Business Oasis

How To Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi

2013-02-07T03:15:00.001-08:00

Your bank calls you to verify your recent $750 bill at an out-of-state Taco Bell, but you haven’t left town in weeks. You quickly contest the charge and request a new credit card, but when you check your wallet the compromised card is still there. You try to think of shady ATMs or recent cashiers, but nothing comes to mind. Nothing, except the online purchase you made while browsing the Internet at your local coffee shop.
The number of free public Wi-Fi hotspots is growing, but not every hotspot can provide the protection of a private home network. Your notebook, tablet or smartphone’s default settings and firewalls may not be enough to keep you safe from prying eyes while on the go. If you want to keep your information and files secure, read these essential tips for protecting yourself when you’re away from home.

1. Turn Off Sharing

You may share your music library, printers or files, or even allow remote login from other computers on your Wi-Fi network in the privacy of your own home. Unless you disable these settings before connecting to a public Wi-Fi network, anyone else in the vicinity may be able to hack into your PC.
If you’re using a Windows PC, you’ll want to start by opening the advanced sharing settings of the Homegroup section of the Network and Internet settings in the Control Panel. From here, you’ll be able to toggle file and printer sharing as well as network discovery, which will make your computer visible to anyone connected to the same network. For Mac, just go to System Preferences, then Sharing, and make sure none of the options are checked.

2. Get a VPN

The most secure way to browse on a public network is to use a virtual private network. A VPN routes your traffic through a secure network even on public Wi-Fi, giving you all the perks of your private network while still having the freedom of public Wi-Fi.
While free VPN services exist, a paid VPN service guarantees the connection’s integrity. If you regularly connect to unknown networks, setting up a VPN is smart to protect your personal information.
One VPN provider is Private Internet Access, which costs $6.95 monthly and allows for unlimited bandwidth and multiple exit points, which will let you choose which country your network traffic is routed through.

3. Avoid Automatically Connecting to Wi-Fi Hotspots

Your smartphone or tablet may be set to automatically connect to any available Wi-Fi hotspot, a setting that can seriously endanger your privacy. Not only will this allow your device to connect to public networks without your express permission, you may also be automatically connecting to malicious networks set up specifically to steal your information.]
Most modern smartphones have this option disabled by default, but this isn’t always the case, and it’s a setting you should always double-check. First, open the Wi-Fi section of your phone’s settings app. If you don’t see an option to disable auto-connecting, you’re already safe. Otherwise, turn this setting off.

4. Use SSL

Regular websites transfer content in plain text, making it an easy target for anyone who has hacked into your network connection. Many websites use SSL to encrypt the transfer data, but you shouldn't rely on the website or Web service to keep you protected.
You can create this encrypted connection with the browser extension SSL Everywhere. With this plugin enabled, almost all website connections are secured with SSL, ensuring that any data transfer is safe from prying eyes.

5. Use Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication means you need two pieces of information to log into an account: One is something you know and the other is something you have. Most often this takes the form of a password and a code sent to your cellphone.
Many popular websites and services support two-factor authentication. This means that even if someone is able to get your password due to a hole in a public Wi-Fi network, they won’t be able to log into your account.
To enable this feature for Gmail, log into your account and open the settings page. Navigate to the Accounts And Import tab and click Other Google Account Settings. The second section will be two-step verification, and you can click Settings to start.
First, enter your phone number and choose whether you’d like a text message or a phone call. Next, Google will send a six-digit code to your phone. Enter this when prompted. Now, whenever you log into Google from a new computer, you’ll be asked to verify your identity by entering both pieces of info.
The login process will now take a few extra seconds when you use a different device, but you can rest peacefully knowing that your account is safe and secure.

6. Confirm the Network Name

Sometimes hackers will set up a fake Wi-Fi network to attract unwitting public Wi-Fi users. The Starbucks public Wi-Fi network might not be named “Free Starbucks Wi-Fi.” Connecting to a fake network could put your device into the hands of a malicious ne’er-do-well.
If you’re not sure if you’re connecting to the official network, ask. If you’re in a café or coffee shop, employees will know the name of the official network and help you get connected. If there’s no one around to ask, you may want to move to a different location where you can be sure that the Wi-Fi network isn’t fake.

7. Protect Your Passwords

Using unique passwords for different accounts can help if one of your accounts is compromised. Keeping track of multiple secure passwords can be tricky, so using a password manager such as KeePass or LastPass can help keep you safe and secure.
Both KeePass and LastPass are free, but they store your information in different ways. KeePass keeps an encrypted database file on your computer, while LastPass stores your credentials in the cloud. There are pros and cons to each approach, but both services are completely secure.

8. Turn on Your Firewall

Most OS’s include a built-in firewall, which monitors incoming and outgoing connections. A firewall won’t provide complete protection, but it’s a setting that should always be enabled.
On a Windows notebook, locate your firewall settings in the Control Panel under System And Security. Click on Windows Firewall, then click Turn Windows Firewall On or Off. Enter your administrator password, then verify that the Windows Firewall is on.
These settings are in System Preferences, then Security & Privacy on a Mac. Navigate to the Firewall tab and click Turn On Firewall. If these settings are grayed out, click the padlock icon in the lower left, enter your password, then follow these steps again.

