Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference.

When Did He Make This Quote

In 2005, Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Inc., delivered a memorable commencement speech at Stanford University. Addressing the graduating class, Jobs shared insightful anecdotes from his own life, emphasizing the importance of following one’s passions and intuition.

He recounted his journey of dropping out of college and founding Apple in his parents’ garage, highlighting the significance of setbacks and failures in shaping one’s path. Jobs urged the graduates to pursue their dreams with courage and determination, reminding them that the dots of life would connect in hindsight.

His words resonated with the audience, inspiring a generation to embrace their inner creativity and strive for excellence in their endeavors.

Why Is Steve Job’s Quote About Connecting The Dots So Powerful

Steve Jobs’ quote about connecting the dots is important because it reminds us that the experiences and choices we make in life, even the ones that might seem unrelated or insignificant at the time, can shape our future in unexpected ways.

Just like connecting dots in a drawing reveals the bigger picture, our past experiences and decisions eventually come together to form our unique life story.

Jobs used this idea to encourage people not to worry too much about the future or dwell on past mistakes, but instead to trust in themselves and keep moving forward.

By embracing this perspective, we can find meaning and purpose in our journey, even when things don’t go as planned.

Buy an index fund, preferably over time, so you end up owing good businesses at a reasonable average price, and that is all you have to do .You don’t need to look at the prices of the stocks you own from week-to-week, or month-to-month, or even year-to-year. If you own a cross-section of American businesses, and you don’t get excited (and buy) just at the very top, and if you buy in over time, you are going to do well.

What is this Virus on your WordPress site?

This is a little tricky virus on your webserver that exploits 404 Redirects with SEO Poisoning. All Links in the compromised site point to:

/click3.php?S7QytarOtDKyzrQyBGITIDYHYlMo29jaD0iaWRdbGRlYKaklpqXFF5cmGdnmJmbmRYOIWCXrWgA%3D

The virus shows a fake ConsumerLifestyle page with fake credentials from CNN, CBS and MSNBC. Here is a snap shot of the wordpress 404 redirect hack:

https://markswist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/consumerlifehack.jpg

Of course this drew a red flag so I looked on my server to potentially delete the files responsible. The first place I went to was the .htaccess file. This is usually the place where sites get hacked with a redirect. I noticed my .htaccess files were fine. The next thing I did was right click on a picture to see where a potential file was located so I could just delete the associated folder. I right clicked on the logo to see where the logo picture was pointed. It pointed to my webserver then:

garca/images/logo.png

Here is an image properties from Google Chrome:

Looking at my webserver, there was not a folder named garca which means I wasn’t going to be able to find the file. Wow! What an amazing virus/malware that was placed on my server. The good thing is that it narrowed dows the point of entry on my wordpress site to the plugins. Looking in the plugins folder of my webspace that is can be found at /wp-contents/plugins and there is folder entitled “wppm”. This is where the wordpress 404 redirect virus is stored. Take a look at the following screenshot:

When you delete this folder you will delete this tricky little exploit that takes advantage of 404 redirects. I hope this helps people that comes searching for how to get rid of this little bugger. Don’t forget just delete the entire wppm folder that should be located in wp-content/plugins

Let’s start off with why Pinterest? Well looking at the data below you can see that 69% of Pinterest consumers have found an item they have bought or wanted to buy. This is compared to only 40% from Facebook. This means your efforts on Pinterest would be more rewarded than doing the same amount of effort on Facebook. However TikTok has recently grown in popularity as a result of its enormously appealing potential and capacity for creativity. As a result, it’s a great choice for businesses looking to promote their brand and expand their organic reach, so why not increase your TikTok engagement in your marketing?

Who are Pinterest users? Well 80 percent of Pinterest users are women in which half of those have children. Therefore, our marketing efforts on Pinterest as a brand need to directly target and capture the heart of our audience who happen o be women first and mothers second.

With that said, here are some statistics on Pinterest users for business. What they show is the effects of social networking with pinterest. The social networking effects on Pinterest seem to be more beneficial that its counterparts ie Facebook and Twitter. Based on statistics, it seems more valuable to me to have a Pinterest for a business. The statistics on Pinterest show the changes in social networking and social networking demographics. Take a look at the infographic below

[img src=”https://markswist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/pinterest-users.png” alt=”” width=”900″ height=”2000″ ]

Using Instagram to promote your own business is one of the lowest cost strategy models ever. You can reach thousands of people at no cost.

Let’s see, you’re a personal trainer and you’re needing to build your clientele. You can snap a before/after picture of a client, instagram it with a caption underneath about your business and contact you if you’re interested in body transformation. Or you’re the owner of a bakery, take pictures of the delicious pastries available at your store and put it on instagram. Just hearing about your grandmothers delicious key lime pie is one thing, but actually seeing it is another.

