Category: Tips & Info

Tips & Info Category

Keywords in Search Engine Visibility

Finding the Right Keywords in Search Engine Placement

Does the task of finding good keywords for your website seem daunting? Search Engine Placement provides a variety of keyword suggestions from all competition and search volume levels, which makes it easy to pick the best keywords for your site and your goals.

When you’re researching keywords, keep these things in mind:

Low search volume, low competition (known as long tail keywords)
Long tail keywords typically contain 3-5 words in a phrase, and they are the bread and butter of keywords. Generally speaking, it’s easier to rank with these keywords, and they convert clicks to customers at a higher rate because the searcher knows specifically what they are looking for. For example, someone who sells Acrylic Aquariums might use 50 gallon bull nose aquariums.

High volume, low competition (short tail keywords)
Short tail keywords are new keywords or phrases that recently started generating search traffic. You need to be quick to catch them, though. For example, a recent short tail keyword is Susan Boyle.

High volume, high competition (wish list keywords)
Wish list keywords are the words and phrases everyone wants to use, such as real estate, aquariums, or cell phones. While wish list keywords do generate a lot of traffic, the conversion levels are generally very low because the words and phrases are too generic.

Take the term aquariums, for example. People searching for that word might want to buy an aquarium, find a local aquarium, or see photos of aquariums around the world. If I sell aquariums, relying on this as my primary keyword would take a huge effort to rank and most of the traffic generated by this keyword would likely be irrelevant.

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GoDaddy Hacked, Millions of Sites Down

GoDaddy.com, the largest domain name registrar on the Web, has been taken offline, and a self-proclaimed member of the Anonymous hacktivism collective is taking responsibility.

The administrators of GoDaddy confirmed on Monday that they were suffering from technical issues, which the website TechCrunch reports to be impacting a multitude of websites and their affiliated email accounts that are hosted through the service. Although the company has not discussed the specifics yet, a self-described member of Anonymous says that he or she is responsible, a claim that has not been verified yet.

On Twitter, user @AnonymousOwn3r writes, “the attack is not coming from Anonymous coletive [sic] , the attack it’s coming only from me” and that the the action is being carried out “to test how the cyber security is safe and for more reasons that i can not talk now.”

GoDaddy has tweeted, “We’re aware of the trouble people are having with our site. We’re working on it.”

On Friday, it was reported that the White House is preparing to roll out an cyber security Executive Order that will serve as a surrogate until Congress can come to agreement on a bipartisan legislation to protect America’s computer infrastructure.

Earlier this year, GoDaddy announced that they would be supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, a controversial legislation that if approved would have greatly changed the US government’s ability to monitor the Internet. The company eventually reversed their stance, but not before a massive protest resulted in many of their clients switching to other domain registrars. The boycott reportedly ended with thousands of GoDaddy’s millions of customers, including Wikipedia, cancelling their accounts.

Founded in 1997, Arizona-based GoDaddy.com is used by millions of customers worldwide, including a large number of small businesses. At 4 p.m. EST, GoDaddy tweeted, “Update: Still working on it, but we’re making progress. Some service has already been restored. Stick with us.”

Other social media accounts affiliated with Anonymous have not confirmed the validity of the alleged culprit’s claim and have largely distanced themselves from the hack. GoDaddy’s 24-hour tech support telephone line has also been inaccessible during the duration of the outage.

Which Cell Phone is Right for You?

There are so many choices these days when it comes to choosing a new cellphone or smartphone. Believe it or not there are now utilities out there that can help you make an educated decision based on your answers to a handful of questions. WWW.TopTenREVIEWS.com has a great Mobile Phone Configuration that can guide you in the direction to your perfect phone match. Click Here to be directed to their site to try out this very helpful utility.

Microsoft Launches Windows 8 Today

Microsoft kicks off Windows 8, on sale today

Microsoft hopes it can capture the imaginations of tech consumers again, as Apple has.

That was the subtext Thursday for a splashy launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8, the new operating system upgrade on sale today.

“What you’ve seen and heard should leave no doubt that Microsoft’s Windows 8 shatters perceptions of what a PC truly is,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “We’ve re imagined Windows and kicked off a new era for Microsoft and our customers.”