9. Run Anti-Virus Software

Always running up-to-date anti-virus software can help provide the first alert if your system has been compromised while connected to an unsecured network. An alert will be displayed if any known viruses are loaded onto your PC or if there’s any suspicious behavior, such as modifications to registry files.
While running anti-virus software might not catch all unauthorized activity, it’s a great way to protect against most attacks.

Affiliate Programs (hidden numbers)

2013-02-07T02:46:00.002-08:00

Are you tired of the same online model that never seems to work? If you answered ‘yes”, then this article will provide you with some insight on how and expose what most “internet gurus” will not conveniently leave out when marketing their products.

Most of these gurus will tell you about affiliate sites and generating traffic and never guide you through essential processes while conveniently leaving out key information, puzzled?

Well, traffic might be essential to you making sales but wouldn’t it be better if you could sell your own products and receive 100% of earnings? I will get to that soon.

Now, one way of setting up an income online is using affiliate programs like Amazon.com and clickbank.com. If you’re working on a shoe string budget that you’ll need to sign-up on getresponse.com which is a site where you can create a squeeze page and have your audience sign-up to a newsletter while re-directing them to your promotion from one of the affiliate sites.

Next you’ll need to host the squeeze page and a great host if you don’t have a website is dot.tk and it’s really free of charge. Now, I want to show you some stats that most “internet gurus” will never reveal to you:

A squeeze page has a 30% - 35% optin rate. What I mean by this is, if you have 100 visitors, 30 -35 of them will go onto your squeeze page.

The average conversion rate is 3% which means out of the 30 – 35 people who view your squeeze page, 1 will purchase the offer.

Now, say you have promoting an offer for $50.00 at 50% commission what this means is

You’ll receive $25.00 for every person that purchases that offer.

You’ll need 100 people to generate $25.00 so, $25.00/100 people = $0.25 per person.

The value of each visitor is $0.25, which means out of 1000 visitors, you’d get about $250 dollars.

Advantages of this method:

1. You don’t have to worry about creating more content.

2. You do not handle customer support.

3. You have a mailing list

Disadvantages:

1. You send customers to someone else.

2. You don’t have a member’s area to communicate with them.

3. Average life span off newsletter subscription is 6 months.

learn more

Google Upgrades AdWords

2013-02-07T02:46:00.001-08:00

Google on Wednesday upgraded its AdWords program to let advertisers customize their placements on mobile by such factors as type of device, time of day and geographic proximity.
The upgrade, called Enhanced Campaigns, will let business owners build a campaign while taking those factors into consideration. However, Google promises that you'll be able to manage it all in a single place.
The company offered a few examples of how Enhanced Campaigns will work. For instance:

A breakfast cafe wants to reach people nearby searching for "coffee" or "breakfast" on a smartphone. Using bid adjustments, with three simple entries, they can bid 25% higher for people searching a half-mile away, 20% lower for searches after 11am, and 50% higher for searches on smartphones. These bid adjustments can apply to all ads and all keywords in one single campaign.

In another example, an advertiser can vary its ads by the device on which it is seen:

A national retailer with both physical locations and a website can show ads with click-to-call and location extensions for people searching on their smartphones, while showing an ad for their e-commerce website to people searching on a PC — all within a single campaign.

Finally, advertisers can use Google data to see which ads are most effective:

You can count phone calls of 60 seconds or longer that result from a click-to-call ad as a conversion in your AdWords reports, and compare them to other conversions like leads, sales and downloads.

Google claims the upgrades will start rolling out within the next few weeks. By mid-year, it will be universally available.

Apple's 128GB iPad Now on Sale

2013-02-05T23:13:00.002-08:00

Apple added its new 128GB iPad to the Apple Store on Tuesday. The site promises any orders will ship in one to three days.
The pricey new device comes in two models: Wi-Fi only ($799) and Wi-Fi+LTE ($929). Previously, the 9.7-inch iPad with retina display was available only with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of storage.
Apart from the increased memory, the new iPad is identical to the other models in the line, and customers can choose between two colors: black or white

When Apple debuted the third-generation iPad with retina display, many expressed concerns that apps that support the higher resolution would demand more memory, and that low-capacity models — especially the 16GB version — wouldn't be able to hold many retina apps. With a 128GB retina iPad, fears about inadequate storage are mitigated... for a price.
“With twice the storage capacity and an unparalleled selection of over 300,000 native iPad apps, enterprises, educators and artists have even more reasons to use iPad for all their business and personal needs,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in a statement.

Following a circulation of rumors, Apple announced last week it would be introducing a 128 GB iPad with retina display to its product lineup. Despite its typical fanfare announcements, the company said in a press release it would be coming to stores in the near future.

Your Full Instagram Feed Hits the Web

2013-02-05T22:56:00.003-08:00

By Chris Taylor

Ever wanted to browse your full Instagram feed — that is, the latest stuff in real time from everyone you're following on the photo service — without having to reach for your smartphone? Ever wished it was all just available at Instagram.com? You finally got your wish.
Instagram announced Tuesday in a blog post that Instagram.com would no longer be a placeholder front page. If you're logged into the service online, you will see your full feed just as you would on a mobile device.
"Simply put," writes Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, "we’ve brought a simple, powerful, and beautiful Instagram browsing experience to the web." Here's how it works:

Your Instagram Feed on the web functions much like it does on your mobile phone. You can browse through the latest photos of people whom you follow with updates as people post new photos. Like photos by double clicking on them or pressing the like button. Or, engage in a conversation around a photo with inline commenting. Browse through pages of the most recent images to keep up on what’s happening with the people you follow in realtime. And shrink your browser down to a single column for your feed to look more like your mobile feed.

