With more people getting high speed internet to surf the web on their laptop we are starting to see more competitors and therefore prices are coming down. You can compare broadband providers to be able to get the best deal and value. Some of things you need to keep in mind is that there is a difference in what many will call broadband. There is cable and DSL. We use cable as our provider offers faster download and upload speeds than we can get with DSL. Plus with DSL the speed and availability depends on your location to the central box for DSL. What is amazing is that overseas like in the UK Broadband is very inexpensive and more widely available than it is here in the US. The UK and other European countries were early adopters of high speed internet and the local governments were more aggressive in getting the infrastructure in place.
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
Surfing in high speed
upgrade your RAM
When I got my first computer I remember it was very simple if you wanted to upgrade your memory. There were only a few choices and it was simple procedure. Now with all the various types from DIMM to SIMM to parity and non-parity you need a little more technical knowledge if you attempt to upgrade your ram on your own you will find the best selection online. Thankfully there are sites like 4allmemory.com that making finding the right memory at some great prices. SO for those that are less technical but still want to crack open your PC to give it an extra boost you have help to find the right memory.
We recently bought a laptop and wanted to make sure we could run some of the latest graphic programs. We bought down in the processor and actually purchased additional memory. Our IBM memory was easy to install and it is amazing how compact everything is in the laptop. I am use to upgrading my PC, but with the laptop there is less room for error. Upgrading your laptop memory can be one of the best investments to improve performance without spending a fortune to upgrade your entire laptop.
Is your home wired
Many homes today are being wired to be able to access the internet from any location.Network cables like Cat5e cables are now a common part of any new home as they are wired to integrate not only PCs but home entertainment systems. With multimedia playing a major part in home entertainment systems having the right cables to run all the high tech gear is essential. Running your systems via cable vs. wireless has it’s advantages. Wireless is nice in that you reduce the amount of wires that you have to deal with, but it can run into problems with slower connections if you have conflicting signals within your home such as cordless phones or microwaves. Wired connections are the tried and true best way to optimize your speed and security.
One of the key things to consider when you purchase a new HDTV is where to place your new TV. Many will look to place them on the wall, or on a stand. With some of the larger versions it makes it difficult to have it blend into their decor. That is no longer an issue thanks to plasma lift devices that can help hide your new HDTV in a desk or other furniture. You can impress your friends and family with this unique solution that will give you back your wall space and allow you to enjoy the latest in technology.
Are in the market or considering the purchase of a plasma televisions . The market is finally becoming competitive and the prices are now within reach of a lot of consumers. Plasma TVs are the reason for Circuit City and Best Buy to have such great financial reporting s, as they stated that the sales are increasing, and contribute to their bottom line.
As more people look to invest in a new TV, there are a lot of choices and the terminology can be quite extensive. You can check out Plasma Television.org for a great resource on how to sort through different selections and questions to ask. Make sure that you look at tv stands because most people will not hang the TV on their wall and having the right stand will make a huge difference in your home. Do not rely solely on the person at the electronic store to help in your decision.
With the mad rush for PS3 , Wii, and Xbox we have already seen some retailers take precautions to limit the madness that is sure to breakout. IN this weeks ads, most stores are doing a lottery type system, where they are handing out tickets starting at 6 AM the morning of. While the hype around PS3 has been somewhat lacking, it is sure to be the thing to have this Christmas. Plus many will be upgrading their TV to showcase their new graphic games in their big screen samsung 50 inch LCD.I remember growing up and the game system to have was the Atari system. Complete with Missle Command, Asteroids, and Space Invaders. My how have things have changed to think of spending over $500 for a gaming system is hard to think of.
I can’t remember my parents waiting in long lines to get the Atari and Asteroids for Christmas. Although now you can get them for under $20, and all the games come packaged in a the actual joystick that attached to your TV. My Kids get a kick out of playing those games, which include Pole Position. I hope that when my kids get a little older that theses systems, do come down in price. After all, they haven’t seen the awesome graphics of the Nintendo 64 yet.
FedEx was noted in case study where they partnered with some of their IT vendors to provide solutions for their package tracking and service centers. The result was a $100,000 dollars in savings per day, and shaving at least one day of some their shipments in some of their shipping lanes. As they were looking to implement a more sophisticated Tracking management system, they were having problems with their vendor. The technology would move FedEx from a two-tiered client/server application to mulit-tiered web based platform. What they found that it would benefit everyone involved if all their IT vendors were channeled through one source enabling better communication and better understanding of business crititcal needs.Â
Acorn Systems , makers of IT value management software, enables meaningful and sustained profit improvement by providing continuous enterprise-wide visibility into business performance. Our solutions enable you to confidently measure, optimize and predict costs, net operating profits, EVA, capacity and resources at any level of granularity such as by customer, supplier, product, facility, transaction and more. At Acorn Systems they help to provide resources and solutions that will interface with your current systems to start impacting bottom line profit.
