Small Businesses and the Economic Crisis
The current economic crisis can be a frightening time for any business, but is particularly stressful for small businesses. There is a great deal of uncertainty and many questions – can we attract any new customers? Is anyone going to be able to afford my product? Will our business survive?
Just remember that every other business and individual is also feeling the pinch. They want to find the right items to fill their needs without wasting money or time on irrelevant or non-vital products or services.
GNU IMAGE MANIPULATION PROGRAM (GIMP )
At a time when the global economy is going through a recession, using an open source program can be like a “bridge over troubled waters” over licensed software. This effectively will bring down the expenses of you or your company. I won’t say that each every software we use has an equally effective open source program but yes, it is true in case of Adobe Photoshop. The GNU Image Manipulation Program or more popularly known as the GIMP can be the open source alternative to Adobe Photoshop.
GOOGLE MAP API
Let’s get lost!
Thanks to the Google Maps. Satellite based imagery and point to point detailing of terrains as well as route planning, that is what Google Maps is all about.
Imagine you go on a hiking trip, you are not sure of the terrain and you wish to explore. Google Maps shows you the terrain and plans the route. It is a free Web mapping service application from Google that powers numerous map-based services.
Google created Google Maps API to help the developers in integrating Google Maps into their own web sites with their data points. Developers just need to apply for an API key from Google, which is bound to the web site and directory given whilst creating the key. If you want to create your own web page you need to include Google Javascript into your web page. The Javascript functions add points into your Mapping application.
The Complete Guide To Google’s Website Optimizer
Why is it that some web sites are golden, compelling visitors to buy while similar web sites, perhaps even offering the same products at similar prices, fail to make the grade? It may be dumb luck on the owner’s part, but a more likely explanation is that the golden site is the result of careful design, testing, tweaking and testing yet again. Testing has grown into a core search marketing activity, but strangely, it’s also an activity that many search marketers either choose to avoid or don’t even consider at all.
And that’s a mistake. Good testing can not only help you get rid of stinker ads and landing pages, it can also help you optimize winning campaigns, improving their conversion rates and making them even more profitable. And testing needn’t be difficult or time-consuming, especially if you have the right tools. One of the best tools for helping you test and refine your search marketing campaigns is Google’s Website Optimizer. Even better, Website Optimizer is a free service.
A Cure Is In Our Reach
This week we launched a new site ACureIsInOurReach.org, for a Non-Profit , The Life Raft Group. It's for a great cause.
Here is a little bit about the project:
"The Life Raft Group (LRG) launched this website, What does a cure mean for you? to find out exactly that…
We want to know what a cure actually means to those people who are dealing with cancer every day. Unfortunately, cancer has touched us all in some way - whether you’re just concerned about it, you or someone you love has cancer, or you have lost someone to cancer.
We also want to show the scientific world that their work REALLY means something. We want to remind them that we are here, we are counting on them and we are real people."
Web 2.0 Gets Big – and Corporate
As the economy totters, it’s easy to make fun of the concept of “Web 2.0” — the rallying cry of a generation of chipper start-ups spawned over the last few years with an unusual aversion to vowels.
Certainly, most of the venture capitalists I’ve talked to at the Web 2.0 Summit have said they are shying away from companies that are based on the idea of growing an audience now and figuring out how to make money later. However, after listening to the presentations here over the past three days, it is clear that some of the key concepts of the Web 2.0 movement are, in fact, taking root in deep ways.
One of the most significant trends is how the big companies that make very complicated systems are reworking them using the principles of Web 2.0 companies, particularly the notion of programs that talk to other programs. They are breaking up their technologies into discrete modules that can work alongside data and applications from others.
Facebook can be credited with taking the first step to open up large parts of its service to third parties. Last year, it let their applications on its site. Now, through its upcoming Facebook Connect service, it will let other companies build applications that use its list of people and who their friends are to deliver new services.
Getting Your Site to Play Well With All Browsers
A customer is visiting your e-commerce Web site. She's decided to do more online shopping this holiday season to save on gasoline and find the lowest prices. She's using a Mac running Safari, but your site is optimized for Internet Explorer (IE) 7 and your development budget is mainly focused on preparing for IE 8. She selects a few products and heads for the shopping cart, but the "checkout" button isn't available. Frustrated, she's off to another site. You've lost the sale.
IT managers are now working feverishly to avoid this type of incident, which underscores a current fact of life for Web site designers, Web application developers and your entire IT department: Web pages can look and perform differently from one browser to another.