You could previously browse your own pictures at a specific URL — instagram.com/futurechris, for example — but this is the first time a real-time feed of the mostly mobile service has been made available on a browser.
There are, of course, still a number of differences between Instagram.com and the mobile app. Most importantly, you still can't upload pictures or add filters at Instagram.com. The website is for passive viewing, Liking and commenting.
And browsing your feed on the site simply isn't as addictive. That familiar, addictive orange dialog box that appears when you load the app — showing you how many people have Liked and commented on your pictures since last you checked — isn't present on the web.
But there are advantages to web viewing. First and foremost, the site can inform you when new pictures arrive. In the mobile app, you have to hit reload to get the same effect. Instagram.com will tell you how many posts from people you follow have been added since last you looked, and the number pops up in your browser tab — just as it does with Twitter's web client.
There's plenty of white space down the side of your feed, suggesting this might be one area where Instagram can put ads in the future, as Facebook looks for more ways to monetize the service.
What do you make of your feed on Instagram.com? Let us know in the comments.

BlackBerry 10's Superbowl Commercial

2013-02-05T01:27:00.001-08:00

BlackBerry 10′s first Superbowl commercial squeaked in right before a power outage delayed the game for 34 minutes. Instead of focusing on what the new OS can do, however, the 30-second spot showed what it can’t do: trigger spontaneous combustion, make users disappear in a puff of colorful smoke and then magically reappear out of manholes, or turn out-of-control tanker trucks into a giant, harmless pile of rubber ducks.

In a press statement, BlackBerry chief marketing officer Frank Boulben said:

“In our debut appearance at the Super Bowl we knew that it wasn’t feasible to communicate the rich experience of BlackBerry 10. We decided to use the light hearted spirit of Super Bowl ads to showcase what BlackBerry 10 can’t do. We wanted to let people know that BlackBerry is back and that BlackBerry 10 is worth checking out.”

Make money from cellphone ads.

Two Makers Come Together To Make A Robotic Hand For A Boy In South Africa

2013-02-04T23:54:00.000-08:00

Two makers on opposite ends of the globe, Ivan Owen in Bellingham, Washington and Richard Van As in South Africa, teamed up to build a custom robotic hand and publish it on Thingiverse. The best part? They built it for Liam, a five-year-old South African boy who was born without fingers on his right hand, by collaborating online between continents.

The pair met when Van As discovered Owen’s hand-made prosthetic prop hand he built for a convention. Van As lost four fingers in an accident and asked Owen for advice and help to build his own prosthesis. The pair began working remotely, with Van As sending casts of his hand to Owen who built models at home. Soon, Van As began working on a Robohand for Liam and the pair met to collaborate on a full prosthetic hand for the boy.
Folks at Makerbot heard about the project and donated two Replicator 2 3D printers to the pair who were then able to create parts by sending CAD files back and forth. In a few days, Liam had a prototype hand and the pair continued to refine and improve the model.
Last month Liam received his improved hand and has been using it to pick up small objects – something he was unable to do previously.

Just 3 days after receiving his finished Robohand… Liam is off and learning to use it like a champion! A little guy who couldn’t grasp anything with his right hand can now even pick up an object as small and difficult as a coin!! Imagine how many other little folks are out there who could benefit from this technology!

The pair of designers are now raising funds to help other people who have lost fingers and cannot pay the $1,000 and up necessary to have “real” prostheses made. It’s a stirring testimony to the power of 3D printing and the energy of two men on a mission to make a little boy’s world a little brighter.

Huawei & Microsoft To Launch Windows Phone In Africa

2013-02-04T22:38:00.002-08:00

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei launched a Windows smartphone tailored for and exclusively available in Africa. The device, a customized version of the Huawei Ascend W1, was created in partnership with Microsoft as part of its new 4Afrika initiative.
Prices have not yet been announced, but Gustavo Fuchs, director of the Microsoft Windows Phone division in the Middle East & Africa, told the BBC that “our aim is to be the most affordable Windows phone in Africa.” He estimates that there will be “tens of millions of smart devices available across the continent in the next couple of years.”

Fuchs said 4Afrika’s objective is to increase smartphone penetration in the continent, in part by developing apps appealing enough to local consumers to make them consider switching from their feature phones. According to Fuchs, the current penetration rate is “very close to 10%” and less in some regions.
“Affordability is important but without the right local content we believe a lot of users will not see the benefit in the change from a basic feature phone to a smartphone,” says Fuchs.
The phone’s initial rollout will be in Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Angola, Morocco and South Africa, with phones being marketed according to the retail climate in each country. For example, in South Africa it will be operator-led, while phones will only be sold at retail in the Ivory Coast. Markets like Nigeria and Angola have a mixed environment, Fuchs said.
The 4Afrika initiative also includes plans to develop affordable wireless broadband in Kenya’s Rift Valley and help developers in South Africa and Egypt create Windows apps.
Africa is one of Huawei’s fastest growing markets outside of China. Last November, the company said revenue in southern and eastern Africa may climb as much as 30 percent in the next three years. According to its Web site, Huawei saw revenues of $3.42 billion from Africa in 2011, a 15% increase year-over-year. It has more than 5,800 employees across 18 offices in the continent, as well as a R&D center in South Africa and seven training centers. Huawei’s IDEOS, the first under-$100 smartphone, has been particularly popular in Kenya, gaining a market share of 45 percent.
The Huawei Ascend W1 has a 4-inch touch screen and 5 megapixel camera, and can be on stand-by for up to 420 hours between charges.

