Internet Marketing Tips and Freebies

This weeks blog is a bit of a change from my usual tech tips.  If you read this blog regularly, you know I am a big fan of a blog called Urban Garden Casual and an Urban Gardner myself.  This weeks Urban Garden Causal had a blog written By Cindy Naas about Edible playgrounds.

What is Edible Playgrounds? It is a all about teaching kids to grow and cook their own foods.  They have sow it, grow it, eat it projects.

They are involved in an ongoing movement to bring urban gardening to schoolyards everywhere all across the UK. 

An awesome concept that we here in the US should embrace.

It is sponsored by Dorset Cereals ( a UK brand of healthy breakfast cereal) and there is a fun and inventive site called Edible Playgrounds.  The site offers monthly garden activities that include protecting your beds for the winter, what crops can be planted now as well as pictures of edible playgrounds and fun activities for children like how to make Christmas Tag stamps from potatoes and win an apple tree contest.

If you are a gardening fan you owe it to yourself to spend some time at this site and poke around.  Great tips for getting your kids involved in gardening even if it is not in your local school yard but you own back yard! 

I grow my urban garden in containers on the deck of my condo. 

The site is great and even includes a page dedicated to ideas for projects using the cereal box and each box gives kids a mission to make something. Below is a screen capture of the page(it is animated and worth visiting just to check out the animation).

When was the last time you updated real player, quick time, media player, java run time or Adobe Flash Player?

These third party programs if not updated contain vulnerabilities that could leave your system open to hacker attacks and contain security threats that exploit software vulnerabilities and code flaws.

The Security patches for these programs are usually free and available for download from the program vendors. Visiting each vendor and downloading the latest patches could take some time and who had extra time to spend doing this.

I have a solution that will scan your computer for needed updates and provide the links for you to update the programs.

Secunia offers some free ware to scan your system and tell you what programs need updating and provides the links to the programs to make keeping your system security in top-notch condition. It is a great little program and worth checking out.

I was amazed to find out that I had several old programs on my computer that needed patching and uninstalling!

You can download Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) 1.0 from downloads.com. It is Freeware and it is really easy to install and use.

If you want to check it out first, they have an online version that also works great! Find it here Secunia Online Software Inspector.

If you want to get it for your company network, they have a network version called Network Software Inspector (NSI) 2.0 This is not free cost is $30.00 per host seat (the host seat is the number of computers on the network). So, scan your computer today and download and install the patches the easy way.

Clip Art from WPClipart - Free High Quality Public Domain images.

Ever wish you could post to all you social networks easily?  I have wished for such at tool many, many times. Today I found a tool called Utterz. 

I first ran across Utterz some time ago and when I did you could call up record your voice and others could listen. Sounded pretty lame to me.  Since then Utterz has expanded the service to include cross posting to a whole list of social networking platforms, Blogs and Web Sites.  Examples are Twitter, Blogger, Wordpress, Drupal, and YouTube to name just a few.

Here is how it works

• You can post audio, video, text or pictures to your feed.
• Sign in and click discussion and use the web-based tools provided or send your voice or text message from your phone.
• When you post your message it goes into your feed. 
• Replies as sent as a text message or email.
• You can also send private messages by inserting an @ sign before the users name anywhere in your utter or reply.

To post Utterz to your social networking sites, Blog or Website you need to set up cross posting. 

A list of cross posting sites and also have a generic connector for any website!  Content is posted to the main content section of your sites.

You can cross post automatically or choose to post one at a time.

If they don't support a social networking site you use, they have a widget that you can embed on any site where you are allowed to embed flash and post your utterz that way.

This is one tool I plan on trying this week.  I bet you will too. 

This week is a short Freebie since I am under deadline pressure.

As usual, my blog arises from my frustration or need to do something. 

I had a call from a client yesterday she was almost in tears.  She had been trying to open a document from her financial adviser and it had the file extension .docx.  She did not have a clue as to what document that was.

Just so this does not happen to you, let me explain. 

When Microsoft released Microsoft 2007 they changed the document extension save default to .docx. 

The problem with this new extension is that older versions of Word could not open the new document extension.

You can save documents in the old .doc format but you must select to do so when you save the document.