How do these Instagram make you feel???????

Instagram could be used for every business but if you have business you also need more that just Instagram.

Take advantage of it and get your business on social media because social media is taking over everything. Your goal is to make people want what’s in your picture. Sell that emotion, that item, and that need to your audience through your picture.

I’ve heard the saying that people buy pictures, not because they like the image, but because they need the image. I partially disagree, because often you find people buying more of what they like rather than what they need.  You can reach thousands of people at one time with one picture. Marketing and advertising is a big portion of a company’s cost. Use instagram to reduce that cost.

Instagram creates WOD (word of mouth), which is one of the best forms of advertising out there. It also creates a lot of impulse buys. You’ve seen it, you heard about it, and now you want it. Instagram it!

2. Create Image Map for the Banner Portion

1. YouTube Channel Background – A Photoshop Layouts for YouTube

***Download my Photoshop file below***

Your banner is part of your background. This means that your background image has to have your banner inside of it. I have prepared a custom photoshop file that will make this entire process easy for you. In the custom photoshop file, make your youtube channel background using the guidelines I have setup. The Purple/Pink area is your background part. The Light Purple/Blue area is where your banner will be located. You can put links to things like your website, your blog, your twitter account, facebook and etc. Design it as you wish.

Once you finish with your design (and turn off the layers that don’t deal with the background) make sure to go to File –> Save (As JPG) and also File –> Save for Web and Devices. My photoshop file will automatically “save for web and devices” the banner into a separate image files that you will need for the next step. Everything will be inside of an image folder. Find the image file that is the banner for your Youtube channel then proceed to the next step.

[viral-download file1=”https://markswist.com/downloads/Partner_Channel_Background.psd” name1=”Download Photoshop File” url=”www.markswist.com” message=”Just Like or Share on Twitter of Linkedin to get access to the file” tweet=”Thanks for the tweeting”/]

2. IMAGEMAP – CREATE IMAGE MAP HTML

You cannot upload a picture or simply link to an image on the new Youtube channel layout. What happens they allow you space up top (150 px) that will be apart of your background for your YouTube channel that will be used for a custom YouTube channel banner. Simply put, this banner area is not a separate file, it is just your background.  What you are doing is making areas within that region clickable by what is called an “imagemap”.  (Make sure you put in 150 px in the box above the image map code box. ) Lets get to it…….. Now you need to create image maps html. Lets me walk you through this.

Navigate to a website http://www.image-maps.com or [button link=”http://www.image-maps.com” size=”small” window=”yes”]Click Here[/button]

On the imagemap website, click browse and navigate to that banner image and click open.

Once you find the file you want to upload, click “Start Mapping Your Image”

After that, you will have to wait ten seconds before see a link to continue to the next step. At this point you will be able to see your banner uploaded to the website. Click on “Continue to Next Step”

First thing you need to do is to navigate to the bottom right of this page and UNCHECK “Allow backlinks” and “Show Text Links”. These items should now be collapsed.

Next, click on the rectangle button so that you can put a rectangular area around the parts of your Youtube banner that you want to make a link.

A rectangle will appear at the top right and you need to move it to where you want your link to be. Also use the corners to stretch it to the exact size you want your rectangle. After you position your rectangle on your Youtube banner correctly, type in the full link address and give your link address a Title. That way, when someone hovers over that link, it will tell them where they are going. (Example to be shown in a second) DON’T forget to click SAVE

Repeat the previous process (Clicking Rectangle .. .Blah blah blahh)  until you have all the links on your Youtube channel banner linked to where you want it to be linked. You can also Test Link to make sure you type in the correct URL.

When you have completed all your links, you can hover over your banner and you will notice an opaque square over your links as well as where the links will be going to. At this point, your Youtube channel banner code is complete.

Now what you want to do is click on the “Get your Code” button.

Next, click on the “HTML Code” tab up top

Once you finish that, you will see your generated code in the text box. Make sure to highlight and copy all of this and paste it into your Youtube channel banner image map section. (Remember if you don’t have this option then you have not signed up to be a Youtube partner.

Download WordPress Setup Files

Go to google and simply type in wordpress. Click on what is more than likely the first result and you should be able to download from there. The downloaded file will be a zip file. The current wordpress install is 3.3.1 [button link=”http://wordpress.org/download/” size=”small” window=”yes”]Go there Now[/button]

Get a linux Hosting package (1and1.com, Godaddy, etc)

Getting your own domain space is an important choice. Your domain host will probably be who you end up sticking with for a while. For this reason, I usually go with trusted host like 1and1 and go daddy. Yes there are plenty of other smaller ones that try to offer you better deals, but I tend to go with the more trusted domain host that have really good business servers and useful back-end applications. A lot of the smaller ones don’t allow you to unzip on the server which you will realize is very important. Make sure you get a LINUX HOSTING PACKAGE!!!!