Find Work In December

2011-12-15T05:11:00.001-08:00

Cesar Ulloa is a Senior Staffing Manager in the Accounting & Finance Contracts division at Winter, Wyman, the largest and one of the most recognized staffing organizations in the Northeast. Find out more on the Winter, Wyman blog or follow on Twitter @WinterWyman.
Finding a job during the holiday season may be easier than you think! Bust the holiday job-search myths, and find your next job.
Do you have a tip for job hunting during the winter months? Tell us in the comments below.

Holiday Job Search Myths

Nobody hires in December.
December is typically a busy time of the year for hiring. Several industries, such as retail, bring on temporary employees to help with everything from payroll to filing. The budgets for jobs are exhausted.
Several companies review their budgets not only for the year ahead but also for the remainder of the year, and may find a surplus. Also, not all companies work on a calendar year. Some fiscal years have already begun back in October.
Nothing ever happens between Thanksgiving and the third week of January.
Some of the busiest weeks are between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Many companies are preparing for the approaching year and these hiring decisions usually get made before the start of the New Year.
Use December to plan your search and be ready to hit the market after the first of the year.
The holidays are a more relaxed time of the year, and job seekers should take advantage of that. Hiring managers are in a festive mood and job seekers should be very proactive in their approach. If other job seekers believe in the myth that the holidays are slow for hiring, then you could be at more of an advantage with less competition.
Even if an employer may have an opening, many hiring managers are tied up with budgets, deadlines and family obligations, and they are difficult to get a hold of.
Temporary jobs are not only a great option in the workforce, but a great employment option and usually don’t require multiple interviews so decisions can be made quickly. They usually don’t require the decision of several hiring managers.

Job Search Tips During the December Holidays

Go to holiday networking events.
This is a great way to meet people who are in the holiday spirit. Again, the holidays are a time for cheer, so why not get out in an environment where decision makers are in a festive mood.
Send holiday cards with your business card enclosed to hiring managers.
This is a great opportunity to reach out to hiring managers, and even if you think your card may get lost in the holiday shuffle, you never know the impact it could make.
Network at your family parties.
It’s a small world, and you never know who your brother, cousin or mother knows in your industry. A personal connection to a possible job opportunity, recruiter or hiring manager is a great way to get your foot in the door.

Social Media Job Listings

Every week we post a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we publish a huge range of job listings, we’ve selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!

BUSINESS AND RAPPER SIMILARITIES

2011-12-15T05:08:00.000-08:00

originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
Professional inspiration can come from anywhere, even the unlikeliest of places. This month, I was inspired by a rapper imparting business advice to startups.
Hip-hop historian, music technologist and founder of hip-hop band Stetsasonic, Glenn K. Bolton — also known as Daddy-O — recently spoke about the parallels between budding hip-hop artists and startups during his presentation at Geekend 2011, a techie conference presented by BFG Communications.
Daddy-O’s advice for hopeful rappers and startups were astoundingly similar. As a successful rapper himself, Daddy-O’s own experiences brought truth to his words.
Inspired by his story and wisdom, we’d like to share some of Daddy-O’s thoughts on what early-stage startups — and businesses of all types, really — can learn from hip-hop artists.
After this primer, we also recommend studying up on the Notorious B.I.G’s 10 Crack Commandments, a rap introduction for beginner crack dealers that, oddly, also translates well to the startup world.

1. Put Your Creative People on the Front Lines

If you do not keep your business people in the back room, patching people up, they’re going to muck it up,” says Daddy-O. “You let them talk, you’re done.”

Daddy-O is a big fan of putting the creative brains of an operation in the spotlight and keeping business people in the background for support.
In the hip-hop world, the creative people are the rappers — the business people include the record labels, the managers and anyone else helping distribute and manage the rappers’ music. Daddy-O explained that many successful rappers started off as independent artists — Master P, Cash Money, P. Diddy, to name a few. “The big checks come, they run to the big checks,” says Daddy-O. “And then ultimately, you see some of them fall off.” When business comes before art, the art suffers.
Startups and small businesses face this same problem if the business side of the operation comes before the product. Startups should focus on developing sound products, just as rappers should focusing on creating the best music that they can. Once the product, whether it be an app or a new LP, is at the top of its game, it shows — and the business will roll in from there.
Daddy-O compared business and art to a war zone — you have your foot soldiers (artists and creatives) out on the front lines, getting things done, and you have M*A*S*H (the business heads) back at the base, making sure everything runs smoothly.

2. Don’t Let Odds Get in the Way

“Passion is the kid in his mama’s house with one Marshall amp and a guitar, and his mother saying that he’s a bum, and he’s still doing it. Passion is those kids in a garage with a piece of software,” says Daddy-O. “If you’re going to be passionate about anything, you better not let odds get in the way. Because you can just strip the word passion out of there.”
Daddy-O explains that nothing should stop your passion, whether you’re a would-be rock star or a hopeful startup entrepreneur. For founding hip-hop artists, such as Daddy-O, who started rapping in 1979, there were a lot of critics of the genre who were calling it a fad or listening in disgust as DJs rubbed records the wrong way. “You think we listened?” Daddy-O asked. “It only made us scratch more. It only made us rap more, because we didn’t really care.”
Everybody’s odds are different, and you may think that attaining your business goal is impossible — if you put your passion behind it, though, you’ll always win. Whether you reach that final goal or just get pretty dang far along the way, you’ll learn something that makes it all worthwhile.
“You’re not going to be sure about most things you do in life. As songwriters facing a high degree of uncertainty, we embrace it. It actually energizes us. It’s the same butterflies that Michael Jackson got every time before he hit the stage. That degree of uncertainty is healthy if you look at it the right way — embrace it, because that’s what makes winning exciting.”