In order to open the document in an older version of Word like 2000 you need to download and install a conversion tool.

Below are a list of tools.

On-line file conversion tool.

Microsoft Compatibility Pack

DocxtoDoc - Conversion tool

The new (upcoming) Open Office 3 will open all the following extensions docx, xlsx, pptx files. (The release candidate 4 of OpenOffice.org 3.0 is now ready for testing).

In the mean time, another option is to use Word 2003 viewer which can be downloaded from this site.

So there you have it, you can now open any document!

As business people, we still drive everywhere, we meet with others on a daily bases. This practice is not cost effective and cuts into time we could use for other things.

This coming year I am going to undertake a green initiative and start having client meetings on line.  To do this I am planning on using a free, open source application called Dimdim.

If you are familiar with Skype, this works in a similar way.

You call from computer to computer for free.  The only requirement is that the computer have a microphone,  Internet connection and a Web browser.

Dimdim is cross platform capable and can be used on Mac, Windows & Linux.

Features Include:

• No software has to be installed for you to join a meeting ( access a free on-line meeting room and start your meeting)
• You can easily share you desktop with others (this does require a plug in)
• The chat feature is both public and private
• Both Audio and Video Conferencing between multiple users (something skype currently lacks) You can see and hear everyone using voice IP or the free teleconference service.
• The ability to record and playback meetings (so if people miss the meeting you can provide a copy for them).
• Multiple Presenters ( you can easily pass control of the meeting to anyone with a click).
• Secure Meetings
• No software to install to host the meetings.
• Host meetings with up to 20 people for free
• Every participant can mark up a whiteboard, send instant messages and broadcast both audio and video (the presenter must give permission for this feature)

So now all I need is a reason to have a meeting. 

Hmmm.....sure wish I could convince the IT alliance to meet this way.  I brought it up once but several of the members like to press the flesh. 

Me, I rather save some gas and some time and be more productive. 

Any ideas on how I can convince them?  Anyone game to help me test this? Until next week...

Since I am just returning home from vacation and I am still in Fun mode.  I decided this week to tell you about an on line tool I happened upon.

It is called Animasher.  This free tool is for making animations from photos or drawings that you already have or use their image library.

These are kind of South Park like animations but they are actually fun.  Once you start making one your hooked!

It is pretty easy to use.  Just drag and drop the images from the library or upload your own.  They have backgrounds to choose from or upload a favorite.

It is very easy to use so it is not very difficult to figure out how to create your own animation.  It is strange and very addicting. 

Caution you could spend hours here without knowing it!

Here is an example.  Have fun.

by akajos

Make your own | Clone and edit

Find your lost or stolen computer for FREE. 

Ever worry about your laptop getting stolen?  Worse yet can't remember if you left it at a client's home or at the coffee shop?  Did you know that some of the largest and medium-sized U.S. airports report close to 637,000 laptops lost each year, according to the Ponemon Institute?

 Here is an easy and FREE way to make sure you know where your laptop is.

 Adeona is a FREE, open source, on line computer tracking service. 

The nice thing about Adenoa is that is does not rely on third party tracking.  This means that only the laptop owner (or a designated agent) can use Adenoa to track the laptops location.

This also means that no one can abuse the system to find out where you use your laptop (important if you have a boss who wants to determine exactly where you where when you emailed that proposal were you home sick or at the beach)?

Andenoa uses a community based - remote storage facility to store the laptop location updates. These location updates are sent to the storage facility by the software client, which you install.

 Here is how it works:

• Download and Install Adenoa.
• Adeoa sends location updates to a remote storage facility so when you laptop is stolen you know exactly where it is.
• Locations are only retrievable by the laptop owner.
• Snap a photo of the thief (Mac Version). The Mac OS X version will capture an image of your thief using the built in camera and a freeware tool called isightcapture.  Images are privacy protected and only the laptop owner can access them.

 Adeona can also be installed on desktop computers or servers. They do not currently support mobile devices but are working on it.  It works behind a firewall but needs Internet access or if used behind a corporate firewall needs access to port 80.

 For more details check out the Frequently Asked Questions or the documentation.