There are millions of people that enjoy their favorite tunes through their iPods. The device that has revolutionized the way that people listen to their music has set the bar for others to follow. One of the key challenges with the iPod is that once the battery no longer keeps its charge you are typically forced to one of two options. Send it back to Apple to have them change it out or replace your iPod with another refurbished model. Well for those that are not afraid to do it yourself Ipodjuice now offers three ways to install ipod battery easily and very cost effective. You can go to their site and they offer a kit that allows you to change out the battery yourself which comes with a 10 year warranty. Or you can send it to them for a small fee and they will do it all for you. You will save time and money in the process. They provide clear and concise directions and superior customer service. They offer replacement batteries for most of the iPod and video iPods and even the latest iPhone models for as little as $20. So those that use their iPhones everyday and are afraid of being left with a dead battery you can now order your replacement battery and have a spare.
charge your battery
We recently had the misfortune of having our car battery go dead on us. This is always a hassle as you need to find some willing sole to help you jump start your car. So we found a passerby and they pulled out their jumper cables only to find that they were basically useless since the teeth on the cables were all but gone. Luckily we were able to get enough spark and get our car started.
Keep in mind to keep your battery fresh, always make sure that your dome light is off, there are no accesories plugged into your lighters and make sure to keep your battery posts clean.
Choosing an LCD TV
The debate between which technology for High definition TV continues. Should you choose plasma or LCD TV? The pictures on both are exceptional and really depends on the users set up and preference. There are some advantages to the LCD technology that make it some what attractive. That would be the life of the actual picture, truer blacks, and less chance of burn in. You can find horror stories all over the internet where people left a static image on their plasma screens and they had the image burned into the screen. Whichever technology you choose do not cut corners on the cables. Buying the right HDMI cable can make a huge difference in the picture quality. Do not just hook up your new HD TV with a standard RCA or even S-Video cable. You will not like what you see. Also, remember to do your research online as the cables sold in the store are going to cost more.
In todays world of online marketing their are several channels in which to communicate with the customer. There are paid to click ads, banner ads, blogs, and of course email. Email for marketers has become a tool that when used correctly can reap huge rewards when targeted at the right people. Permission based marketing is the key to using email campaigns since the enactment of the CAN-SPAM act. With this you have the customer agree to have you send them periodic updates about your products or services. Many companies now use the double opt-in method to assure they are in compliance with state and federal laws.
Todays email marketing software can be a huge help to companies that are using email as one form of communication to their customers. They can help you prevent duplication, track open and read trends, bounce rates, and click through rates. This is important to any marketer or company to have valuable data to see of your branding or messaging is having an impact. If you have a free trial offer that you email your customers you can find out how many people opened the email and then clicked on the link to find out more information. This data is helpful in future email campaigns to better target those customers who may show more interest in future offers. At ViperMailer.com they offer over 70 professional templates for those smaller companies to get started. Their prices start at only $19.95 per month to handle a 1000 email addresses. They even offer a free 30 day trial to test the system out.
Seamless integration
Companies are finding that using tools to communicate can be a complicated process especially medium to large companies that have various functions and responsibilities. In some cases different brand teams along with legal, quality control and other need to communicate with the same customer but since their is no integration they communicate on their own. This can sometimes lead to mixed messages to both internal and external customers. In order to improve work flow while maintaining on time delivery of critical messages cross collaboration is essential. No matter what type of communication company chooses to use they must make sure that those responsible have a clear vision and understand what other functions in the organization may be doing as well.
For many companies that use various forms of communication both externally and internally through forms such as websites, emails, polls,blogs, and RSS content management is a critical success factor. Especially if you are asking each brand team or department to be responsible for their own communications. What most organizations need but lack not matter the size is the ability to share, create, and manage various forms of communication seamlessly across different departments. The BoxesOS Content Management Component from epazz will enable employees with little technical knowledge to create web pages without needing to know the complicated world of HTML.
You can sign up for a risk free 30 day trial to understand the power of BoxesOS.
Creating your eCommerce
My online experience started with selling odds and ends on eBay. It seemed like a good way to make some extra money, and so many people were doing it. After a while I started to look at what my actual costs were including time to package, mail, and list items. Was it worth the cost? So I decided there had to be a better way, and I came across a friend who asked if I had tried using a Dropshipper. ( For those unfamiliar with this, it is where a company houses and then ships the goods to your customers. Your customer makes a purchase through you. You then turnaround and place the order with the Dropshipper, and they ship out on your behalf)
WOW! To have no inventory cost, someone else to package and send the goods with your name on it, what could be better?