[button link=”http://www.1and1.com/?affiliate_id=75743 ” size=”small” window=”yes”]Go Get Hosting[/button]

Setup a Mysql Database from your webhost

Once you login to the backend of your domain, find and click on a section called MySql administration. What you want to do is create a new database. With this new database, you will be given the following information:

Database Name:
Host Name:
User Name:
Database Password: (you fill this out)

At this point you want to Unzip your WordPress Files. Open the folder that was created and find a file called “wp-config-sample.php” and rename it to “wp-config.php”. Open newly named wp-config.php and insert database settings (from above). Make sure to leave the quotes and just replace the information inside the quotes. Look at the graphic below for an example.

*******Zip WordPress Installation files NOT folder********

Upload WordPress Installation files to Server

This is where you upload your zip file to your webspace. Navigate to whatever webspace explorer that you use. You may also use filezilla if that is the way you transfer files to your server. Most domain host have a webspace explorer where you can upload files to your server. At this point you want to upload the wordpress zip file that you just created to the section of your website that you want the wordpress installation to be at. You can upload it to the root directory if you want your wordpress installation to be on for example ” http://www.yoursite.com” or, you can put it in a sub directory like “http://www.yoursite.com/blog” . Which ever is suffice for you. Once you upload the files to the proper folder on your server, Unzip the zip file to server in the directory that you want the install. At this point you can check the folder permission or (chmod) settings which should be 755 for folders and 644 for files. This is a good default setting.

WordPress Installation through Internet Browser

Navigate on your internet browser to where you put the wordpress installation (www.mywordpresssite.com) or (www.mywordpresssite.com/blog)
This will start you through the WordPress installation process. Run the install by filling out the required data. Fill in your Email and make sure to use the exact same email as you have registered with Gravatar.com. WordPress uses gravatar as the default avatar engine so make sure if you don’t already have an account with them, go and set one up.[button link=”http://www.gravatar.com” size=”small” window=”yes”]Go to Gravatar[/button]

At this point the default wordpress installation is up and running. However, there are more things we need to do if we want to properly set up this wordpress installation including setting it up for mobile device post. You can click next to enter your blog. If you got disconnected somehow, just go to whereever you put your blog and type in the url “/wp-admin”. Example “www.markswist.com/wp-admin”. THis is the default login address for your wordpress setup.

Install WordPress Theme

There are a lot of good theme sites that have nice looking WordPress templates for very cheap. You can easily google many wordpress themes, however, if you would like my recommendation on theme providers here is a good list.

	Theme Provider	Theme Price
	Studiopress	$79.95
	Elegant Themes	$39.00
	WP Zoom	$69.00
	WooThemes	$70.00
	Thesis Theme	$87.00
	ThemeFuse	$49.00
	Theme Junkie	$39.00
	Press75	$175.00
	Pagelines	$197.00
	SoloStream	$79.00
	Organic Themes	$69.00
	ThemeShift	$50.00
	Themify	$39.00
	BizzThemes	$69.00
	Mojo Themes	???
	Theme Forest	$35.00

WordPress Settings

Under Settings –> General

Pick the correct timezone

Under Settings –> Writing

Check the XML-RPC setting. This allows you to make post from third party devices such as your iphone, android phone, ipad, etc. Make sure you go to the app store for either device and download the free wordpress app. Here is an example of the setting.

To help with search engine optimization, the url structure of your website needs to be user friendly to search engines. Therefore, instead of having your url be post numbers generated by wordpress, your url needs to pertain to the keywords and post tittle. To change that, we input these settings:

Under Settings –> Permalinks

Click Custom Structure and input this exactly:

/%category%/%postname%/

 Recommended WordPress plugins for effective setup

The last aspect of setting up wordpress is to start off with the right plugins. The plugins that we need to install at a minimum are as follows:

Spam Protection ( Akismet )

Akismet is the default plugin used for Spam Protection and it does a really good job. It actually comes standard with all wordpress installs. If you have ever blogged before, you understand the importance of spam protection. What you will need to do is to go to Akismet and sign up to get a key. Lets do that…..[button link=”http://www.akismet.com” size=”small” window=”yes”]Go to Akismet[/button] After you get your key, navigate to plugins –> installed plugins and activate Akismet. Once you activate, go to the plugins settings and input your key that you signed up for.