For the first time, the new Windows has a touch-screen interface, with movable tiles, instead of the traditional “Start Menu” and screen. For older computers that upgrade, the touch-screen will not be accessible, but the tiles can be accessed by mouse or touch-pad.

Microsoft says that 1 billion people use its Windows operating system, with 670 million on Microsoft’s Windows 7, which was introduced in 2009.

At Thursday’s launch party, PC partners — including Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, Dell and Hewlett-Packard — showed off new computers sporting Microsoft’s Windows 8. Many of the laptops have splashy new designs with removable screens that morph into portable tablets.

Microsoft’s new operating system works on tablets and traditional PCs and laptops. Despite twin versions, Windows 8 and Windows RT, Microsoft is taking a notably different course than Apple by providing the same look and feel to both types of devices.

Apple still markets separate operating systems for Macintosh computers (OS X Mountain Lion) and for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch (iOS 6), even though some features are common to both operating systems.

“I think they did a really good job of reintroducing themselves to the consumer today, Microsoft, not just Windows,” says Michael Gartenberg, analyst for technology research firm Gartner.

He says part of Microsoft’s challenge is to explain to consumers why the radically different approach is better.

“Consumers have shown a willingness to learn. They learned how to use mice and keyboards. They learned how to use touch and pinch-to-zoom. They can learn how to do this, too,” he says.

Microsoft’s unified approach to the operating system is based on its belief that touch-screens will soon dominate PCs, says Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research.

“Rather than come to market with another tablet operating system — seeing how (Google’s) Android has struggled in that space — they (Microsoft) decided to leverage the high shipping volumes of PCs every year in order to build developer support for a tablet operating system,” he says.

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How do I open an additional mailbox in Outlook?

Description

This FAQ describes the steps you have to follow to open a second mailbox in Outlook. Before following the procedure, be sure you have the sufficient rights to see the e-mails in the additional mailbox. The additional mailbox must exist on an exchange server where you have access to.

Solution

1. Start Outlook (icon on the system tray).

or Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

2. Open the properties of the “Microsoft Exchange Server” Service. Tools > Account Settings … (The “E-mail Accounts Wizard” pop-up window appears).

3. Select ‘Microsoft Exchange‘ and press ‘Change…‘

4. On the ‘Microsoft Exchange Server Settings‘ tab, select ‘More Settings …‘

5. On the ‘Microsoft Exchange Server‘, add the additional mailbox select the ‘Advanced‘ tab.

In the section ‘Mailboxes‘, select ‘Add‘ (The “Add mailbox” pop-up window appears).
Fill in (part of) the name of the user who’s mailbox you want to open.
(If more then one name exist, a ‘Check Name‘ window appears from which you can choose the correct name.

6. Once the correct name is found, the name is listed in the list ‘Open these additional mailboxes’.

7. Click ‘OK‘, ‘Next‘ and ‘Finish‘ to close all windows.

8. The additional mailbox can be accessed through the ‘Folder List’.

Enable ‘Folder List’ view through View > Navigation Pane (ALT+F1).

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What is new and improved with 802.11ac?

Takeaway: IEEE 802.11ac is the next generation wireless networking protocol as the successor of IEEE 802.11n.

What is 802.11?

IEEE 802.11 is a group of physical layer standards that provide the foundation for wireless networks.

802.11 Timeline:

1997: 802.11 – 1 or 2 Mbps in 2.4 GHz spectrum (Legacy)
1999: 802.11a – 54 Mbps in 5 GHz spectrum
1999: 802.11b – 11 Mbps in 2.4 GHz spectrum
2003: 802.11g – 54 Mbps in 2.4 GHz spectrum
2009: 802.11n – 600 Mbps in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrum

802.11n vs. 802.11ac

802.11ac offers the freedom of a wireless network combined with the capabilities of Gigabit Ethernet. In a 5.0 GHz spectrum, 802.11ac will provide up to 500Mbps (single) or 1000 Mbps (multi). Final ratification for 802.11ac expected in December 2013.

