Finally a Collaboration Solution for SMBs
Posted on 18. Sep, 2009 by search_junkie.
I was introduced to a fantastic SaaS solution for online collaboration today. The service is called OpenACircle. It is targeted towards small and medium sized businesses but it is so robust that I fell it would be great for large firms as well.The solution is from Dallas based VUELIVE, a video technology company.
The idea is that you can invite up to 50 people, I believe, to join your circle. And from within your circle you can video conference, chat, share files, and collaborate virtually. With today’s workforce becoming increasingly virtual, mobility and collaboration are crucial. You hold your meetings in the “Live Room” where you can stream live video of each other, desktop share, audio, IM chat, and take notes all from within a dedicated meeting environment!
A well laid out dashboard holds all of you data, meetings, messages, and connections making it easy to keep track of everything. The dashboard also has a calendar and a status feature that allows you to let your circle be aware of exactly what you are working on at the moment. I think that this would be a great feature for teams of programmers or developers that are all working on the same project at the same time. In this type of situation it is typically easy to overwrite each others work or just not be in sync, causing projects to take much longer than they should. But a service like this would eliminate those issues.
And there is a “Library” area that houses all of your documents, articles, meeting notes, images, etc. Basically all of your files can be housed here like a virtual network drive. You can create custom folders and even a personal vault that is secured. The library feature alone makes this service totally worth it!
Go ahead and give it a try, I have a feeling that you will fall in love with OpenACircle.
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Runs Like Clockwork Server Monitoring
Posted on 11. Sep, 2009 by search_junkie.
If you run a server and you host domains then you have to know about server monitoring and that is one of your most powerful tools. Up time is of huge importance to site owners and most hosting companies boast about their 99.99% up times. This means that you have to work hard to maintain your servers.
But you can’t be constantly watching them, and this is where server monitoring comes in handy. Runs Like Clockwork is a company that offers a service that checks that actual html content of a website rather than just the server headers. This way you can make sure that you will never ever have the wrong site running on a client’s domain! And check out their Server monitoring price plans. After all, this type of assurance does come with at least some sort of price. It’s worth it as I guarantee you will sleep better at night. The service will even send you a message to your cell phone via SMS letting you know if a site goes down and also letting you know when it goes back up.
So do yourself and your clients a favor, get server monitoring up. Both you and your clients will sleep better at night.
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Code Validation Not a Big Deal
Posted on 09. Sep, 2009 by search_junkie.
Finally, someone has come out and said it. Code validation is a bloated waste of time and does not get you better search engine rankings. I think that Aaron Wall of SEObook.com put it best when he said,
If you are a web designer (and/or want links from pretentious web designers) then validation is a great idea…it is core to the group circle-jerk amongst cool web designers. But for everyone else, it generally doesn’t matter.
It’s basically a way for Web designers and developers to be able to justify higher costs. In fact there are studies showing that having valid code will not necessarily equate to better search engine rankings. A test by a Google engineer named Ian Hickson, in September 2006, across billions of web pages showed that 93% of the pages did not use valid code.
The idea is to get webmasters to stop wasting time and resources on validating code and instead put those resources into real traffic generating efforts like link building, paid search, or even an online contest! Makes sense to me. Anyone out there have an argument against that?
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Picturesque New York City
Posted on 14. Aug, 2009 by search_junkie.
I recently had a trip to New York, and I am embarrassed to say it was my first time ever in the Big Apple! My friends have been telling me about how great a city New York is, and to be honest I could not understand why. I mean sure its a mega city with a ton of history and entertainment. But I have been to many other big cities so I figured that NYC would be just like them. An urban jungle on steroids if you will. Plus I had preconceived notions on how the people were going to be, rude and difficult to understand, even though everyone I know said that new yorkers were actually pretty cool.
Well all of my preconceived notions flew out the door as soon as I landed. People were funny and helpful. And the town just exuded a certain vibe that is hard to explain. It was electric. In a span of about 30 minutes I was able to absorb this vibe and truly understand what people were talking about.
Only one problem, I neglected to pack my camera. So there I was in one of the most picturesque cities in the world with no camera. I went into hunter mode, thinking to myself where would be the best place to buy digital cameras in New York? Fortunately I stumbled across a place called 42nd Street Photo. They had a fantastic selection. Jackpot! I thought to myself after first taking in the scene inside the store, this is going to cost me. But the prices were actually good.
So I was finally armed with everything I needed. A new camera to take in the sites. And a new attitude about New York. I hope that you too will someday get to experience this great city, do not pass up on the opportunity if it arises.
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Flattery Will Get You a Long Way
Posted on 11. Aug, 2009 by search_junkie.
If you want to score big points with a client, play to their egos. Now when it comes to REALLY large clients that provide tons of value you need to step it up to another level. In order to pull this off, on either a big level or even a small one, you must pay attention to what the client tells you in casual conversations. And if you are not having casual conversations with your clients on things other than work then you are not building the relationship properly.
Case in point, a very large client of mine always talks about watches. So he must really like watches I said to myself. Knowing this I made a point of studying a little bit about watches and the current trends in the high end watch niche. In doing so I discovered that tag heuer watches were very classy, well made, and had a great reputation. I ended up sending the watch you see to the right here as a thank you for doing business with me. Needless to say the client was extremely impressed and caught off guard by my kindness. Then I followed that up with a tasteful letter asking if he would be a reference for me and if he could refer anyone he knew to me.
It turns out that I have made a profit 150 times what I spent on that watch with all of the great references and referrals he has sent me. The lesson to learn here is that sending gifts to good clients is definitely worth the investment!
