Edit your Website on your iPhone or iPad with the WordPress plugin
We have been building “do-it-yourself” CMS websites for some time now utilizing WordPress. Now, anyone who has a WordPress based website can easily login and edit, create new content and much more via their iPhone or iPad. Check out this website for more information. Contact Alpine Web Media if you would like the ability to edit or create your own website contact on your Apple iPhone or iPad.
Open Source vs Proprietary CMS (Content Management Systems)?
With the popularity of open source content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla andd Drupal over the past few years, development costs have dropped dramatically for customers who desire a website that they can easily edit and manage themselves without programming skills. It seems that the glory days of the proprietary CMS are not as profitable as they once were, which is good news for everyone.
A proprietary CMS is a database driven, content management system website that the website owner can login to and make changes. Yahoo Store, many automotive dealer and real estate websites are a good example of this. A good CMS is easy for the novice to use and offers all the flexibility they need. The problem with a proprietary CMS is that development costs and monthly fees are much higher than an open source solution. Features may be outdated or a company may be slow to add the latest, greatest functionality (ie. “bells & whistles”). Even small changes to a proprietary CMS can be quite costly or require you to sign up for a “maintenance contract” or require a minimum hours of project work before the company will even begin to assist you. Many people who often find this out later feel locked into something that is costly and inflexible. Unfortunately, they have invested thousands of dollars and if they are not satisfied with their proprietary CMS, they lose everything when they discontinue services and must start again from scratch.
On the other hand, open source content management systems such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal (and many others) are free to download and upgrade costing you only the development costs. Because they are open source code, you have the advantage of backing up and saving your website database and files. If you’re not happy with your web design company or they should go out of business, etc. you can simply take your database and files to another company. You cannot do this with a proprietary CMS so if you don’t use it…you lose it. Another advantage to the open source CMS is constant development and new widgets or features that are often free, very low cost and take only minutes to install. A fraction of the cost that a company offering a proprietary CMS would charge. These are the reasons that Alpine Web Media works with the open source CMS model.
To be fair, the companies who offer proprietary CMS’ will say that open source solutions are more vulnerable to viruses and hackers. Like any other popular software, that is true. However, nothing on the web is 100% safe from hackers, not even a proprietary CMS. There are a number of debates on the web about “open source vs. proprietary CMS” and it’s easy to see that the “proprietary” crowd are fighting to retain their high profits and 100% control over their customer’s websites. Their primary argument is that their systems are safer from hackers. If your open source CMS is developed properly with the correct file permission, strong passwords, file backups and vigilant updates, you really don’t have much to worry about, proprietary or not.
A number of large corporations and government organizations utilize open source content management systems. For instance, the White House website is based on Drupal. I think open source is a pretty safe bet and certainly far more flexible and cost efficient. Ultimately, the decision is up to you and your budget.
Turning Lead (ColdFusion) into Gold (WordPress)
If anyone out there has any thoughts or ideas about how to import ColdFusion coded pages into a WordPress template page, I’d really like to know. Can it be done or is it impossible? The more I have researched it, the more I am beginning to think it would be easier to find Noah’s Ark.
I did find a post here that provides a roundabout inkling that it may be possible to integrate the two technologies, but there is nothing forthcoming or any new ideas posted to the website. I have contacted several of the top ColdFusion experts about this but even they are not sure because they’re not attuned to the WordPress coding side of things. So, if anyone has any ideas, please let me know so I can either keep digging around or put this beast to rest once and for all.
Social Media and Why You Should be Using it
Social media is here to stay and even though many of us are a bit reluctant to jump into it, it is very clear that your website growth and success, hinges on the proper utilization of social media.
From Website Magazine:
Technologies change so rapidly that they create the need for new ideas and improved strategies virtually overnight. You may be tired of hearing about social media, for instance, and you hardly consider it a new development. But if you employ the same social strategies in 2012 as you did in 2010, and fail to account for the changes coming in the next year, your business will suffer the consequences. To ensure that your website stays ahead of this trend, direct your focus on providing continually fresh and useful content that matters in real time — content that addresses the current needs of your audience. There is no better way to achieve this than by engaging with your customers on social networks.
