze a trail ?
Go ahead and discover that goldmine under your nose.It may not glitter but it is certainly not fool's gold.
This goldmine is so obvious many of us miss it or take it for granted.What could it be ? The internet !
With a good computer, an internet connection and your creativity you can do so much. There are countless ways in which you can display your talents for the world to see.
Their have been countless life changing inventions throughout history. The net deserves to be among the most innovative. Anyone from a ten year old to your Grandpa can use it to their advantage.
It is changing lives. The Internet can be like a drug, it may not “hook you” the first time. But as you start to use it regularly, you can't seem to live without it (that's me alright!).
And what's best about it is that it belongs to everyone. Not the government, nor corporations or secret societies. It is for us all to have.
We should be careful what purposes we use it for though.It can be used to educate, inform and communicate to improve people's lives. Don't use it for wrongful purposes. Why create a shortcut when you can blaze a trail ?
Go ahead and discover that goldmine under your nose.It may not glitter but it is certainly not fool's gold.
Friday, October 6, 2006
Humanize the Sales Process
Q & A
Amy Fox, Accelerated Business Results
“Humanize the Sales Experience”
Q. Sometimes when I’m presenting to clients, I sense that the customer tunes out. Is there a better way to communicate with a customer or engage them?
A. Salespeople get caught up in the hype of their own product and lose touch with their client’s reality sometimes. You may be an expert in your field, but you have to assume the client is not. Most clients do not speak tech-ese, so you have to couch the conversation in language that is familiar.
Q. In high tech sales situations, what are some ways of obtaining better results on sales calls?
A. Start by shifting the focus from you to your client. Instead of presenting information to a client on your first sales call, try asking the client what expectations they have for the meeting. You can build a list of desired results from their answer. Try using questions that put the client in the driver’s seat. For example, “What would you like to learn more about?” or “How can I help resolve these issues?”
Q. Are clients actually put off by technical language?
A. It depends, because there are instances when it is appropriate. If you’re speaking to a technical person who expects you to inform them about these aspects, go ahead. In many cases, the decision maker is not technical, so speaking in terms the client does not understand wastes their time. Even worse, they feel uncomfortable. Do you know anyone who would buy under these circumstances? There is no easier way to lose a sale then alienating a client.
Q. What’s the best way to speak about a technical product to a non-technical person?
A. Refrain from using acronyms and technical jargon. Some common words that are not generally understood are IPSEC, T-1s, WIFI, Routers. Concentrate on the problem they need to fix or the result they want to achieve. If the client needs a technical description, they’ll ask for it. Otherwise, avoid using these words.
Q. What are some other key ways I can improve the sales experience for my clients?
A. You need to humanize the sales experience. Once you learn to communicate in ways that relate to and reach they client, you regain your most distinguishing feature – yourself. Shorten your presentations by focusing on the capabilities and solutions you can provide in the client’s unique business environment. Learn to listen closely, catch key phrases, and hone in on their needs, not your own sales agenda. Incorporate business terms that are meaningful to the client in your dialogue.
Q. Do you think the first meeting with a prospective client should be a fact-finding interview?
A. That is one way of thinking about it. Keep in mind clients don’t consider your products and services just for the heck of it. They either have a problem they need to fix or a result that must be achieved. The salesperson’s job is to use questions to uncover their business challenges and concerns. The goal in the first meeting is to set the foundation to build a relationship.
Q. When I’m presenting my high tech solution, how do I position it to come across persuasively so that the customer wants to purchase it?
A. Don’t simply explain what your product does and how it works. Present the value it brings to their business. For example, most salespeople would sell a high-speed internet connection that claims to be x times faster, rather than selling a solution that allows the client to process orders at a higher rate resulting in increased revenues. Demonstrate the benefits by linking back to how it will solve problems and achieve results.
Amy Fox, Accelerated Business Results
“Humanize the Sales Experience”
Q. Sometimes when I’m presenting to clients, I sense that the customer tunes out. Is there a better way to communicate with a customer or engage them?
A. Salespeople get caught up in the hype of their own product and lose touch with their client’s reality sometimes. You may be an expert in your field, but you have to assume the client is not. Most clients do not speak tech-ese, so you have to couch the conversation in language that is familiar.
Q. In high tech sales situations, what are some ways of obtaining better results on sales calls?
A. Start by shifting the focus from you to your client. Instead of presenting information to a client on your first sales call, try asking the client what expectations they have for the meeting. You can build a list of desired results from their answer. Try using questions that put the client in the driver’s seat. For example, “What would you like to learn more about?” or “How can I help resolve these issues?”
Q. Are clients actually put off by technical language?
A. It depends, because there are instances when it is appropriate. If you’re speaking to a technical person who expects you to inform them about these aspects, go ahead. In many cases, the decision maker is not technical, so speaking in terms the client does not understand wastes their time. Even worse, they feel uncomfortable. Do you know anyone who would buy under these circumstances? There is no easier way to lose a sale then alienating a client.
