Awesome Video About The Shifts and Changes in Technology
“Facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology”
Jul 282011
Google+ vs Facebook
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Jul 202011
Welcome to the Social Media Network War
Move over Facebook, Google+ is here! Or not? What are your thoughts about what impact Google+ will have on the use of Facebook? Do you feel like you are caught in the middle of the battle of the social networks? Well, we are 
Take a look at the video below from Rooster Teeth – it is too funny not to share! Enjoy!
Jan 202011
A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words
For small business owners, this statement is true and lends support to the power of video in promoting their brand. However, when it comes to those with less stellar intentions, it can be quite dangerous.
Fox News reports in Digital Photos Hide Data — and Cyberstalkers Can Find It, Expert Warns: "… few people realize they may be giving away more than they plan to when they post even the most innocuous photos from their Blackberry phones or Apple iPhones." Through the use of geotags (a GPS stamp), criminals and stalkers are able to track the exact location a person is in when they take and post a photo.
Luckily, there is a way to protect yourself from this tracking as long as you are aware of it. This geotagging functionality is easily disabled and in my opinion, is something everyone needs to know, especially the young people today who post many photos on Facebook directly. How scary is it that our children can inadvertently disclose not only where they hang out but also where they live?
The ICanStalkU.com website has details on how to disable geotagging. PLEASE share this information with everyone you know who uses their smart phones to upload pictures – especially the young people – our children! My daughter posted the Fox article on her FB page – thank you Alexandra. Let's help keep others safe by sharing…
Sep 252010
WordPress is a wonderful platform for both websites and blogs. It offers tremendous functionality in general and even more functionality via plugins. You can do all sorts of neat things with plugins that unless you have technical abilities, you wouldn't normally be able to do.
HOWEVER, just like with medication you take to cure one ailment that has side effects, sometimes WordPress plugins have side effects too. The difference is that they don't come with warning labels and usually these side effects have nothing to do with their intended function.
The worst part is there are no warnings or clues that the issue(s) you are having with your site has anything to do with a plugin. So when something on your site starts acting funky, you go through all sorts of calisthenics and put on your investigator hat to comb through the support threads in the hopes of finding someone else who has experienced the same strange WordPress glitches. My image alt tags were showing up on my post content!
This is what happened to me today – a day that I had limited time anyway because I had to leave the house at 4:30. You would think that as I have been visited by the plugin monster several times before, that it might have occurred to me to consider his presence as a cause for my problem, but alas I didn't.
So I racked my brain, the Internet, my friends "ears" via emails (thanks SO much to Sherryl and Angie), pulled my hair out, threatened my computer that I would throw it out the window and actually raised my voice to my teeny tiny toy poodle because she was whining. NOTHING made sense and nothing was working!
I decided to delete all my alt tags knowing it would have a negative impact on my SEO but my choice was either that or have my web page look crappy. I wasn't a happy camper.
On my way to my friend's house, I had an epiphany or what I like to refer to as one of my "Duh" moments! The WORDPRESS PLUGIN MONSTER was back. Naturally, I was in the car and not at my computer so there was no way I could check out my theory. Normally when one suggests that perhaps a plugin is the cause of bizarre WordPress behavior, they also suggest that you de-activate each plugin one by one which is a real pain - especially if you have tons of plugins. I was fortunate that I actually remembered having added a Facebook Follow plugin late last night. I knew immediately that this plugin was the culprit because my site looked fine right before I added the plugin. I looked to a few of my helpful and wonderful friends I made networking (a plug for networking and probably my next post) for their feedback on my new site. I couldn't understand why they were seeing words written over words near my images when I had just checked the site and it was fine. When I looked back at the site after their responses, sure enough - I saw it too.
It would have saved me a lot of time and frustration had I thought of this prior to spending hours scratching my head and threatening my computer.
If your WordPress site starts acting in totally unpredictable ways, you might have been attacked by the big bad plugin monster. Save yourself time and check your plugins first.
Jul 142010
A few days ago I noticed that my Feedburner feed was not updating so I began the long, confusing journey to find out why and fix it.
Easier said than done. On my journey, I discovered from the Troubleshooting option at Feedburner.com that there was a problem with my original feed at Feedburner that I needed to fix in addition to a 404 error. Of course, the exact "problem" of my original feed was not disclosed. So I decided to paste this original URL in a browser and was quite perplexed by what I found. My original feed URL was automatically redirecting to another site that was not mine. How did I know it wasn't mine? It was in Chinese and I don't speak Chinese. I found it even more perplexing that the URL of this redirected feed was MY URL yet the feed was obviously not mine.
I continued on my journey by trying to determine exactly where this problem originated from. Was it my web server? No, they said it was not. Was it WordPress? I have no idea because I didn't get any response to my posting on their forum. Was it Feedburner? Again, I have no idea because no one answered me on that forum either. It was somewhat comforting to read that others have had similar problems (although I didn't read about anyone else's feed linking to a Chinese blog). WordPress did indeed have postings from others with the same issue that were resolved usually by uninstalling a plugin which was causing the problem. But, alas, I wasn't using any of the same plugins that seemed to be the culprit for others. However, I did follow their suggestions and uninstalled each of my plugins to see if perhaps they were causing my issues. They weren't.