3. Never Stop Practicing

“Businesses fail, because in the beginning you’re always practicing, always using your gift — whether that’s writing code or a new rhyme. But after your program gets picked up or after the record company signs you, you stop.”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” says Daddy-O, and he points to inspiration as the driver to keep practicing. Whether you were inspired by someone else’s work or you feel that your talent is a God-given gift, your only option is to stay inspired. Here’s a fun anecdote Daddy-O told:

“You’re in the beginning of a startup — you subscribe to Fast Company, Wired, Inc.; you’re following everything Guy Kawasaki says online; you bought all of Brian Solis’ books; you’re talking back and forth with Chris Brogan all the time, cause he’ll answer anyone; and you feel like you’re getting it. That’s until someone cuts you a check, and all of a sudden you’re out the window. All of a sudden your inspiration becomes your competition, and you’re no longer tweeting. What happened to that blog you were doing every week? What happened? Oh, you’ve got a check now. You don’t wanna fail? You don’t have an option — stay inspired.”

4. Use What You’ve Got

“The golden egg isn’t winning — it’s usage. Usage is enough. That’s all you have to do — use what you’ve got,” says Daddy-O. “That’s what Jay-Z does. He never stopped rhyming. That’s what Sean P. does. He never stopped rhyming. Every engineer I know, every developer I know, every designer I know, that’s all they do — they just use what they’ve got.
“You will continue to be inspired if you keep on doing it. There’s no way to be a break dancer and keep dancing, and not be inspired — because you will evolve if you keep doing it. You aren’t going to keep doing the same four moves every time. You’re going to get tired of the same four moves. If you’re writing code, you’re not going to keep writing the same four lines of code over and over — you’re going to get better.”
In the beginning, rap was about keeping it new — rappers were required to have a new rhyme every time they took the stage. Making rap albums was considered “whack,” explains Daddy-O, because it meant you were recording your routine, nothing was new. As a result, rappers were constantly writing new rhymes. To get better, you’ve got to use your mojo, says Daddy-O.
This lesson has stuck with Daddy-O over the years. His business motto is, “Your evolution is inevitable if you keep doing it.”
Using what you’ve got is just as true for equipment as it is for mojo. “You ask any guitarist, and they don’t want a crappy guitar,” says Daddy-O. “But I guarantee you, Flea plays just as well on a sucky bass as a good bass, because he learned to play on a sucky bass. Use what you’ve got, and it will get you to the next level.” Don’t be jealous of the shiny, new goods that other artists or entrepreneurs are working with — make the best of what you have. Whether that’s talent or equipment, use it until you’ve exhausted it, advises Daddy-O.

5. Find Where You Belong

When you listen to a hip-hop artist, it’s inevitable that he will give a shout-out to his hood — be it Brooklyn, Atlanta or the Bay, a rapper’s home turf is a part of his music.
Marketers would call this concept “knowing your market,” says Daddy-O, but rappers look at it as knowing where they belong in the music world.
For businesses, it is important to understand what cluster of people your product or service is targeting and then communicate and act accordingly.

BONUS: Do Not Handle Legal Work Alone

Along your journey to being a successful businessperson — or rapper — you’ll get the opportunity to do a lot of the work yourself, learning about different aspects of your industry and business. The only thing you should never categorize as a DIY project, says Daddy-O, is legal work. If you’re negotiating a contract, always seek legal advice. But other than that, he says, get your hands dirty.

Does Your Twitter Business Name Suck?

2011-12-02T04:39:00.000-08:00

We all know that sometimes you get into joint ventures, or have a Business name on Twitter that may suck and so forth. Fortunately, you can change your business name on Twitter without losing any of your followers. Let's see how:

Instead of creating a new Twitter account, head over to the Account tab on Twitter.com. There, you can change your username, as well as your email address and security settings.
You’ll also want to visit the Profile tab to update your picture and bio. In the bio section, it’s wise to let your followers know — for the next few weeks, at least — that you’ve changed your account username, and that you’ll continue to receive all of their @replies and direct messages at your new username.
Financial journalist Vince Veneziani decided to switch the name of his Twitter handle to @GreatestTrades ahead of the launch of his first book, The Greatest Trades of All Time.
Veneziani says he didn’t lose any noticeable number of followers when he changed his name, but it did take “a month or so before everyone officially recognized who I was again in their stream.” Since then, the new handle has helped build sales and name recognition, as well as attract new followers, he says.
Likewise, fashion startup Have to Have was compelled to change its Twitter handle after changing its name from WingTipIt. The young company leveraged several channels, including email, Twitter and Facebook, to alert existing users and the online fashion community at large about its rebranding efforts.

Cofounder Carla Holtze says it was a “tough decision … to move to a brand and a name that better represented our company,” but the feedback has been so overwhelmingly positive that it was worth the pain. “We have far more followers on Twitter than we had before,” she adds.

