A Better Surfing Experience

Surfing in Dominica, we tend to use all the default settings our ISP provides us. The problem is, their Domain Name Servers lag hours behind the rest of the world. So for a better surfing experience, use OpenDNS.org.

You can sign up for an account on OpenDNS.com (it's free), or simply start using their DNS right away. Go into your Network Settings, and change your Domain Name Servers to:

208.67.220.220
208.67.222.222

If you have a small home/office network, you can do this on your hub/router/modem.

Using OpenDNS will pull up a search page if a domain doesn't exist (rather then a 404 page) but it's worth the switch for the faster and more up-to-date DNS resolution.

Conficker what?

There's a good article about the Conflicker 'virus' that never appeared on April 1, like many pundits said it would. Scares like that should merely amuse you, knowing that you do have an up-to-date anti-virus package and your Windows is updated too.

In terms of anti-virus protection, there are two free options worth checking out: Avira, and AVG. For a good comparision of the merits of these products, also read this.

The New Facebook - Some Trips & Tricks

Since Facebook launched the 'new look' for their Home Page this month, many users have criticised its layout. But as with any change, there are pros and cons... and ways around it.

Changing the Look of Your Facebook Page

First, let's take a look at a few ways to change your the look of your new Facebook home page.

1) The following article from InsideFacebook.com offers some tips on how to customise your facebook page. These include;

• Hiding Friends you don't want to see
• Grouping friends into Friend List
• Change your default home page filter

Read the entire article here: 3 Tips for Customizing the New Facebook Home Page


2) And for those who want to return to the old look, Steve provides a summary of how to change it.

Sometimes we forget the whole point about using Firefox is that, with extensions, we can customise the surfing experience. The new Facebook 'design' is a good example; you can be sure that if others don't like it there will be an add-on to fix it.

Facebook Purity and Facebook Fixer can both be used to fix design issues with the new Facebook. Both are Greasemonkey scripts, so you'll need to install this first. But you'll be able to:

* hide annoying friends and their quiz obsessions
* hide the annoying 'Highlights' column
* and much more.

Advantages of the New Facebook Page

One of the strengths of the new Facebook setup is that it offers more power to those who have set up a Business Page.

From here on out, whenever you post to your Business Page, a feed will appear in the 'News Feed' of all of your Fans (unless they decide to 'Hide' it).

So use this opportunity to your advantage - give your Fans some brief, relevant information about your business - current specials, upcoming events, etc. They will see your information right in their Feed, giving you great access to you customers. Keep it brief & interesting - don't give them a reason to click the 'Hide' button!

Convert PDF files to Word Docs!

This wonderful little site makes it easy to convert any PDF into a Word Document.

Best of all, it's free! Visit PDFtoWord.com

Simply upload your file and it is converted and e-mailed back to you.

Going Green for Travel Businesses

How does "green thinking" affect a consumer's decisions when making travel plans?

A report just released by PhoCusWright reveals the following:

• More than four out of ten U.S. travelers (44%) consider environmental impact to be important to them when planning travel
  
  
• A majority of U.S. travelers (56%) are skeptical of what companies tell them about their green practices
  
  
• Just under a third of travelers indicate a willingness to pay some sort of premium for green travel
  
  
• Only 8% of green travelers believe it is easy to find green travel options

(From PhoCusWright Report here.)

Bottomline

These findings have a significant impact on the strategies used to market 'green vacations' to those looking for environmentally friendly and sustainable holidays.

1. Establishing social credibility is more important than ever when trying to reach green travelers. Since many travelers are willing to pay a little more for green travel options, it is worth making the effort to convince them.
   
2. Word-of-mouth marketing techniques are critical to success here, as they help bolster a company's social credibility.
3. Make it easy for your potential visitors to get this information. Start with your current mailing list of past customers who already trust you and promote the green aspects of your business to them.

Use your website, blog and e-mail newsletters to tell your customers how green you are!

Cloud computing

Cloud computing is a bit of a buzz-word (or rather phrase) at the moment, but what is it? Simply put, it's the concept that a collection of computers are used, over the Internet, for storage of data, running applications, and general web-based services.

The Net itself is a 'cloud', but the fast-growing trend of applications being used directly on the Web is a good example of using 'the cloud'. For instance, one can dispense with MS Office on your PC and use Google Docs, or Zoho.com for many of your word processing needs. Presuming you have a good internet connection, of course!

The big advantage of course is that your data is accessible from anywhere you're connected to the web. The cloud is also an ideal place to backup your data (see our post about online backups). It does raise the issue of how secure and trustworthy a service is, especially given the number of new startups there are, vying for your attention. But the big guys (Google, Microsoft, Zoho) all offer services that can help you get into 'the cloud'.

Facebook Users Are Getting Older

Despite the occasional misuse of the web as mentioned in a previous post (Facebook Scam), it is still the most cost-effective channel where small businesses can focus their marketing efforts.

Our recent infatuation with Facebook, and the marketing opportunities available there, is a result of the changes that have been taking place on this very popular social networking site.


Facebook is continuing to experience an outlandish growth rate.

Last month, the greatest percentage increase came from Women Aged 55 and older - a segment which has a lot of purchase power and decision-making clout.

"Nearly a quarter of all Facebook users are over 35 today - quite a change from Facebook’s roots as a social networking tool for college students just a few years ago."
InsideFacebook.com

This is why we continue to recommend that our clients set up Facebook Pages for their businesses.

Visit our Facebook page here:

• Delphis on Facebook