Google Apps for Your Domain

Very interesting! It looks like in a near future to get e-mail, a simple web site, collaboration tools like calendars and even a working environment for word processing and spreadsheets will be available for all interested small companies, and free of charge.
Google is not in the back of the initiative. Microsoft also started something for web collaboration.

• Google apps for your domain
• Microsoft Office Live
• Windows Live custom domains

So what do we get from this?

Actually we get a lot!

In the case of Google we get custom emails, it means email accounts with your own domain name!; a web site; Writelyl; and Google Spreadsheets. All free.

In the case of Microsoft we get custom emails as well, unlimited and with 2GB of storage per mailbox. The Office Live is not free but accessible for small companies. You can see some of the Microsoft services list in News.com

Great! New Mac adds online!

From the first time Apple launched this campaign about the Mac and the PC... I'm a fanatic of the super funny and creative short videos. You can see them in:
http://www.apple.com/getamac/
They are as great as the first ones!

My 5 best Podcasts

It is very difficult to have something that will be good for all different persons. But I'm sure that if you like science, technology and the best of leadership and business you will get something from here! aah and if you know some others please don't doubt to send them to me.

1. Digital planet


2. Science Talk from Scientific American


3. HBR Idea Cast


4. The Wall Street Journal for small business


5. The best of Amazon.com

I personally like very much to use the iTunes for downlaoding the podcasts. It is easy to use and works very good. I hope you like them!

TIP 6: Free Clipart

If you are always looking for good images and photos for your day to day activities and you don't know Office Online, I advise you to give a check on it (click here).

The past link will send you to the US site of Office Online but if you want to see the page in a different language just click on the "United States (change)" message that appears on that page in the top left side... like in the following image:

To search for clipart you just need to select the type of clipart and then write the keyword you think describes best the kind of images you want to have:

Then the rest of the steps are going to be very simple to discover! And for the graphic designers there is a good new... many of the images are in vector format.

TIP 5: A secure way of using and sharing your PC

Most of the "help" requests I receive from friends and customers are to solve simple problems in their PCs. In many cases the problem is originated by "human factor" more than real bugs from the computer. Of course a lot of trubles are also related to viruses and spyware.
One good method to avoid that kind of trubles is by using the computer with an "account" without administrative rights. By defaul in Windows XP you are using an account with administrative rights.. so it allows viruses and spyware to be instaled on the pc. It also means that the user of the computer can install any program from internet that could be infected with viruses or that include spyware... so that's bad.
My advise for non experienced users is to create an account without those administrative rihts. Windows XP makes it easy:

Step 1: Open the Control Panel

Step 2: Select the option of "User Accounts"

Step 3: Select the task "create account"

Step 4: In the new window specify the name for the new account. It can be the name of a user or any word that goes good for what that account will be used for

Step 5: Select the "Limited" account type and then press the "Create Account" button

And that's it! you can restart the PC so you will se in the welcome screen the new account. If you wish you can setup a password for this account.

I advise you to read the following article from PC Magazine. There you will find more details and warning about this way of securing your PC.

TIP 4: Legal music downloads

I'm 100% against piracy of any kind. There is no need to become a pirate and violate the right of others. But be sure that if you don't want to spend your well deserved salary in music there are some interesting sources of legal downloads and also of free stream of music. In the case of stream you don't get the music in your computer but you can listen to it... More like a radio.

• So if you would like to download music to your computer, so you could even make CDs there is a great place! Music Downloads on Cnet. There you can find hundreds of musicians advertising their work by giving you the chance to download some of their songs for free.
• But if you just want to listen the music so you don't need to spend time downloading and selecting which song to download visit Pandora's internet radio. You can specify which music you like and the system will create a radio station for you. And you can create more than 1 radio station... It is worth the experiment!

Tip N3: Leadership on the web

One of the most interesting experiences in my personal and professional life was my post-degree. Specially because it included a lot of training related to leadership. Then I knew from close some of the books of Franklin Covey.
Many of the resources needed for my studies are now available online. But there is something very special on that web site: The mission statement builder. And it is free! You can find it in: http://www.franklincovey.com/fc/library_and_resources
Thet is a great help for all of us looking for more meaning in our lives.
But for more curious persons... in the same page you can find a great collection of articles that are just what is needed to prepare some meetings, impress your chief with new concepts for improving at work....
Give a check on the page and if you are too stressed don't loos the chance to check the Stress Assessment tool.

Tip 2: Search Engine Optimization SEO

I'm very interested in the Search Engine Optimization topic. Lately we are making some efforts to improve how the Search Engines are listing and rating our web sites. One of the reasons is because we think our web sites should be between the 3 or 4 first results on Google or Yahoo.
One of the important concepts is to understand how the search engines really work. But that is a veeeery long topic.
Today I would like to show 1 PDF file where you could see the relationships between the different search engines. That's important! because knowing that you will find out where you should register your web site. How come? Let me explain...
Some search engines are working in partnership with other search engines. That means that they are sharing the information they have. So, if the search engine 1 provides contents to the second one... Then you only need to register your web site in the first one.
SEO is a complex thing, there are many sources of information and tools, click here to get a list of some of them.
That PDF is published on the web site of http://www.bruceclay.com/ they are offering several services for SEO. This is not and ADD for that company... I don't know who they are.. I just found that PDF very interesting.

Tip Number 1

This week I will try to post each day a short tip. So I will place some links to places I'm constantly looking for.
This is the case of Bplans.com. They have very good advice, articles and sources that can be useful even for experienced managers. From my perspective, this is a place where to get some info to "remember" concepts that can be applied to the specific situation of different organizations. Don't forget to give a check on the 60 free samples of business plans!
In the section for articles you will find some interesting categories. I would like to show you an interesting tool... Please click on the "Marketing and advertising link". On that page you will find a section named "Interactive tools", select the Website Conversion Rate Calculator. This tool will help you to calculate how much money you are receiving per visitor on your web site!
Well, now you know how to explore the Bplans.com web site and I'm sure you will find something interesting.

First post!

Hello!
This first post is dedicated to explain which is the idea of this Blog.
Within the company where I'm working (B4contact) we are constantly researching for tips related to desktop software, internet, operating systems and other similar topics. But the reason why we are doing it is because our customers are not IT pros, so we are all the time trying to find the best way of making it easy for them to learn a bit more.
Actually we have an e-learning site called Piflar.com (it means geek) and it is focused on our local market... As you probably found out it is the slovenian market. But the problem is that I don't speak slovenian!! So I will write in English.
So this Blog is made to write some tips that we are not including within any of our portals. Why? Because the Blogs are letting us a bigger margin of freedom and "informality". The portals are including standardized contents.
So keep coming to this web site to see what is new!