Google Chrome browser gets even better with extensions
Posted January 25, 2010 – 1:40 pmI’ve been using the Google Chrome browser since Day One – in my book, it is the best everyday browser out there. Largely because it is lightweight and superfast loading pages.
Google Chrome launches extensions
I’ve been using the Chrome Developer version for many months – it was the only version that worked well with my dual monitor setup.
In December, Google launched an apps store for Chrome – except that they call apps ‘extensions’. I’ve been using these extensions for several weeks and LOVE them! but they haven’t been available in the general release versions of Chrome.
Today, Google unveiled a new general release version of Chrome – now extensions are available to everyone. You should definitely try them out. Quite fantastic stuff!
My favorites are:
- xmarks - manage bookmarks across browsers and/or computers located anywhere
- lastpass - manage passwords and login info across browsers and/or computers
- evernote - the official extension for the evernote note taking / web clipping service that is all the rage (and deservedly so)
- delicious - beautifully designed widget for adding bookmarks to your Delicious account. cleaner and better than the Firefox version.
- netvibes - auto-detects RSS feeds in Chrome and provides one-click button to add it to your Netvibes RSS reader (still only available for developer version, i think).
These are essential in my book.
1 Comment | Tags: web toolsBacktype: tracking my comments on the web
Posted January 20, 2010 – 11:48 pmFrom time to time, I write comments on the tech blogs and elsewhere. Obviously, they are deeply insightful and saturated with wisdom, so it only makes sense to want to keep track of them all.
Comment tracking & aggregation
But how? The answer: Backtype, a free comments tracking service. Backtype describes itself as a “real-time, conversational search engine” because as a result of tracking people’s comments across the web, it also includes features that allow you to search web comments in a way that you can’t with Google. I don’t have too much interest in the searching function, so the value-added function for me is having Backtype track and catalog my comments on the web.
Backtype works by scouring the web, indexing all the comments people make on blog posts. It doesn’t spider every single blog, but covers all the major ones and lots of not so major ones, too. It also seems to index blogs of any size that reside on the major hosted blogging platforms – e.g., WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, Posterous, etc. That’s why the comments on my tiny, tiny personal blog, John’s Bytes, are getting indexed.
No Comments | Tags: blogging, social mediaGiving up on Internet Explorer
Posted January 7, 2010 – 9:06 pmI am dumping Internet Explorer today! I just can’t take it anymore. Too frustrating.
So long IE!
I do this reluctantly, however, because IE is still the dominant web browser on the planet – and since I build websites, I want my sites to work properly in it.
Until now, I have always tried to do some major tasks each day in IE as well as in Firefox and Chrome. I thought that it was important to use all the major browsers regularly to stay up to the minute with how they worked.
But over time, I’ve used IE less and less because, for whatever reasons, it just seems to break an awful lot – plus it is slow and lacks the add-ons / plug-ins that have become so valuable in the other browsers.
Instead, I’ve used Chrome and Firefox more and more because they hardly ever have problems, they are both a lot, lot faster than IE, and their plug-in libraries add lots of great functionality. When, from time to time, those programs do have problems, they normally fix themselves with a quick shutdown and restart of the program.
No Comments | Tags: computer tipsiYogi complaint: too hard to get my refund!
Posted January 6, 2010 – 5:12 pmI’m having a helluva hard time getting a refund out of iYogi. Today, they secured $15M in follow-on funding, so maybe they’ll be able to pay up.
iYogi refund complaint
iYogi provides remote technical support to solve computer problems and whatnot. After comparing their services and prices to several other firms, I decided to give them a try. They seemed to have something that could be pretty useful.
I signed up in mid-January 2009 — but then closed the account within 2 hrs because they didn’t service 64-bit Vista machines (which they could have made clearer on their website).
I asked for a refund and received immediate confirmation email that they’d processed it. The email appeared official and definitive.
“Based on your request we have processed the refund for your subscription. This will reflect in your bank records/credit card statement within 7 business days, depending on your billing cycle.”
Silly me, I never checked my bank account. Only last week while doing year end financial tallies did I realize that no refund ever hit my account.
Spoke to them at great length on Dec 29 – routed thru about 3 people with each needing to hear the story in detail asking the same questions again and again and again. Was finally assured by a woman that they would call back within 24 hrs to confirm refund. Never heard from them.