Create and distribute helpful blog posts and informational videos on which users can comment and share with one another, and invite them to write reviews about your products, services and business. Build an application or optimize your website to ensure that users can access your business on their mobile devices and get the information they need right away.
To monitor the engagement, explore some real-time analytics solutions to determine how visitors are interacting with your site — while they are on-site. Optify provides just one of the solutions in this rapidly growing space, giving website owners instant analysis that allows them to immediately address the needs of their visitors.
Why You Shouldn’t Use Free E-Mail Accounts Like GMail, Yahoo or Hotmail, etc.
First let me start out by saying that there is nothing wrong with using free e-mail accounts. In fact they are terrific for many reasons and I have several accounts myself that I find very useful. Like anything else, used properly, free e-mail accounts are highly recommended.
On the other hand…
If you already have a registered domain name for your business you should definitely be using e-mail accounts from your own domain web hosting account such as info@yourbusiness.com. Why? Because in the first place, it promotes a positive image of your company and profession. When you think about it doesn’t info@microsoft.com seem much more professional than bill.gates@yahoo.com? Absolutely.
Forwarding Domain E-mails to Free Accounts
Here’s another thing that many people do that is unprofessional and can cause problems. They have a domain, set up and email account and proudly announce their contact e-mail as info@yourbusiness.com. But then they have those e-mails forwarded to a free e-mail address such as mrsbusybody@gmail.com, for their own convenience. When they reply to an e-mail, the person who contacts them gets a response from mrsbusybody@gmail.com instead of info@yourbusiness.com. They are probably thinking who is mrsbusybody@gmail.com and why is she sending me an e-mail? Off it goes, unread, to the junk e-mail or spam box.
Which also brings up the possibility that the person receiving your email may have spam filters set to reject e-mails as spam from free e-mail account providers. Do you really want to take the chance that your e-mails are getting filtered out as spam just because it’s easier for you to forward everything to your Gmail or Yahoo account? For anyone conducting a business, this is a lazy and surefire way to annoy your customers. Worse yet it may give them the impression that you never answered their e-mail inquiries, when in fact you did but your reply went unseen to their spam folder.
Sometimes forwarded e-mails are actually weeded out by the free e-mail account provider. In some cases, you will not even receive the forwarded e-mails due to errors on behalf of GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. Many companies such as AOL, Comcast, etc. that provide free e-mail addresses with their services DO NOT ALLOW e-mail forwarding from another account. If something goes wrong, don’t blame your web hosting company where info@yourbusiness.com is hosted. Nine times out of ten, the problem lies with your free e-mail provider. Good luck calling Google or Yahoo and asking them to look into the issue.
Bottom line is why would anyone want to deal with this entire situation at all when you have your own domain name and e-mail accounts? Simply use your webmail (most hosting accounts have webmail access) or configure MS Outlook or other e-mail programs on your computer to retrieve your e-mails automatically. Save yourself a lot of potential headaches in addition to providing a more professional, business like appearance with your e-mails. Use the free e-mail accounts for things like signing up for promotions, etc. to keep the spam and junk mail out of your business e-mail account.
And finally, here is the best reason for using your domain e-mail account – advertising.
If you use a free e-mail account on your website, business cards, print and other ads, what happens if your free e-mail provider switches names, etc.? For instance when Adelphia was purchased by Comcast, everyone who was using johndoe@adelphia.net had to pay a lot of money for new business cards and other changes. At that point, wouldn’t you realize that instead of changing to johndoe@comcast.net, wouldn’t it make more sense to use johndoe@yourcompany.com? As long as your domain name is paid up, you’d never have to worry about changing the e-mail address again. Simple enough?
Saving Money with Coupon Codes
With the US economy on the skids, many of us are trying to save as much money as possible. If you’d like to save a little cash while shopping online, here’s a tip that many people overlook.
When you place an order and reach the check out page, often times you’ll see a box to enter a promotional, coupon or other type of code. Most of us assume that since we don’t have such a code we ignore it and check out as usual. But wait…you CAN get a code and save some money.
