Archive for the ‘news’ Category

Welcome to my video tutorial button announcement! Recently I’ve added a tutorial button on all the templates for my website and blog. Located all the way to the top right of every webpage, the tutorial button allows my online visitors to go straight to my video tutorial page to view any of my video tutorials in a single place.

Notice the photo at the left shows the before and after with and without the new “Tutorials” button. With a simple addition of one line in all my website templates it was possible to add the new button for easy access to my tutorials, all on a single page!

If you have an existing website for your small business, I wouldn’t suggest making changes to your own code unless you’re absolutely sure you know what you’re doing. Making template adjustments is something that should be left to your web designer, who would know to backup your original before altering anything. One character change can throw your entire website’s appearance off kilter, so avoid making changes without expert help.

Don’t have a small business website? Your own website could attract traffic to your business and actually bring in customers. Contact me today by phone or email for details on how you can get started right away! Keep posted on my blog and website for more news, tips and advice concerning various topics online from custom website design to the latest trends happening in the internet world.

Readers love it when they get something for free from a blog or website. News, tips, advice and the latest updates on internet related topics are some of the things I’ve given away in the past that could help you along, and now I’ve added a new category of free things to give away.

Learning to do something that makes your life easier is a great advantage to surfing the web. By offering tutorials on my website, I now contribute to that sector of the internet community.

Visit my tutorials page to see all my tutorial videos on a single webpage, or go directly to the video that interests you below:
Windows Movie Maker Tutorial
Blacklisting an IP Address in WordPress
Tutorial on Making GIF Images
How to Convert YouTube Video to MP3
Getting a Free Kindle for Your PC
Clean Your PC With A Registry Cleaner
Clean Your PC With A Registry Cleaner

Also, notice the newly added “Tutorials” button at the top right for easy access.

Wishing you and your families the happiest of holidays, and warm wishes for the new year! Merry Christmas and thanks for reading!

Welcome to my quick tutorial video on creating your own video tutorials and slideshows with the Windows Movie Maker or similar programs.

First, do a quick search from your start button to locate and open the Windows Movie Maker, or a similar program on your computer. You could even just type “Windows” in the searchbox to find it just as well.

Next, you can import from a camera, your pictures folder, audio, video and music to your project.

Simply choose the media that you want to import and navigate to the desired files. Music to the background of a voiceover is also a good method to use.

Next browse the effects available and transition options you have to choose from. You can even choose a different transition between each photo. Use the scroll bar to explore what options you have for your video.

To the right you’ll see a video play button and a window where you can sample what each transition looks like. Use that to decide which transitions to use and where you want them.

Once you have your pictures and video assigned and the audio track aligned with your project, you may want to consider adding titles and credits for the opening and closing of your video. This is completely optional though.

And here we can see a sample video I put together, opening with the title, see the first photo, going into a dissolve transition, this next transition is called pixelated, here’s a shatter right transition, this next one is known as a whirlwind transition, and this is the shatter, up, left transition, and ending with a rough dissolve.

Finally add the video credits and the video is complete. Make your own slideshow today, perhaps with royalty-free music with a voiceover on a microphone, and remember the best projects happen when all your elements come together as one! Thanks for watching!

Yahoo has just started to incorporate moving captchas in some of their log in screens. This move from still captchas shows the need for an upgrade in security on websites that use log in and password information for their users. Computers have come to the point of being able to recognize characters that we once thought only humans could decipher. As more and more captchas are cracked and made readable by computer programs, we have to come up with more ways to differentiate between what a person and what a computer can read.

These new moving captchas that I’m featuring here have 7 characters bouncing in the background as other random characters float past them. The moving captcha at the top left is c67e4L5F, the one at the bottom right is MTVucee, and this one in the center is AbsJsMzu.

These moving captchas make it more difficult for computer programs or “robots” to translate what the captcha is saying because it uses reasoning that they haven’t been programmed with yet.
Someone can look at these captchas and translate what is trying to be conveyed with little difficulty. Simply focus on which characters are remaining in the screen and ignore the ones that float by. These floating captchas were deemed necessary to assure that only humans were typing them in.

Furthermore, this just goes to show that the more sophisticated that computers get with decoding captchas, the more complicated we as humans have to make them in order to maintain online security. I’m sure we can prepare for some of the next plateau of captcha creation to come shortly, perhaps with a pair of special glasses you’ll have to wear to read them. Regardless, I’m pretty sure that even high-tech security settings such as those won’t be uncrackable by computers.

Now you can search the internet in an entirely new way by starting your search with an image. This could revolutionize how we search online by not only using text, but now Google’s search engines can “see” a photo and index similar photos that match your search.

Go to the Google search engine, and at the top left are tabs for different types of Google searches. The one labeled ‘Images’ is the one you need to click on. (photo left, click to enlarge)

Once there, if you notice at the right of the search bar there is a camera icon that reads ‘search by image’ if you hover over it with your mouse cursor. You can either click that then paste the image url or upload from your computer. Even easier, you could just drop the image into the search box.

I just conducted a test by using a screen shot of a pool table from Yahoo Pool. I saved the photo to my desktop, and when I dropped the image into the search box, immediately images from Yahoo Pool were indexed with 129 similar image results. This tool could prove to be rather useful depending on your search needs, but now there is the option to search with a photo instead of having to type in phrases.

Once you conduct a search on an image, you can then refine your search by entering a descriptive word in the search box.

Keep posted on my blog and website for news, tips and advice on a regular basis, and contact me for ideas for your next small business website design.

Advertising with YouTube may be a good idea to promote your small business. Make your own YouTube video and post the link on your Facebook, or embed the video on your blog. Whatever you do, adding a YouTube video could be an easy way to get you more business with a personal touch.