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Set Up Microsoft Exchange E-Mail on iPhone

Set Up Microsoft Exchange E-Mail on an Apple iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch

You can set up Exchange e-mail on an Apple iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. When you set up an Exchange account on your device, you’ll be able to access and synchronize your e-mail, calendar, and contacts. If you have a different device, or if you want to connect using POP or IMAP.

How do I set up Microsoft Exchange e-mail on an Apple iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch?

Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account.
Tap Microsoft Exchange.
You don’t need to enter anything in the Domain box. Enter the information requested in the Email,Username, and Password boxes. You need to enter your full e-mail address in the Email and Usernameboxes (for example, tony@contoso.com).
Tap Next on the upper-right corner of the screen. Your iPhone will try to find the settings it needs to set up your account. Go to step 7 if your iPhone finds your settings.
If your iPhone can’t find your settings, you’ll need to manually look up your Exchange ActiveSync server name. For instructions for how to determine your Exchange ActiveSync server name, see the Finding My Server Name section below.
In the Server box, enter your server name, and then tap Next.

Choose the type of information you want to synchronize between your account and your device, and then touch Save. By default, Mail, Contacts, and Calendar information are synchronized.

Caution:
If you’re prompted to create a passcode, tap Continue and enter a numeric passcode. If you don’t set up a passcode, you can’t view your e-mail account on your iPhone. You can set up a passcode later in iPhone Settings.

Finding My Server Name

If your email program isn’t able to automatically find your Exchange ActiveSync server name, you may need to look it up.

Sign in to your e-mail account using Outlook Web App. For help signing in, see How to Sign In to Outlook Web App.
If you’re connecting to an Exchange mailbox, your Exchange ActiveSync server name is contained in the address bar in your browser when you are signed in to Outlook Web App, but without the leadinghttps:// and without the trailing /owa. For example, if the address you use to access Outlook Web App is https://mail.contoso.com/owa, your Exchange ActiveSync server name is mail.contoso.com.
If you’re unable to connect to your mailbox using the information earlier in this section, you can try using the server name value that you can view in Outlook Web App options. Do the following:
1. In Outlook Web App, click Options > See All Options > Account > My Account > Settings for POP, IMAP, and SMTP access.
  
  Note:
  
  Although you’re not setting up a POP3 account, you will use this value to determine your Exchange ActiveSync server name.
2. Under POP setting, view the value for Server name.
3. Try setting up your email using the server name listed on your options page. For example if the value for Server name under POP setting is mail.contoso.com, try using mail.contoso.com as your Exchange server name.

Note:
Although you’re not setting up a POP3 account, you will use this value to determine your Exchange ActiveSync server name.

What else do I need to know?

If you’re prompted to create a passcode and don’t create one, you won’t be able to send and receive e-mail.

Ten Top Microsoft Office Tips

The ten most popular Microsoft Office tips

Takeaway: Susan Harkins lists ten most popular Office tips published in the Windows and Office Blog, and the now inactive Office Blog.

When considering tips to share, think about ease-of-use and efficiency. A few naturally rise to the top as your favorites. For your commemoration, here are 10 of 2012’s most popular posts from both the Office Blog, which was deactivated in mid-2012, and the current Windows and Office Blog. Thank you for reading, and thank you for sharing your thoughts and enhancements with one another throughout the year.

1: A quick Word trick for typing text into a scanned document

The response to this limited technique surprised me. It’s something only a few will use, but if you’re one of those few, it can be a big help! I was pleasantly surprised at the positive response it received and the way readers enhanced the technique.

2: Use Word macros to save your place in a document

These two short macros make quick work of bookmarking work areas in a Word document. When the built-in navigation techniques just don’t get the job done for you, consider these macros or one of the alternative methods that readers shared.

3: A quick and dirty way to compare columns of Excel data

This quick Go To comparison solution is great for a one-time task. Comparing Excel data is a common task, and I receive frequent questions for solutions. This solution is a great one to add to your bag of tricks.

4: Demystify Excel’s PivotTable feature with this simple method

Sometimes a great tip doesn’t offer a specific solution, but rather guides you to using a feature more efficiently and effectively. Users tend to ignore Excel’s pivot table feature because they don’t really understand it – hence this blog post offers some quick insight into how to use this feature without mind-bending tricks.