UPDATE 9/10/08:  The saga continues...Watch out for infection by this virus through ads, infected websites, false IE and Google Pages and .pdf files.  This is spread by trying to scare you into downloading it.  It is spread by a Trojan that when downloaded installs the malware.  This Malware downloads other nasty Trojans and fun things.

This malware takes some time to infect your machine.  At first the computer just starts running slow then eventually your machine starts popping up windows telling you that your computer is infected.  It looks real official and very Microsoft like.  It says it runs a scan and finds a bunch of infected files and asks you to click to buy the program and remove the infected files.  Under no circumstances should you click on it.  If you do you will make matters much worse.  If you do get infected.  Call a professional for help with this on it is a real bugger to remove!

Don't be afraid, just stay safe.  If in doubt, don't click on anything and download only from trusted sites.

There is a particularly nasty email scam afoot...Malware mascarding as a free anti-virus program.

You receive a spam email that offers you a six month trial of a new anti-virus program by the name of "Antivirus XP 2008" and "XP Antivirus 2009".

These rouge anti-virus programs are being spread through spam emial messages  The message contains a link to an automatic download of a phony anti-virus program.  When clicked, the automatic download delvers much more that you expected!

For an example of what the email looks like, the offending url's and the ISP that serves the malware vist the dozleng.com security update site .

How do you know what programs are safe?:

I recommend checking any new program at a site called Spyware Warrior.

They have been around since 2004 and keep a list of Rough/Supsect Antispyware products and websites. If you have any doubts, check it out here first, before clicking on any link or downloading anything!

They also provide a list of trustworthy adware anti-spyware removal software.

Verizon Business on the ICSA site also provides a list of "certified" anti-spyware products.

If you think you have downloaded a program that might contain malware you can scan the zip files here:

In a previous blog I listed  two site that will scan your downloaded files before you open and  install them here they are again.                                                                             

Jotti (Virus scanning sites on line) and

Virus Total. 

Safe Places to download programs: The software developers site (provided you know it is safe), or one of the sites listed below , they scan every item before offering it for download.

Cnet's downloads.com

PC World downloads

Tucow's downloads

ZDNet

MajorGeeks

Protect yourself - Practice Safe Surfing:  Watch out for hidden dangers - sites that contain 

• Hacked pages ( I visited a blog the other day and all the links to the downloads were hacked and pointed to god knows where whatch that address line!)
• Phishing and fraud scams 
• Malicious sites
• Exploits (WMF, VML, CreateText Range to name a few)- These allow hackers to spread rootkits and open your computer ports so that they can they can control your machine remotely (create a Zombi).

Just visiting a bad or hacked Web page can expose your computer to some very nasty things. 

Here are two programs that will help you practice safe surfing. 

LinkScanner Lite (is FREE) and they also have a Pro version which is not free.  They are programs that integrate into your browser to help you identify bad websites. This program's free version requires you to right clik on a site to get information about it.  The pro version delivers it automatically.

If you are lazy and cheap like me, you want a FREE add on like Finjan Secure Browsing.

I use is Finjan Secure Browsing ( FREE) every day for a long time and love it.  It can be used with either Firefox or Internet Explorer.  Just, download and install the program.  When you do a search the program scans and classifies the web addresses and gives you a safety rating of the stie before you visit them.  They place a green check mark next to safe sites, a brown ? mark next to sites they cannot scan and a red X next to sites that are unsafe. This program scans every site in your search every time. 

FREE - Download it for Firefox or Internet Explorer here.

Sources for this Blog:  Donna's Security Flash - Windows Secrets (paid version) and dozeling.com security updates

 Photo Credits:  "Horror" by Dawn Allayn, "Piranha sign"  by Viktors Kozersp and "Surfs Up" by Dan Shirley

Photos downloaded from: Stock.Xchng.com

Build your own social networking community with photo & video sharing and add it to your website using KickApps.

Now, I don't want to mislead you so this week's blog offering is not entirely free.

You don't have to write a check for this type of social network capability you just have to be open to sharing some page real estate.

What it Costs in Page Real Estate

The page include (3) Ad slots.

If you opt for the free version you share the ad slots with KickApps. The page theme (s) is constructed allowing for the ad slots, (one on the banner and two on the right side) above the fold. KickApps runs ads in the banner and one of the right upper slots. The other slot (which they call the skyscraper) is where you can run your own AdSense targeted ads.