I hope this read has been helpful to those who might have trouble navigating around the social network

A Business Set-up Thats Suits You

2011-11-11T00:05:00.000-08:00

One of the essentials for achieving business success is finding an unmet need - a problem that people experience - and filling it or solving it through a profitable business model.

Rather than look for ideas and solutions, start by looking for problems and figuring out ways to solve them. Just remember something many eager entrepreneurs overlook: Not only must you relieve customers' pain, you must do it in a way that can be monetized and turned into a profitable enterprise.

So where do you find problems that affect large numbers of people or strongly defined niches? Start studying trends: lifestyle trends, demographic trends, and business trends. Talk to your friends and colleagues about trends they've spotted. Look for empirical data, not just random anecdotes.

David Snyder, an independent consulting futurist at Snyder Family Enterprise in Bethesda, Md., and a contributing editor at The Futurist magazine, says he will be watching closely for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' 10-year employment projections, set to be released this spring.

The BLS develops information about the U.S. labor market from myriad sources and makes a wealth of projections about which sectors will grow fastest during the coming decade. "The next report will cover 2010 to 2020 and it always reveals fundamental data and forecasts earlier than anybody else," he says.

Service-Sector Startup Opportunities

Joyce Goia, a strategic business futurist and president of The Herman Group in Greensboro, N.C., says that startup opportunities in the future are most likely to come from the services sector: "

"The service sector has been lucrative for Belinda Fuchs, a CPA who founded OwnYourMoney as a home-based business in Boston. She recognized that many people had emotional barriers that kept them from implementing common sense, oft-advised strategies for saving money and reducing debt. "I took this on as my mission and my passion. Not only has it been rewarding for me, the results for clients, audience members, and subscribers have literally been saving marriages and changing lives," Fuchs says.

Seena Sharp, principal at Hermosa Beach, Calif., business research firm Sharp Market Intelligence, recommends that you investigate areas where things seem stuck at the status quo. Can you update a tired product or service for which the "way things have always been done" is getting stale? She cites the "Minute Clinics" that operate in many pharmacies, at which nurse practitioners administer vaccinations, test for strep throat, and conduct other basic health-care functions on a walk-in, cash basis, eliminating long waits for physician's appointments.

Don't be hampered by the idea that your business idea must be a home run. "Not every idea is scalable to a million customers, but if you can capture even 1 percent—or 1/100th percent—of the market, that might be just fine," Sharp says.

Once you settle on a promising idea, put it to the test with a rigorous feasibility study and monetize it in collaboration with a "community of practice," Snyder advises. "All these people who have been laid off are getting together online or at 'meetups' and figuring out how they can collaborate to make an idea happen. Sometimes the collaboration only lasts a short time. You squeeze whatever money you can out of the idea and then the partners break up and find other entrepreneurial outlets," much as Hollywood production companies do in the film industry.

Here are some ideas that Snyder, Sharp, Goia, and home-based business consultant and author Paul Edwards dreamed up in response to your question:

Coaching. Almost every niche can use a coach, from career-seekers to laid-off workers and on to dieters, older drivers and grandparents raising grandchildren.

Prosthetics. With two wars, an increase in diabetes, and improvements in medical technology, more people than ever are learning to live with prosthetics. Can you distribute the devices, train people in their use, or help them adapt over the long-term?

Immigrants. They used to land in big cities, but increasingly they are settling in suburbs and small towns. Find ways to provide services that help them with the transition.

Food Service. Interest in organic, healthful, locally grown food is booming. Make and/or deliver organic baby food, install and maintain backyard vegetable gardens, or make cardboard boxes embedded with seeds for super-easy planting.

Booming Elderly Population. Provide services or housing solutions that allow seniors to age in place, with dignity. Provide delivery operations for businesses with many home-bound customers, such as local grocers and drugstores.

Small Business Set-Up

2011-11-07T01:04:00.000-08:00

When it comes to location and choosing the best set up for your small business, it is better to keep it simple and keep your overheads as low as possible. This is particularly true when you are just starting out or are experimenting (e.g. when you are considering expanding into a new location and want to gauge market demand). Depending on the nature of your business, you can explore different options – for instance, having a mobile kitchen instead of a restaurant, or setting up a small kiosk instead of renting a store in a mall.

What about small business incubators? These are supposedly tailored to meet the needs of small business owners, giving them the opportunity to lease office space at affordable rates and providing shared support services such as meeting rooms, equipment and business administration. Efforts are also made to bring together different types of businesses into the incubator to create business and networking opportunities.

In South Africa, various private companies have their own small business hubs or incubators as part of their corporate social investment activities or to transform their supply chains. In April 2011, the government-owned Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) announced plans to establish 1000 small business incubators around the country to stimulate job creation.

Incubators are an option for small businesses if they meet the following criteria: central location which offers easy access to customers and suppliers; well-proportioned office or manufacturing space which meets the needs of the small business, including very small enterprises with one or two employees; proximity to major transport routes and public transport; security; and proximity to amenities such as eating spots.

These are the basic requirements for a small business to function, and anything else (e.g. funky décor, facilities to help employees relax and think creatively) is arguably superfluous and does not enhance the business’ productivity. Small business owners should therefore be on guard and not allow themselves to be distracted by bells and whistles when selecting an incubator.