Comment Setup (Disqus)

Since you will be blogging, you will definitely want an interactive community. For an interactive community you will need to have a good comment system setup. Discqus is used all throughout the blogging world and is fairly reliable and common. The first thing you will need to do is to signup for a free disqus account. [button link=”http://www.disqus.com” size=”small” window=”yes”]Go to Disqus[/button]

After you setup Disqus, make sure that you add your new site under settings in Disqus.

Once, you completed your disqus setup, go to Plugins –> Add New on your wordpress blog. search for “Disqus Comment System” and the first result should be the correct plugin. If not make sure to install the plugin that matches your search.

Social Media Sharing (Digg Digg, Social Metrics)

Digg Digg

To effectively promote your blog, you will need to have social network interactions. There are countless out there and Digg Digg does an amazing job of incorporating many of these social networks into your blog. This includes counters as well for the number of people who tweet, retweeted, facebook liked, shared on linkedin, etc. Navigate to Plugins –> Add New then search for Digg Digg. Install this plugin and you will get a new Digg Digg Menu towards the bottom of your dashboard. There you can tweak the Digg Digg Settings.

Social Metrics

Once you have incorporated Digg Digg with your blog, you want to manage those social media interactions. Social Metrics is a new plugin however it does an amazing job of allowing you to control everything in bulk. It allows you to tweet, like, +1, etc right from the dashboard and to look at all the different counts from the networks you are signed up for. If your count isnt as high in a particular blog, just like it, +1, tweet it, etc right from the dashboard .

Search Engine Optization, SEO ( All in One SEO Pack, Google XML Sitemaps)

All In One All in One SEO Pack

The most important thing that you want to be aware of is how your blog does in search engines. Search engine optimization is an art form in itself and All In One SEO pack does an amazing job of helping you optimize your blog for the various spiders that crawl your site. The next recommended plugin I have is the tried and true All In One Seo Pack. This plugin has been around for a while and while there has been others such as the one by Yoast that provide good competition, All In One has been through the test of time. I recommend getting the pro version which cost $39.00

Google XML Sitemaps

Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines crawl your site all the time to make sure it can read everything. If it can “Index” your site properly, all your content will be accounted for. To aid these spiders that crawl your site, a Sitemap needs to be submitted to the different search engines. Google XML Sitemaps does just that.

That concludes my proper wordpress setup walkthrough. Please comment, Like and tweet for me.

Here is a summary of the steps, however I will walk you through it.

1.   In Acrobat professional 9 or higher, go to Advanced–> Document Processing–>Edit All JavaScripts

2.   In that dialog, type: this.flattenPages();

3.   press “Ctrl + Enter”

Adobe PDF With Permanent Comments

Step 1 is in Acrobat Professional 9, is to go to the Advanced Menu–> Document Processing–> Edit All JavaScripts

This will bring up the dialog box that lets you create and edit javascripts. (Bet you didn’t know you could do this)

Next the JavaScript Editor opens up. What you want to do is Highlight everything and just delete it.

After that, you need to type this code in exactly as it is written:

this.flattenPages();

(IMPORTANT) … do not hit ok. Make sure you press CTRL+ENTER on your keyboard to run the script. After this is ran, then you can press ok.

Now look over your comment on PDF file and you will notice that the comments are no longer editable. If you want to add more comments you may, however, you have to run the script again to flatten the comments. This is a really good process if you have your logo or other type of stamps on a document that you want to submit as preliminary. If you do not do this process before sending to a client, whoever you send the document to could just delete the Stamp or Comment. Therefore, put this into your common practices when sending PDF documents with comments.

PEACE!!!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the main thing you need to focus on as a business. In doing so, here is a SEO Tip about 301 Website Redirects. If you want to know about Website Redirection,  or setting up Joomla for SEO redirects here is a helpful video and code below and also, don’t forget to visit websites like Victorious to get more help with SEO!

On the other hand, social media for business has proved to be a great idea of profit, is social media marketing also beneficial for small businesses? Read this article to know if small businesses on social media can grow using this powerful marketing strategy.

Looking for SEO team of experts that has the experience and track record of boosting client’s organic website rankings, then check out some places like www.updigital.ca to learn more!

Google sees your site as two different sites if you don’t implement a 301 domain Redirect. What this means is that http://yoursite.com and http://www.youriste.com are two different websites. This means the traffic will be analyzed based on which address your linked to. To counter this, a SEO person will first implement the Redirects and SEO. I have dealt with a lot of Joomla Content Management System based sites so here is a video explaining how to do a 301 Redirect in Joomla when you are setting up Joomla.

Attached is the code you will need if you would like to copy and paste the 301 Domain Redirect into your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com
RewriteRule (.*) yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]