5: Create a dynamic Excel chart and make your own dashboard

This blog post is one of my favorites. I enjoyed sharing the technique, but more than that, I loved the way the readers jumped in to help one another with a step I accidentally omitted in the instructions. TechRepublic readers rock!

6: A quick Excel keyboard trick for selecting large ranges

This technique uses Go To ([F5]) in an unusual way – to anchor two cells, creating a range. The ensuing conversation shared a number of great selection tips!

7: Three tips for rounding Excel time values

Using the right function can help you round up your rounding woes. Excel offers three rounding functions and knowing them all will round out your skills nicely. (Okay, I promise to stop that.)

8: Three things you must do when you inherit an Excel workbook

I review a lot of workbooks, so this blog was one of my favorites to write. In my experience, performing these three quick tasks when inheriting a workbook can speed up your troubleshooting time. Fortunately, it sparked some insightful conversation into what others do.

9: Launch Word with the most recently used document

Reader response sometimes surprises me, as it did for this easy technique. I hadn’t expected so many great alternatives from the readers.

10: Run a list of rolling credits at the end of your PowerPoint presentation

I’m glad a PowerPoint technique made the top list, but it wasn’t because the readers loved my technique. Mostly, the conversation centered on the typo I missed, and then my lack of proper contrition for said typo. It was fun while it lasted.

Five battery tips for HTC ThunderBolt and other Androids

Takeaway: The HTC ThunderBolt may be breaking land speed records with its 4G LTE connection, but all that speed seriously drains the battery. Here are practical tips for squeezing out more battery life.

As I mentioned in my review of the HTC ThunderBolt, the ThunderBolt is a top-notch device that breaks through the speed barriers of the traditional smartphone. However, the ThunderBolt also has one big caveat: Battery life. This is a foible that many Android devices suffer from, particularly HTC devices. The HTC EVO and HTC Incredible are both excellent smartphones that struggle to get through an entire business day on a single charge.

For the ThunderBolt, the primary issue is when it’s in 4G LTE mode. That’s when it really screams — in terms of speed — but it’s also when the battery can completely drain in as little as four hours with heavy use. In order to help ThunderBolt users get the most out of this otherwise useful device, I’ve put together some power tips for squeezing extra battery life out of the ThunderBolt. While these tips are aimed primarily at the ThunderBolt and reference HTC-specific widgets and settings, they can also be applied more generally to almost any Android device (and specifically other HTC devices), with just a few adjustments.
I should also note that when the ThunderBolt is not in 4G mode, its battery life is actually very respectable. Using the tips in this article, I was able to get through a full day of normal use with the HTC ThunderBolt on a combination of 3G and Wi-Fi and still had 70% of the battery left after 10 hours. On 4G, I was able to use these tips to stretch the ThunderBolt battery to almost eight hours.

1. Tweak the display
If you want to see what’s draining most of your power, go to Home screen | Menu button | Settings | About phone | Battery | Battery use. You’ll see a screen like the one below. In most cases (except for when you’re on 4G), the display will be at the top of the list because the display is the primary power drain on nearly all smartphones.
There are several things you can do to reduce the display’s hit on your battery. Go to Menu | Settings | Display and adjust the following settings:
• Turn off auto-brightness: Uncheck the box for “Automatic brightness” and drop the slider down to about a third. The ThunderBolt screen is still bright and clear, even at this setting.
• Decrease screen timeout: The default is 1 minute. Drop it down to 30 seconds.

2. Throttle sync settings
Once you get your display settings under control, another quick thing you can do that will immediately make a big impact on your battery life is to get your sync settings under control. When you install and use various apps and widgets, they often set themselves up to automatically sync without warning you or allowing you to set up the sync settings such as how often to update. As a result, most Android devices end up with a bunch of things running in the background updating themselves constantly, which drains battery life and quietly eats away at your mobile data allotment on 3G/4G.
To see which of your apps and widgets are doing stealth syncs in the background, go to Menu | Settings | Accounts & sync. I prefer to uncheck the “Auto-sync” box and simply disable background syncing altogether (especially when I’m trying to ring out every last drop of battery life). You can always compensate by using HTC’s “Sync all” widget so that when you unlock your phone you can just tap the Sync all button and all of your data for all of your approved apps and widgets get synced (on 4G it will sync really fast anyway). If you want to take it a step further, in the Accounts & sync screen, uncheck the “Background data” box so that no apps are allowed to quietly transfer data in the background.
Alternatively, in the sync settings you can also grant just a few select apps the ability to sync and then set the frequency for syncing to a longer interval.