If there are no incubators nearby or if existing incubators do not meet the business’ needs, home-based offices are a viable alternative for small businesses. Working from home is also attractive if a lot of your business is conducted online, or if the scale of your manufacturing or production activities can be accommodated on your residential premises. Zoning regulations must be observed and the necessary permits obtained from the local municipality to allow you to do business from your home.

Blogging and Directing Web Traffic

2011-11-02T08:20:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, the world is online and thousands of young people are finding out just how easy it is to start-up a business online. All you need is a profitable idea, a web domain, host it and you're set, right? Well, no quite.

Basics

1. Finding A Niche

Most people think it's just about finding a topic that you are passionate about, well, it takes more than that. Your idea needs to be profitable example: gaming, health, business. Make sure that it is something that you are passionate about though.

2. Domain Name

This is very important, your domain name should include keywords that will immediately link your name to the content. A good example is a site that sells gadgets, key words such as "gargets", "electronics" may be signifficant. You can register your domain on GoDaddy.

3. Hosting

Once you’ve registered a domain name you can call your own, the next course of action is buy yourself a reliable hosting provider. I recommend Hostgator which gives you the right hosting package with superb support system at the most affordable price.

Now you can change your Domain Name Server. Tutorial

4. Setting Up Your Blog

This does not require you to be som,e techno geek. With applications like wordpress, you can organise your content, yes, it's that easy!

5. Submit to Google

submitting your blog to Google index is still worth the effort. Google is indexing and updating billion of pages every day, a little knock at its door does not do your blog any harm, does it?

6. Posting

Here I’m referring to your choice of post title. A careful choice of title with the proper keyword research is part and parcel of your SEO (aka; search engine optimization) effort. Speaking of which, not only you should write for both search engine and more important, your readers.

Basically, your post title is what your readers will see while the blog title is what the search engines robots view.

7. Creat A Site Map

While Robots.txt instructs search engines which parts of your site to exclude from indexing, a Sitemap tells search engines where you’d like them to go. From a search engine perspective, sitemap is useful for better and faster indexing while a plain HTML sitemap with the use of plug-in provides ease of navigation for your visitors. 8. Update Ping

What is ‘Ping’? Pinging is a built-in notification system ‘pinging’ the search or directory engines every time you post a new article on your blog to get the search engines to visit your site more often, thus improve indexation.

Below are the list of ping services

Blog Promotion

1.Blog Commenting

I’m a big proponent of blog commenting. What you basically do here to find any blog that’s is closely relevant too your niche where you can add your constructive opinions on the subject being discussed via commenting.

It’s one of the most powerful yet the least expensive tool to create awareness especially when you are new in the community. No other blog promotion can be as effective as commenting, no question about it.

2. Article Marketing

This is one method that I’ve found great success with. Not only it’s an effective strategy for link building (Google loves more links pointing back to your site), one article of yours will be published in one hundred, if not thousands of other sites, depending on the quality of your article. If writing is in your greatest asset, nothing beats article marketing if you ask me.

3. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s the common practice where bloggers write article to be published on other bloggers’ blogs. If done right with a reputable host, you’ll not only see an increased in your blog traffic and gain a few extra subscribers.

With guest blogging, not only will the host’s blog receive new fresh content from a different perspective, the guest blogger will gain a link and the all important exposure.

4. Use of Social Sites

Well, I’m not fond of social sites but the recent buzz of using Tweeter to promote your product and services deserves a certain degree of recognition and I think it’s pretty fair that I make an effort to promote the use of it to a certain extent.

If you are not into yet, you’ll never know what you’re missing. Mind you, it can be addictive. The use of it shouldn’t be at the expense of other promotional strategies such as Twitter or Stumble Upon.

5. Forum Marketing

Marketing your site in forums is worthy of a mention too. Though it might take quite a bit of you time to partake and join the forum discussion, it’s still one of the promotional method widely used by the majority of new bloggers.

One common approach is to insert your links in your signature so that whenever you make any post, there is a likelihood of clicks from other forum posters. The success of forum marketing varied and certainly depend on the kind of niche you are in and how eye-catching your link signature is.

Make Money Online

1. Google AdSense
Google Adsense is the bread and butter of most bloggers. It’s the plug-n-play advertising program you can easily run on your new blog without much effort. Though it’s the preferred choice of blog monetization, please keep in mind that without traffic which is usually low in when your blog is new, your earnings from Adsense could be pretty minimal. Its earnings is pretty much relied upon the kind of traffic you can drive to your site.

2. Affiliate Sales
With that being said above, the next best option is learn and explore the art of affiliate marketing. In simple term, affiliate marketing is about promoting someone’s else products where you’ll be paid for every referral sale. Depending on the products, you are referring, the referral commission can be as high as a few hundred dollars.

If you are looking for products and eBooks to sell on commission I would recommended Clickbank and Amazon Associates Program.

3. Sponsored Reviews
To touch upon what I’ve mentioned above earlier, if writing is in your blood and copywriting is your forte, doing a review for someone else’s product or services can be one lucrative source of income. All you need to do is to write an honest review and offer constructive criticism and you’ll get paid for it.

4. Freelance Services
Now those of you who have the skills for say, design, coding or copywriting for that matter, I’d recommend to learn how to leverage your blog to showcase your portfolios. I’ve seen how others are successful using their blog to sell their service and earn a decent income out of it. One notable example of this Jacob Class .

5. Private Advertising
Last but not the least, though it’s one method I’m not advocating when your blog is new is private advertising where usually advertisers are willing to buy an ad space on your blog.