As I found out there were hundreds of dropshippers, and they all had different policies, so I narrowed the list down.
Now that I had these dropshippers with literally thousands of products, how can I list them, and get them sold. eBay was not option, because every item would cost me a listing fee. So I found similar sites, with good traffic, that did not charge a listing fee, but charged on the actual sale.
Here are two of the ones I use:
iOffer
Live Deal
As my story continues: I was looking for drop shippers (these are companies that will stock the products and then ship to your customers, for a small fee) to help in my online business. I was able to come across Free Store Club. They are actually a business opportunity to have your own online store for free, and then you get a chance to earn additional dollars, if you give away free stores, and those members upgrade. You can also purchase the items at the wholesale costs and resell them. Not a bad way to get started! I signed up for free and listed some of the items, on iOffer, and sold some. Had them shipped and made a little bit of money. Then as I was trying to upload inventory every other week, I thought it would be great if I could just get people to my Rogers eMall store. Then they could see the entire inventory, they would make the purchase, and then I would get paid on the difference between the wholesale cost, and the cost I had listed on my site. The question was how do you get traffic and visibility without spending a lot of money initially? Plus how can I create a secure payment gateway for my customer to pay that was cost effective and secure. Stay tuned for how I found the Traffic Exchange and Banner Exchange business, and actually started my own.
Here are some simple tips to create your own brand and store:
Create your website
Go out and secure a domain name for your store or business and get your own hosting account. There are lots of hosting companies out to choose from so shop around and look for ones that have some high ratings and that offer eCommerce support.
A web designer
There are professional designers who will gladly charge you thousands to build your site from scratch. For most new business owners this is not an option. You may not need the flash animation and fancy graphics. The plus is that most web designers can help you optimize your site for search engines which is another critical piece since most people will use search engines to find products that you may be selling.
Online Site Builder
An online site builder is the budget way to go. With site builder programs such as Site Studio, your website can be online within minutes. A step-by-step menu allows you to choose a layout and colors, and then add a site description, a logo, and content. Your template may not be unique, but your content will.
Now it’s time to Set up an e-commerce store
When your customers find your site and your products they are going to want a way to easily make a purchase. When you set up an e-commerce shopping cart, you’re providing a way for your customers to bring their purchases to the cash register. There are many vendors and choices depending on the size and nature of your inventory.
osCommerce and Miva Merchant, are well know shopping carts and offer some of these features:
They allow you to add, delete products categories and information easily with an integrated database
Receive payment via numerous online and offline payment processing methods which is key to success since only limiting your customer to one payment type may cause them to shop elsewhere.osCommerce is an open source program. Store owners can set up their online stores using osCommerce with no costs involved. For small stores, it has all the features you need for an online store. Drawbacks of osCommerce are that customization is not easy, and online stores using osCommerce tend to look similar.
Step 3: Get a merchant account and payment gateway
When customers arrive at the checkout counter, you need a way for their payments to be transferred from their credit card accounts to your bank account. The method you choose may depend on your sales volume.
For high-volume sales, an e-commerce merchant account plus a payment gateway will meet your needs. A merchant account provider authorizes the transfer of payments to your account, and a payment gateway transfers the information from your customers’ financial institutions to yours.
Here you will want to compare the merchants closely as their fees will vary significantly depending on your average sales volume and content you are selling. At companies like First Data they offer free software, and free services like gateway pages,shopping cart setup, and merchant account setup. Plus they can work in both your online business as well as your off line store.
Fore more details about these options, see WebSite Source Hosting Solutions: E-Commerce.
How to create a secure payment environment
A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate enables you to receive credit card information securely from your customers. When a payment page is using SSL data to encrypt data, a small image of a lock appears at the bottom right of the screen.
Many web hosting companies offer this as part of the eCommerce package so be sure to check this feature out when shopping for a provider.
Step 5: Generate traffic
This can be done through Pay Per Click advertising, link exchanges, and blogging.
Free audio books
I travel with my current role and I am always being asked to read up on various management topics. I don’t have the patience to sit and read so audio books have been great. Now there is a site where you can get  free audio books to download. The site offers a variety of topics which is nice to be able to download and burn to CD and then pop in my car when I have a few hours of windshield time.