Tonight I decided to try again to see if anything made sense. To my pleasant surprise, my original feed URL was no longer redirecting to the Chinese blog. As I did absolutely nothing since the last time I checked, perhaps this was some sort of divine intervention? Who knows, I am just grateful that I don't have to learn Chinese.
I read through many more forums, tried to ping my feed several times, uninstalled and reinstalled my plugins yet again and still nothing. As there was nothing else I could think of trying, I went back to work. Several hours later, I decided to give it another try. I repinged with success. I confirmed that the redirection to the Chinese blog was still gone and tried unsuccessfully again to resync my feed. I received the same error message I have been receiving all along with the resync option in Feedburner.
Just for the heck of it, I checked out both my original and my feed URL and guess what? Both feeds are now updated even though I am still getting the error message when trying to resync.
I have absolutely no idea why my feeds are all of a sudden working and can't help but wonder what I might find tomorrow.
The morale of the story? Beats me but maybe I should consider calling Ghost Busters as there are times I am convinced there is a Poltergeist living inside my computer!
Jul 032010
Adam Kreitman is my technical angel. I don't know Adam. I have never met Adam. Adam doesn't know me. Yet he is still my angel. Why?
Because Adam has technical knowledge and experience I don't have and Adam just so happened to have had the same problem I was having with Internet Explorer and WordPress. Adam figured out why our sidebars were not showing up on the home page in Internet Explorer only…. AND the best part? Adam wrote a blog post about it sharing his experience, knowledge and his fix.
Adam is my technical angel.
Thank you Adam
Jun 252010
Social networking works. Period! If you participate in social networking groups you will benefit in one way or another. If you are engaging with others in your industry, networking sites like Linkedin are a great source of idea sharing and learning.
Connections you make might not always immediately lead to increasing your bottom line, but the knowledge you can gain is invaluable. The relationships you make on social networking sites can and will lead to referrals. People like to do business with people they know and trust.
The more people you know, the more likely you will be referred to potential customers. It is not always easy to keep up with all the networking opportunities and discussions going on so we have to be selective and use our time wisely. When something pops up that attracts our attention, we should jump into the conversation and participate.
One such conversation about web hosts was started recently on Linkedin. I have been having "issues" with my web host and was very grateful for the opinions and suggestions offered to me and others on this particular post. The conversation was so insightful and valuable that it inspired Sherryl Perry, who started the conversation, to write a very helpful blog post for anyone who is interested in what things they should consider when choosing a web host. Read Is Website Hosting More than Just a Server? for some great insights to what things you should consider before choosing or moving to another website host.
Jun 212010
Our dogs know the true meaning of unconditional love even if they don’t have any sense of timing – which is actually a nice thing. When you go out to get the mail and come in two seconds later, your pup is so incredibly excited to see you – right? I often wonder HOW we “know” that dogs have no sense of timing. The dog experts say that this theory has been tested. I can’t help but wonder what types of measurements were used and that perhaps those “in the know” are pet owners who don’t want to feel guilty about leaving their dogs alone all day when they go to work.
For those small business owners who are not techno-savvy, there are two “best friends” available to them that are real life savers. One is that wonderful, amazing, couldn’t-live-without “UNDO” button! What would we do without this awesome invention? Bless whoever invented it!
The other wonderful best friend for small business owners who use WordPress is the plugin. There are plugins for almost anything and everything imaginable. When in doubt on how to do something on your WordPress blog or website, do a search for a plugin and you will probably be pleasantly surprised. Not only does WordPress offer these “technical solutions for dummies”, it also rates and describes them for you. Use caution, however, because just like everything else in life, not all plugins are created equal and just because something shows up in your search, doesn’t mean it will work or work properly. See how many stars the plugin has and if necessary, you can even do a Google search to find reviews on the plugin.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an “undo” button and a WordPress plugin for other parts of our lives that do not include the computer? Failed a test? UNDO! Hit a car in the parking lot? UNDO! Want your teenager to learn to live responsibly, be accountable for his/her own actions and show respect? Search for “responsible teenager” in your WordPress add new plugin search field. It is ok to dream……………….
Apr 222010
What are footprints? They are marks or impressions of someone's foot - right?
What does a footprint mean? It means that the owner of that foot was in the place where the print was left.
What does this have to do with marketing? The answer is EVERYTHING.
If you are a small business owner, your footprint is your brand. You want to give your brand as much exposure as possible and you can do this by leaving your footprint wherever you go both on and off the Internet. If you attend a business networking or social event, your footprint is usually your business card. On the web, your footprint is the comment you leave on someone's blog or article. It can be your participation in conversations on industry forums.
The more places you leave your footprint, the more name recognition you will get, the more connections you will make, and the more you will be building your expertise on the subject you are commenting on which will help to identify you as your industry expert. Miles Austin in Footprints in the Sand shares some great insights and differentiates between lurkers and those who leave their footprints behind. Which one are you?
Mar 282010
Do you have a relatively common name? If so, have you ever checked to see what your other namesakes are doing on the web?
With information so readily available about anything to everyone, it is conceivable that you might be confused with someone else who has the same name.
Just for the fun of it, Google your name in quotes and see what pops up. What can you do if there are many of "you" on the Internet to differentiate you and your brand?
Judy Dunn in Google Said I Died: Will That Be Bad for Business? shares her ideas in a really funny post about her own experience. Can you imagine hearing from Google that you are dead?