Q. What’s the best way to speak about a technical product to a non-technical person?
A. Refrain from using acronyms and technical jargon. Some common words that are not generally understood are IPSEC, T-1s, WIFI, Routers. Concentrate on the problem they need to fix or the result they want to achieve. If the client needs a technical description, they’ll ask for it. Otherwise, avoid using these words.
Q. What are some other key ways I can improve the sales experience for my clients?
A. You need to humanize the sales experience. Once you learn to communicate in ways that relate to and reach they client, you regain your most distinguishing feature – yourself. Shorten your presentations by focusing on the capabilities and solutions you can provide in the client’s unique business environment. Learn to listen closely, catch key phrases, and hone in on their needs, not your own sales agenda. Incorporate business terms that are meaningful to the client in your dialogue.
Q. Do you think the first meeting with a prospective client should be a fact-finding interview?
A. That is one way of thinking about it. Keep in mind clients don’t consider your products and services just for the heck of it. They either have a problem they need to fix or a result that must be achieved. The salesperson’s job is to use questions to uncover their business challenges and concerns. The goal in the first meeting is to set the foundation to build a relationship.
Q. When I’m presenting my high tech solution, how do I position it to come across persuasively so that the customer wants to purchase it?
A. Don’t simply explain what your product does and how it works. Present the value it brings to their business. For example, most salespeople would sell a high-speed internet connection that claims to be x times faster, rather than selling a solution that allows the client to process orders at a higher rate resulting in increased revenues. Demonstrate the benefits by linking back to how it will solve problems and achieve results.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Why Journal Writing On The Web? Blogs Are Journals Giving Anyone An Identity, And An Awesome Forum For Sharing Thoughts And Ideas With Others Of Simil
Journal writing used to be a private, personal experience done late at night, scribbling hardly legible thoughts and daily occurrences down on paper amidst the haze of a barely lit room. When read over on a later date one could find connections and coincidences that sometimes brought deeper insights into the meaning of life. Also, old ideas could be rekindled that otherwise may have been forgotten forever.
In the 21st century a strange new type of journal writing is becoming prevalent in contemporary society. Called Blogs, these are journals used by the masses. Why are people sharing their thoughts instead of keeping them private like the days of old? These journals are found on the World Wide Web and can be used for a number of purposes. The Web is a public sphere and human souls are realizing that sharing their ideas and beliefs can have that same epiphany type of effect on others as the old type of journal had on the personal writer. People are also feeling that they have an identity, and putting it on the Web is a great way of expressing themselves. Anyone can do it, and besides words, visuals can also be integrated into the journal, often making the Blogs very appealing to readers/ viewers.
Blogs are becoming an excellent way of sharing information on any and every subject. Instead of searching Google for general sites about surfing, or 60’s music, one can go straight to a Blog on the subject in question and read daily thoughts and ideas by others with the same interest as well as expert points of view. If you own a business, you can see what entrepreneurs already based in your proposed field feel about the industry. As it’s a journal structure, the reader can see how certain individual’s beliefs have changed over time.
As the world around us is constantly in transition, humans have always looked for better ways of living and growing as a species. The Information Age has helped our society in innumerable ways. On-line journals are becoming the next step in giving voice to every person who has access to a computer and the Net. As well as putting one’s identity ‘out there’ with the masses, people are hearing the inner workings of minds with similar interests. Blogs are a phenomenon helping to create a more interconnected, socially aware global community.
In the 21st century a strange new type of journal writing is becoming prevalent in contemporary society. Called Blogs, these are journals used by the masses. Why are people sharing their thoughts instead of keeping them private like the days of old? These journals are found on the World Wide Web and can be used for a number of purposes. The Web is a public sphere and human souls are realizing that sharing their ideas and beliefs can have that same epiphany type of effect on others as the old type of journal had on the personal writer. People are also feeling that they have an identity, and putting it on the Web is a great way of expressing themselves. Anyone can do it, and besides words, visuals can also be integrated into the journal, often making the Blogs very appealing to readers/ viewers.
Blogs are becoming an excellent way of sharing information on any and every subject. Instead of searching Google for general sites about surfing, or 60’s music, one can go straight to a Blog on the subject in question and read daily thoughts and ideas by others with the same interest as well as expert points of view. If you own a business, you can see what entrepreneurs already based in your proposed field feel about the industry. As it’s a journal structure, the reader can see how certain individual’s beliefs have changed over time.
As the world around us is constantly in transition, humans have always looked for better ways of living and growing as a species. The Information Age has helped our society in innumerable ways. On-line journals are becoming the next step in giving voice to every person who has access to a computer and the Net. As well as putting one’s identity ‘out there’ with the masses, people are hearing the inner workings of minds with similar interests. Blogs are a phenomenon helping to create a more interconnected, socially aware global community.
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