Backup online
These days everyone is storing pictures, music, videos and important documents on their PC. Most of have the latest virus protection software, and firewall to help lessen the chance that our PC can become affected with the latest virus. The other potential that is difficult to protect against is system failure such as your hard drive crashing. To help prevent your Hard drive from crashing here are some simple things to keep in mind. Over heating is one of the major contributors to systems failures. You should clean and check your cooling system fan as well as the fan on your power supply. Allow your PC and hard drive to cool off every once in a while by shutting down your PC every once in a while. With high speed internet most people will leave the computers 24 hours a day. You can invest in a software program that will monitor the vital signs of your PC and alert you in the event of potential overheating.
You can never backup to much and make sure that you backup regularly to make sure that you have the most current data. You can use backup devices such as CD/DVD, or even external hard drives, but the key is to be able to synch up your data and be able to only create the new files and not just re-save everything on your hard drive.
For those of us who keep everything on out PC’s from pictures to movies to important documents having a solid backup is essential to avert any losses. IDrive-E Online Backup is a leading consumer online backup service that offers a wide range of features and their basic plan which includes up to 2gb of data is free.You can upgrade to the Pro version for only $4.95 per month which includes unlimited space.
Power supply repair
We recently had a PC stop working and took it into a local shop. They diagnosed the problem and found that we had a semi-functioning power supply. We called around for shops that could do power supply repair and were surprised that it was a simple fix. The fuse had just gone bad and it was not something that the consumer could fix. It ended up saving us about $99.
The Second Life
Virutal worlds are taking on a life of their own with the huge success of Second life. Second life is a virtual world community where the residents own and make their own world. This has started to catch the eye of many marketers out there as they look for new ways to capture the eye of the internet surfer. One of the companies who has created a great SLurl (Second Life portal) is AskPatty.com. This is a website that is dedicated to helping the female consumer becoming more knowledgeable when it comes to topics like purchasing a vehicle, maintenance, and alternate fuel sources. AskPatty’s Second Life Page is filled with great avatars and you can really get lost in time when you visit their portal. They have created way to engage their readers and customers to help them understand the automotive world and provide a interactive forum that is sure to attract attention from other prospective advertisers.
Teleport to AskPatty in Second life and check the current contest for a $50K automotive shopping spree. You can see the unique graphics of spark plugs being used throughout the SL portal. They use the various themes to help educate the visitor on e85 which is an alternate fuel source. They call the VW Pontiac’s Motorati Island which also sports a cappuccino bar and fresh baked cookies. Now only if they are able to incorporate the other senses like smell when you are online we may never have to leave the house.
Power Linx
Consumers now have some great new tools to enhance their audio and visual equipment. For years there has been a push to make your PC the central media solution to play your music, control your TV and enhance your video. For some the media centers can be quite expensive and the house may not be wired correctly to accept CAT 5 wiring. The wireless age has helped to break down some of these barrier and now there are some new products coming onto the market that combine the sophistication of high end sound while using your existing electrical wiring already found in your walls.
PowerLinx Announces Groundbreaking New Audio and Video Products for 2007.
There are four products that are being launched to consumers and small businesses. The first one is Tune Dog(TM), which allows consumers to send music wirelessly to any room in their home from their iPod, MP3 player or PC using your existing electrical wire. This is great for those that do not wish to string cable or have multiple routers. Another product that allows you to set up Surround sound through your existing electrical wiring is the Rear Speaker Surround Sound Installation Kit(TM). If you live in a home where you just purchased that new HD TV and want to enjoy the full effect having surround sound is a must. For most of us tearing holes in our walls to run the speaker wire is not an ideal solution. The third product that takes advantage of your existing electrical wiring is the IP Netcam. Now you can set up streaming video from 6 individual cameras around your home or business.
LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.
Cell phone gadgets
Everyone seems to have a cell phone these days. So staying connected is very easy in this day and age. With the ability to text, instant message through cell phones we have created a whole other language it seems. Many teens and young adults want to stay up on the latest technology for their phones but sometimes find themselves locked into a lengthy contract with their service provider. Unlocked phones provide a means by which you can upgrade your phone and not pay penalties to your carrier for switching equipment. The way that this works is that you just transfer your sim chip from your existing phone to your new phone. You do need to make sure that the new phone is compatible with your carriers network which in most cases all phones will work across a broad range of carrier networks.
For the latest unlocked phones and cell phone accessories you can visit Cellular-Blowout.com where they offer a great selection of phones like the latest MotoKrzr. They offer over 300 cell phone models and over 17, 000 accessories. You can even find accessories for your iPod. The site is laid out so that you can easily find the phone or accessory you may be looking for. So whether you are looking for the latest Motorola phone, wireless headset, or face plate for your cell phone you will find what you need at Cellular-blowout.com. For those that are in the market for a new cell phone or bluetooth accessory you can get $5 off your next purchase by using this shopping code cbx05.