Simply do a Google search on the company name followed by the words “promo code” or “coupon code”. Most of the time, a website link will become available where you can copy and paste the code into the promo code, check out box. I’ve had pretty good luck with this but occasionally it may not work because the promo codes have expired, etc. Still, 2 or 3 minutes of research is worth the effort.
Also, before you order at Amazon or other discount websites, make sure to check the manufacturer’s website first. Sometimes you can get a better price directly through the manufacturer and that is more often than not, the place where you can check out and apply a promotional code.
How Roboform Can Make Your Life Easier
I don’t often plug any specific products but I came across one recently that I just cannot live without. I’ll bet that once you’ve tried it, browsing the web just won’t be the same without RoboForm either. Yeah, RoboForm (no relation to RoboCop?).
It’s a great little program that manages all of your website logins, passwords, ID’s etc. It literally only takes seconds to login to websites and saves you a lot of typing. But what I really love about RoboForm is the way it fills in forms. Nobody likes the tedious task of filling in line after line of forms. With this great little piece of software, you only fill in a form once and it saves everything. The next time you come across a form, just click a button and in one second it pre-fills form data into a web page and saves you a lot of valuable time.
RoboForm can be installed on multiple computers and synced over the web, so that the latest changes or logins are automatically available on other computers. Give it a try now, while it’s only $9.95.
The Dark Side of Facebook
Facebook is the current craze with just about everyone from little kiddies to grandmothers across the world. No one can dispute it’s popularity and ease of keeping all your friends informed by just one simple post, as opposed to a number of individual or cc’d e-mails. Posting photos and videos of your vacation, etc. are very easy. It would seem that Facebook is indeed a miraculous, “can’t live without” web application.
But, there is a dark side of Facebook that many people are unaware of. Many people who are new to Facebook and/or are not too web savvy can easily fall into a false illusion of security. After all, you’re just posting some innocent moments to share with your friends, right? At least that is what many people believe. What you might not know is that just about anyone can see a small portion or all of your Facebook posts even if they are not part of your “friends” list. Simply do a search on a name or e-mail address and you can easily find out just about anything about anyone you wish. Not sure of a name or e-mail address? Simply browse through someone you have added as a friend and view their friends list. Click on anyone of them and instantly get a preview of their world and private information. Some people have wisely gone into their account settings and blocked off most of their “wall” and other info, but there is still some information visible. On Facebook, you may run but you cannot hide…unless you shut down your Facebook account.
There have been a number of articles lately about online stalking and other crimes directly attributable to Facebook and other social networking sites like MySpace, etc. Some pretty scary stuff is going on out there in both the virtual world of the web and the REAL world. It would seem inconceivable that people would share personal and/or intimate details of their lives with total strangers but that is precisely what many are doing on their Facebook accounts. Perhaps the most foolhardy people are the ones who invite and accept anyone, trying to build a huge network of “friends” based solely on quantity not quality. I would be terrified to accept a friend invitation from someone unknown only to find out later that the person is a child predator or a serial murderer. Yet, some people don’t have a clue about who they are accepting (or inviting) into their circle of friends. That is a recipe for disaster.
Like anything else Facebook is what you make of it. If used responsibly and safely, it can be a great tool for business or keeping in touch with friends. Just be aware that whatever you are posting out there is just like standing on a podium and announcing it all to the whole world. Be careful and be safe!
Flip Mino
The Flip Mino is a tiny little camcorder that is about the same size as a cell phone. I picked one up for creating YouTube videos and I have to say it works quite well. The video quality is better than I expected and the Flip Mino can hold an hour of video and audio. You can easily shoot a video and save it to your computer and/or upload to YouTube and other web video services or even send via e-mail. The Flip Mino is so small, you can bring it anywhere. I brought it along to the Elton John concert recently and nobody gave me a hard time about using it. If I would have had a full size camcorder, I probably would have been told not to use it. Because the Mino is so small, it blended in easily with everyone using cell phones to to snap quick videos. The price is right at around $150.