If you want control of all the ad spots, or don't want any ads at all, they have a program where they charge you fees based on the traffice on your page. They calculate the rates per thousand community page views. Therefore, you only pay for the page views that your community gets. 

Check out this page if you Want more Details.

This is not a bad deal for all of the capabilities you will have. KickApps offers you a way to add a social network platform to your existing website so you can build your own social media community.Create a new experience for your clients by adding rich media experiences on your websites that drive audience growth.

This is not software but a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, which means that they host and manage all the applications, media and upgrades. So you have no worries about any of this.

Here is how it works

1. You sign up for FREE.

2. The "Affiliate Center" is the WYSIWYG area where you build your actual community. You can use just the WYSIWYG portion or you can add your own Java, html and CSS so you can customize it to match your site.

3. You can point your community to your site URL (using DNS Masking) that is a customization of the URL so that it looks like it is coming right from your site (instead of the KickApps URL where the site is actually hosted).

Their development site explains DNS Masking in more detail if you are interested in learning about this.

4. You can use your social networking platform with your WordPress, Drupal and Joombla sites.

5. To fully integrate your site and community you can also create and use widgets. You create your widgets using the KickApps Widget Studio your widgets can feature your (community) media, content, photos, blogs and videos. You can put this widget on your website next to your site content, to encourage people to participate in your community and drive traffic between your site and your community.

Now, you have a way to set up a social community the next step is to give your site visitors a reason to participate in that community.

To see KickApps in action here are some links.

NPR - Get my Vote - Where you can speak up about politics.

NYRangrs - I am a Ranger - Where fans express their love for their team.

DYI - Show and Tell - Where people post home improvement projects.

Guinness World Records - Yep, you guessed it people post their own record breaking videos!

Condo Trustee - Real Estate community integrated with blog.

Duct Tape Marketing - Community (WordPress site)

So what will your social community look like?

Free publicity? Write a press release.  How many times have you seen that advice? Press releases are a great way to get publicity if they get published and that is a big if.  Many never do. How can you make sure that your press release does get published?

Here are 10 things to consider when writing your press release.

1. Make sure your press release is newsworthy. Have you released a new product, opened a new market, started a new office or team?  That's great but ask yourself why does anyone care?  Can you relate it to something else in the recent news?  Don't release age old news

2.  People hate being marketed to. Reporters will only publish things that are of interest to their readers so don't make it a marketing peice.  They don't care it you have a new product and are not interested in promoting your business they are interested in one thing and one thing only, publishing things of interest to their readers.

3.  Remove your ego from the process. Put your sales self on the shelf. Create something interesting to read not something that strokes your ego.  Make sure that the release is written so that it can later be developed into a story by a reporter if they like it.

4.  Always write your press release from a journalists perspective remove the I from it and don't we all over your copy. No one cares what I do or that we have a new website. They only care about how this relates them.

5.  Read a lot of human interest stuff before you write your press release.  Pick up the local paper and read it.  Read the lifetime sections and really look at the headlines.  Research other press releases and see how they are written and get a good guide to follow.

6.  Keep it short.  In this age of computers we all have short attention spans.

7.  Use an announcement type style.  Not a chatty and friendly as a blog post.

8. Make sure to include the date, city, compnay name in your press release and contact information. Include your website and blog if you have a separate URL for that and any supporting links.

9. Make sure to address the  Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of your topic.  This should be pretty common sense advice but not always followed so I had to point it out.

10.  Use  journalistic standard such as in the words of How to Write a Press Release Wiki, "indicating  If the press release is for immediate release, write "IMMEDIATE RELEASE" in all caps on the left margin, above the headline".  And signaling the end of the release by adding three ###symbols directly under the last line of your press release.

For more information and really good how to advice read How to Write a Press Release Wiki

Once your Press Release is written and ready for publication run it through HubSpot's Press Release Grader. This FREE tool will help you evaluate you press release a provide you with an effectiveness score.

Writing a great press release is hard work and you need help to make sure you are writing it so that it will get published.

Sources for this post: How to Write a Press Release Wiki, Hub Spot Press Release Grader and Publicity Insider