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July 2009

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Mobile

As many of you know, I've been an avid iPhone user for sometime.  I got one in December of 2007 when I destroyed my Treo, yes destroyed.  Well just recently, Tuesday of last week, my fiancee and I switched from AT&T and the iPhone over to Verizon Wireless and the BlackBerry.  I have BlackBerry Pearl Flip and Emily got the new BlackBerry Tour (its very shiny). We made the decision to switch carriers because AT&T has poor coverage, I could not even go in the basement of my house without losing 100% of my signal.  No, I do not live in an iron fortress, I sold that last year.  Anyway, we did quite a bit of research on which carrier was the best in terms of coverage, customer service and price.  Verizon came on top of them all, so we then

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Web Design

So you want to put some photos on your web site, good idea, and I reccomend it to anyone who has photos of their product or service being performed or used, photos of the staff and company events.  Placing poor quality or simply bad pictures can make your organization look cheesy and unprofessional. Here's some tips though: Avoid using photos with a automatic time/date stamp from your digital camera Make sure the lighting is right Touch up the photos first, remove red eye Do not use scanned photos Make sure you have authorization from the folks in the photo, since your web site is an advertisement some people may not want to be listed, even if they frequent your business.  This is especially true for minors. Do not use multiple variations of the same shot Don't use too many or too few photos, you're better off having lesser

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Internet Advertising

You may be noticing more Microsoft AdCenter advertisements, offers, e-mails and even discounts through your Registrar now with Microsoft AdCenter.  Most people don't realize what Microsoft AdCenter is.  Microsoft AdCenter is essentially their all encompassing ad management service, it displays ads on all their outlets (mainly MSNBC, Bing and Live Today, etc).  Is it worth advertising on, if you have a large online budget, sure.  If you don't have a large online budget, then you should probably skip it entirely.  Microsoft has such a small online market share that its really not worth spending your money on.  I've never been a huge fan of pay per click (PPC) advertising, because unless you have thousands to chuck at it every month its a real gamble.  That is not to say that spending $100 per month Google AdWords is a waste of

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Site Launches

Today we launched The Grape Life's new web site.  Check them out at http://www.mygrapelife.com. With their new site we added a Content Management System (CMS), Blog, Calendar of Events, Photo Gallery with Slide Shows and a Newsletter Blaster. The Grape Life is a wine store and lounge in Davenport, IA located on Kimberly Road next to Panera Bread in front of Miller Time Billiards and Bowling.  It's a great place to chill out after a long day at work or to just stop in and pick up a bottle of wine.  Be sure to tell Jim and Nancy that Total Tech sent ya!

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Mobile

Yes, its true, Google is finally going to announce their development of an open source operating system.  Initially the new operating system, which is based on their Chrome browser, will be built for NetBooks.  This new operating system will be available in the latter half of 2010.    Google's core focuses will be speed and security.  Google takes aim at Microsoft, how awesome! Google's new "Chrome Based" operating system is actually based on a Linux kernel, this OS will be all about the web.  As it says in Google's online Chrome comic book (yes, they have one), the first browsers weren't created for all these new technologies and ways people are using this technology such as playing games online, chatting, uploading pictures, videos, web cam interaction, etc.  They were simply constructed as HTML browsers. Personally, I like Google Chrome, but I still use

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Company News

Yes, I'm writing a blog article on blogs.  I get this question a lot, what is blog? Why do I need one?  If you've been following me long enough here you know that my articles in the scope of small businesses and small business owners.  So, this article follows suit.  A blog is great place to give your company or brand a culture, some personality and let people get to know you in ways they normally wouldn't.  Why is this important?  People are curious, and it builds trust, and it also further places you as an expert in your field. You can use your blog to vent your thoughts on your industry or market, provide tips and tidbits of knowledge to your avid readers, list promotions and new products or services. I love writing my blog, I slacked off for a bit,

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Search Engine Optimization

OK, so I'm sure you've heard of Microsoft's Bing by now.  Bing is the replacement for Live Search which was the replacement for MSN Search.  So essentially is the 3G of Microsoft Search Engines.  Microsoft did not change the way that Bing acquires data/information from the web site it crawls (or scans).  So they're not really gaining better data or sites, unlike Google who is constantly changing and improving their search techniques.  Instead Microsoft just overhauled the user interface adding a lot of little whizz bang features and made it look a lot prettier than Google.  Naturally Microsoft is trying to themselves apart from Google, they're doing this by touting Bing as a decision engine instead of a search engine.  I've used it and personally I'm not impressed.  So, you don't need to worry about re-wording your copy and updating

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Web Design

Lately we've really been picking up steam, and it seems to be because of the economic downturn.  Times like this in our economy force us to re-examine ourselves and take a closer look at where our dollars are going.  In this day in age businesses and people are always trying to find the most efficient ways to communicate with their clientele.  Now with Text Messaging, E-mail Newsletters, Blogs, Direct Mail, Commercials, FaceBook, Twitter, etc.  There is an endless stream of communication to tap into, the advertising people call this the media or marketing mix.  Take a look at your business, but more importantly take a look at your clients, what do they expect?  What do they use?  What do they want?  What is your competition doing?  Are you still current and relevant to your customers like you once were?  Maybe

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