3. Manage your radios
Another way to have a quick impact on battery life is to shut down some of the radios. Nearly all modern smartphones are packed with multiple radio transmitters and each one draws power when they are turned on. Turn them off when you’re not using them. HTC makes this easy on the ThunderBolt because it has a bunch of toggle widgets that you can tap to enable/disable the various radios/features.

I always turn off Bluetooth and GPS, except when needed. If I know I’m going to be on the mobile network for an extended period of time then I turn off Wi-Fi so that the Wi-Fi radio isn’t wasting power searching for connections. One of the things I did to save battery life when I was on the 4G LTE network was to use “Airplane mode” when I was in meetings or other long periods where I knew I wasn’t going to be using the phone. This turns off all of the radios, including the cellular network.

4. Turn down the eye candy
One of the attractive things about the HTC Sense UI — as well as the newer versions of Android and some of its third-party add-ons — is that it has some great eye candy. The animated weather on HTC’s default home screen clock, the live wallpapers that move in the background, and the eye-popping skins and alternative home screens all look great, but they can be an additional drain on the phone’s resources.
I’d recommend using the simple and elegant “Slate” skin (below) on the HTC ThunderBolt. I’d also recommend avoiding the live wallpapers and selecting a static image. For battery savings, I’d also recommend turning off animations by going to Menu | Settings | Display | Animation and selecting “No animations.”

5. Manage apps and widgets
We’ve already talked about how some apps and widgets can slowly siphon resources by syncing in the background. Many apps will also turn themselves on automatically (or remain in memory even after you close them). Of course, the widgets that you put on your various home screens are also running quietly at all times as well, so you’ll need to be wise about which ones you use and keep an eye on them.
To monitor and manage your apps and widgets you’ll need to download a task manager like the popular Advanced Task Killer. This lets you see what you’ve currently got running (and what is quietly turning itself on without your permission). You can do this periodically and manually kill all of your open apps to avoid letting power-hogs drain your battery. Advanced Task Killer even comes with a handy widget that you can place on your home screen. Just tap it once and it kills all your apps, and gives you a short message telling you how many apps were killed.

Even better, open Advanced Task Killer and go into Menu | Setting and set the “Auto Kill” option. I’d recommend setting the Auto Kill Level to “Safe” and setting the Auto Kill Frequency to “Every half hour.” If you’re really paranoid and want to keep stuff under wraps, you can set the Auto Kill so that it wipes everything out every time you turn off your screen. Keep in mind that some people argue that killing processes on Android has dubious value, but I find that it’s a good way of keeping potential battery hogs under control, even if it knocks out some harmless stuff in the process.

450K Yahoo passwords online now: Is yours?

Takeaway: Hackers have posted 450K Yahoo email addresses and passwords online, and hint Gmail, Hotmail, other services are next. How can you check if your users’ accounts are among them?

Hackers posted more than 400,000 Yahoo Voice and email names and passwords and the posting might not be over yet.

Yahoo reps say they are working on the compromised system–not great timing for a beleaguered company enduring what Yahoo chair Alfred Amoroso called a “tumultuous” time for the company. The firm apologized in an online statement and did not comment further at this writing.

Not a Yahoo user? IT pros and security experts worry this most recent hack on Yahoo – allegedly perpetrated by a group calling itself d3dd3 – is likely “way bigger than Yahoo,” said Marcus Carey, in a Reuters report. Hotmail, MSN, Live, Gmail and other personal services are at risk, too, he said.

NOTE: If you want to check your own or other users’ Yahoo emails to see if they are part of the current leak, there’s an easy way to check here at Sucuri Malware Labs. Just type in the email address and search.