Even someone with little computer knowledge can make a video. Producing a quick Video is really easy to do, and can be about whatever you want, of course never posting anything illegal on the website. Give an instruction tutorial on something you think there may be a need for, interest your readers with a video blog, or show the physical location of your business in action. Having a video with yourself in it creates a personal touch that your readers can relate to.

Uploading the video to YouTube is about as easy as uploading or saving it to your computer. Either create an account or log into an existing one then click the “upload” link at the top right of youtube.com. Once you have a video uploaded you can review any positive or negative feedback you may receive and adjust these factors for your next video. Remember you are making your video viewable to the world, and should consider being responsible for the video content and be careful with the amount of information you disclose.

Keep posted on my website for news, tips and advice concerning small business website design, and contact me today for options and ideas concerning a custom website design for your own business.

I noticed that when it was first unveiled, the new look of Facebook was disliked by the majority of people who used it. Now I notice with the live feed at the right and friends lumped together in the chat, the protest against it had died down.

There are rumors going around that there may eventually be a charge for Facebook, and I can pretty much surely say this simply won’t happen. If you notice on the sign-in screen they clearly state: “Sign up, It’s free and always will be.” I couldn’t see them in defiance of their own motto.

There is an iPad scam going around Facebook, and even messenger as well. I would avoid a link that says anything like: “Click here to get your very own iPad for free, thousands are being given away!”.

Be careful what you click on, and if you don’t trust an application 100%, do not allow them access to your account. Facecrooks is a great helpful friend to have on Facebook who gives current, up-to-the-minute information on scams and other things going on within Facebook you might want to learn about, avoid, and pass around to others.

Avoid clicking on messages that say, “Check out this video of you” unless you know and trust the person or have verified its authenticity from another form of communication with them. The sender’s account quite possibly may have been compromised and a 3rd party is sending the links to you. These links can take your personal information to log into your account and cause you to spread them to your circle of friends as well.

Adjust your privacy settings that most people don’t know about. There is a new privacy setting on Facebook called “Instant Personalization” that shares data with non-Facebook websites and it is automatically set to “Allow.” Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites > Instant Personalization > Edit Settings, and uncheck “Allow”. If your Facebook friends don’t do this, they will be sharing information about you. Be wary of stalkers on Facebook and set your photos on visible only to friends under your privacy settings.

I’ve personally avoided game applications such as Mob Wars and Farmville, but proceed at your own discretion. There always will be some kind of threat in social networking, but the key is to stay a step ahead of it.

For some related topics on this subject, have a look at Using Facebook for Business, Clickjacking in Social Media and Viral Infections on Facebook, and contact me today for help with tips and ideas for a custom website design.

Adding custom social media buttons on your website or blog gives your online visitors the option to “Share” on Facebook, “Tweet” on Twitter, or add your site to multiple other social media websites on the net.

Allowing your website visitors to be able to share and tweet about your blog or website allows you to have more exposure in your business online. More exposure on social media websites could bring you more traffic and in turn, more potential clients.

I recently added these buttons to every page of my website and blog, and can offer the same service to you, if you have a website or blog set up already. Adding these social media buttons to EVERY page of your blog or website could be a very timely process for you, so you may want someone like me to handle that for you.

Don’t have a blog or website? Contact me today for details on just what it takes to get started! Keep posted on my blog and website for news, tips and advice concerning custom website design.

For directions on adding Google +1, Facebook share, Twitter tweet, and other social media buttons on every page of your blog or website, have a look at this Google Plus One Button Tutorial.

A few months ago Google introduced the Google+ project, a new social networking and real-life sharing website. By keeping up with social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, Google is staying on the cutting edge of social media.

Since yesterday, the Google homepage has had an arrow in the top left corner pointing to the new “You” tab at the very left. If you create a Google+ account and are signed in, that “You” would become your user name.

In order to make a Google+ account you can either sign in with your existing Google account or simply create a new one. Google+ is still in Beta, so concerning the new features that are still in development, you may run into technical issues from time to time.

Once a member, update your public Google+ profile by uploading a photo to help friends recognize you and send them invitations to join your circle. Google Plus connects with Picasa™ Web Albums for uploading entire albums of photos, which is a website somewhat resembling Flickr.

With Google+ you can create circles of people to share with then add more people to your circles by connecting with MSN Hotmail, Android and Yahoo! By creating “social circles”, Google+ allows users to organize their friends into groups. Google+ lets you start a hangout and have fun with all your circles using your live webcam as well.

Take the Google+ project tour, and stay posted on my blog for news, tips and advice concerning internet related topics.

Ever wanted to be able to download all the MP3 music you wanted but couldn’t find a website you could trust? Well now the solution to that problem is beind you with the DVD Videosoft Youtube to MP3 converter.

Not only have the ability to convert your favorite Youtube songs to MP3, but also, practically anything that is on Youtube is now yours to download for free. Standup comedy, television shows, documentaries and even movie clips can now be on your iPod, MP3 player or iPhone.

Simply install the software, choose “Free Youtube to MP3″, paste the Youtube links then click “download”. The files appear in a folder you can open after the downloading is complete. The program even has a Youtube to iPod converter to convert videos to your devices such as PSP, iPhone or iPad.

The recent update to the software has given the program easier navigation, a softer look and a simplified setup divided into 8 tabs: YouTube, MP3 & sound, CD, DVD, DVD & video, photos, mobiles, apple devices and 3D. Due to copyright reasons, some videos may not be downloadable from YouTube.

Contact me today for web design related tips and advice and bookmark my blog for the latest on internet related topics.