On Jan 5, I spent about 2 hours on phone or on live chat in a series of calls trying to sort out. They seemed to have no record of the call from the prior week or much of anything else about my account.
2 Comments | Tags: computer tipsWhich version of Java for a 64-bit Vista machine?
Posted December 16, 2009 – 10:01 pmI was recently trying to clean up things on my computer and noticed for the several’th time that I had 2 versions of Java installed and running on my laptop (a 64-bit Windows Vista machine).
Java is a programming language used in browsers – like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. Java plugs into these browsers and helps them to do things like display graphics, play games, run widgets, etc.
I wasn’t sure if I needed both versions of the program or not, so decided to investigate.
It turns out that one version of Java on my machine is an x64 version (64 bit) and the other is an x86 version (32 bit).
Did I need both? Answer is ‘yes’ – at least in my case.
Reason is that I need the 32-bit version to run in tandem with 32-bit browsers that I use – and I need the 64-bit version to run with the lone 64-bit browser that I use (Internet Explorer x64).
Further information can be found here: Java on 64-bit Windows.
Need Java? Java downloads
No Comments | Tags: computer tipsBest keywords for a small business: Focus on the ‘long tail’
Posted April 5, 2009 – 7:06 pmChoosing the best website keywords is a crucial starting point for an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Small businesses face special challenges when choosing keywords because they can never expect to achieve the kind of SEO traction that big companies can.
As a result, small businesses must be more calculating and deliberate in choosing keywords – they need to choose terms which can get them to the top of Google SERPs (search engine results pages) without a big investment of time or money.
The first step is to do some analysis to figure out what keywords are the most likely to help you gain search engine visibility on Google, Yahoo, Ask, and other search engines. By ‘keywords’, I mean both individual words as well as short 2-5 word phrases that are relevant to describing your business.
Your goal is to achieve search engine ‘visibility’. Seach engine visibility happens only when you are able to break into the top 10 results of a search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engine. If your website is not in the Top 10 results – meaning on page 1 of the SERPs (search engine results pages), then your chances of someone finding you drop significantly.
In fact, even on page 1, your chances of being clicked on drops sharply from postion #1 to position #10. Ideally, you want to be in the top 3, perhaps the top 5, for the best possible search engine traffic generation.
read more >>>>
Small business SEO: Top 5 things to increase your website’s search engine visibility
Posted March 24, 2009 – 2:22 pmSmall businesses are usually pretty terrible when it comes gaining visibility on search engines. That’s because they don’t implement the search engine optimization (SEO) basics for their websites to gain traction with search engines like Google.
This post outlines the Top 5 do-it-yourself SEO steps you can take to improve your small business website and dramatically increase your visibility on Google and other search engines.
- Use keyword-rich page titles unique to each page
- Craft informative keyword-rich page descriptions
- Use distinctive set of meta keywords for each page
- Create SEO-friendly page url’s
- Choose an SEO-friendly domain name
These 5 steps constitute SEO 101 – the basic blocking and tackling of SEO for any website large or small. Of themselves, these 5 steps will not only improve your website’s SEO visibility, they will also create the foundation for other things you may want to do later. Without the right ‘foundation’, everything else you try with your website – even pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns on Google AdWords – are going to be harder and more expensive.
No Comments | Tags: DIY SEO, small businessEvery small business should be a web publisher
Posted March 23, 2009 – 1:50 pmIf you run a small business, then you can probably increase your website traffic significantly if you think more like a web publisher than a small business owner.
In contrast, most small business websites have very little content – and the content they do have is very specific to the company’s products and services. As a result, the only people who ever find the company’s website via a Google search are people who already know about the company and are searching for it specifically.
Why? Because a web publisher publishes content designed to maximize search visibility and increase visitor traction. They figure out how to use search engines like Google and Yahoo to generate as much traffic as possible – and then they figure out how to organize their website to maximize user engagement once visitors find the site.
If you think like a web publisher, you will create a much better small business website that:
- Drives more traffic via search engines like Google, and
- Achieves much higher traction and engagement with visitors
What is a Web Publisher?
Becoming a web publisher involves stepping beyond simply describing your company as you might in a printed brochure (even an pretty comprehensive one), and instead involves focusing on creating a mini-information portal rich with information about the need your product or service fulfills.
read more >>>>