Plan for next time

Change passwords. Consider training customers on utilities like Lastpass. IT pros we interviewed across the board said users in enterprises who use open cloud-based email services, or other non-enterprise communication methods like Skype or Google Groups, should, at the very least, be using such utilities, which provide more control and protection in case of events like this one.

With so much data potentially compromised via users relying on such BYOD services as these, “the process (to avoid future attacks) is much easier if (users) have Lastpass,” said John Livingston, a tech pro for the American Red Cross in Savannah, Georgia. “Time to change your Yahoo, Google, Hotmail, and AOL passwords. And with LastPass, each site and service has a unique password, which limits damage if the password does get out. Changing passwords then is quick and easy. Plus if you’re a manager you don’t have to worry about remembering a new password.”

“Once this clears, I will be changing the passwords for Gmail, even though there’s no confirmation on that (hack) yet,” said Brian Geniesse, who works the IT tech desk at his firm in Monominee, Michigan. “Also be careful. Password managers can be hacked just the same.”

Yahoo is to blame ultimately, most IT pros we interviewed told us.

“Shame on Yahoo for not running normal security audits on (its) networks – and services that would have detected the SQL injection vulnerability (reportedly) used in the attack,” adds Dan Phillips, an IT pro in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.

Geniesse expanded on that with a message that will resound with most IT pros and CTOs. Most people use weak passwords–see below.

“You can preach the use of LastPass and the like until you are blue in the face but users will never change their habits unless you force them,” Geniesse said. And “Yahoo needs to force some kind of password complexity to help protect their users.”

So many folks are checking the hack post, the hackers allegedly responsible are having trouble maintaining traffic load. Due to high traffic on this group’s site, the page with the Yahoo hacked emails and passwords is going up and down. We caught part of it in a cut and paste.

When it was up earlier today, it read in part:

We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call … not as a threat …

There have been many security holes exploited in webservers belonging to Yahoo … ?that have caused far greater damage than our disclosure (today). Please do not take (the posting) lightly. The subdomain and vulnerable parameters have not been posted to avoid further damage …

The author quotes author Jean Vanier from his book, Becoming Human: “Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness,” Vanier wrote.

If you’re a Star Wars, Star Trek or comic book fan, just change your passwords right away, other observers add. And talk your users into it to. Check this out: CNET’s Declan McCullagh wrote a program to analyze the most frequently used passwords using data from the post of 450K email addresses and passwords. He listed:

2,295: The number of times a sequential list of numbers was used, with “123456? by far being the most popular password. There were several other instances where the numbers were reversed, or a few letters were added in a token effort to mix things up.
160: The number of times “111111? is used as a password, which is only marginally better than a sequential list of numbers. The similarly creative “000000? is used 71 times.
780: The number of times “password” was used as the password. Apparently, absolutely no thought went into security in these instances.
233: The number of times “password” was used in conjunction with a few numbers behind it. Apparently, the barest minimum of thoughts went into security here.
437: The number of times “welcome” is used. With a password like that, you’re just asking to be hacked.
333: The number of times “ninja” is used. Pirates, unfortunately, didn’t make the list.
137,559: The number of Yahoo credentials that were leaked.
106,873: The number of Gmail credentials that were leaked. Hotmail, which was the next most frequently cited e-mail service, had fewer than half the number of users hit.
161: The number of times “freedom” is used, suggesting a lot of patriotic users. “America” was used 68 times.
161: The number of times the f-word is used in some combination. There are a lot of angry people out there.
133: The number of times “baseball” appears as a password. It’s the most popular sport on the list, proving that it is indeed America’s national pastime. It just may not be the best password.
106: The number of times “superman” is used as a password. That’s nearly double the amount of times “batman” is used and triple the frequency of “spiderman.”
52: The number of times “starwars” is used. The force is not with this password.
56: The number of times “winner” is used.32: The number of times “lakers” appears. It tied with “maverick,” although fortunately “the_heat” or “celtics” weren’t on this list.
27: The number of times “ncc1701? is used as a password. For those of you who aren’t trekkies, that’s the designation code for the Starship Enterprise. “startrek” is used 17 times, while “ncc1701a,” the designation for the Enterprise used in later Star Trek movies, is used 15 times.