However advertisers are smart of investors who are only willing to spend the kind of money in a blog with a decent traffic and certain rankings. There are various metrics advertisers are concerned about, among them are the no. of your subscribers, PageRank, traffic stats and just to name a few.

If you don’t have any of those yet, this option is certainly one that you shouldn’t think about in the beginning. Instead first focus on building traffic and social networking and advertising opportunities comes naturally thereafter. However if you do have traffic you should definitly get the OIOpublisher plugin which allows you to quickly and easily sell private advertising on your blog.

For Search Engines – If you are on WordPress, install Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator which will generate XML-Sitemap supported by most of the search engines.
For Your Visitors – Clean Archives Reloaded generates a list of your posts sorted by months for better navigation.

Is Lack Of Traffic Slowing Your Business Down?

2011-11-02T07:00:00.001-07:00

Let's face it, net traffic can either make or break your site. Well, fortuinately for you, I have come up with some pretty effective ways to help turn that blue Monday into a vibrant one.

The internet is home to some of the worlds most innovative entrepreneurs, why? Well, it's easy to start-up than most business ventures and does not limit you to a local market - incase you have been hybernating for the past couple of years then here is a news flash; The world is online!

So, you have found a profitable topic to discuss or niche for your website(ie. gaming, busainess, social networking etc) so what now? You need to find a domain name for your blog. Make sure that your domain name has key words. example: A site on pets should have something linked to it like ''cat'', ''dog'', ''pets''.

Hosting
Now that you have registered your domain, the next course of action is buy yourself a reliable hosting provider - Hostgator is one that I would recommend but ofcourse there are plenty of these out there. Then you can change your Domain Name Server(DNS). Here is a tutorial on how.

You will then need an application to set up your blog and the beauty of it is that you don't need to be a techno geek for this. You can simply use wordpress / fantastico.

Husband-Wife Business Risk

2011-10-31T05:40:00.000-07:00

Ever heard of the phrase, ''Don't mix business with pleasure?'' Well, more and more couple are finding out just how stressful it can be to have your spouse as your business partner.

After two decades as the co-owner of a landscape materials yard in northern California, 57-year-old Debbie Hannan didn't just retire: She divorced her business partner. Though amicable, the split led to a drawn-out legal battle over the terms of a settlement. The divorce, begun in August 2007, took nearly a year to finally close.

More than 1 million husband-and-wife teams run businesses together, according to the National Federation of Independent Business, and as with most businesses, the recession has put an economic strain on the ventures. At the same time, marriages remain rocky: In spite of data that suggests that married couples postponed divorce for economic reasons during the recession, the divorce rate stayed basically flat from 2005 to 2008, at about 17 per 1,000 married women. And while no one tracks the number of business-owning couples who split, or the number of divorces that also result in the dissolution of a family-owned business, when a business-owning couple splits, the complications are more than Judge Toler can handle.

The risks -- and options -- become especially stark as a divorcing couple gets older, experts say. As retirement grows closer, any retirement savings takes on added importance; that pot of money is considered marital property, and once the divorce is final, so is the distribution of assets. For business partners, the best way forward after a divorce depends on the nature of the venture and industry sector, as well as an ability to get along, if only at the workplace.

Gregg Herman, a family law attorney based in Milwaukee, says a common approach is to let one partner buy out the other. There are many ways to do that -- all at once or over time, as a 50-50 split or in some other proportion -- but good accountants can help value the business, which is critical, he says. "But what's really important is to do this in a co-operative way, since the business is the goose that lays the golden egg and you don't want to kill it." That kind of transition becomes more difficult if the couple shared crucial roles in the business, such as day-to-day operations, or key points of contact with customers and suppliers -- the "vital organs" of a company that can't be so easily separated without hurting sales, he says. That's especially worrisome now, when access to capital is still tight, which can make it harder to bridge a lag in sales with credit.

If that can't be solved, the couple might consider dividing their business in two. Herman recently helped a pair of dentists who divorced after sharing an office for years. Since each had their own patients, they opted to split the practice down the middle, and continue to work together in the same office without any trouble.

Perhaps the riskiest approach is to continue running the business together even after the marriage ends. To keep the peace over the years to come, Otis Baskin, a consultant with the Chicago-based Family Business Consulting Group Inc., suggests setting up a board of directors to ensure key decisions are based on a business perspective, rather than a personal grudge. "You don't need million-dollar directors," he says. "You just need people with good business judgment who don't have a dog in the race." And, he notes, this works only if the couple has established a strong working relationship that's separate from a soured personal relationship.

When all else fails, most lawyers will advise selling the business and splitting the assets -- a risky proposition, since only about 30% of small businesses on the market sell, industry figures show. In the end, Hannan's ex-husband bought out her share of the landscaping yard for more than $500,000 and continues to run the business today. She was satisfied with that arrangement, she says, but remained frustrated by the drawn-out legal battle that seemed driven more by lawyers than by Hannan and her ex. In response, Hannan and her 36-year-old daughter, Becky Shook-Wotzka, launched the first U.S. outlet of Fairway Divorce Solutions, a Canadian franchise that offers independently negotiated divorce settlements through mediators, rather than lawyers, with an eye to financial planning. Based in Sacramento, they now have four employees and are on pace to hit 120 clients and more than $100,000 in revenue by the end of the year.

Business Funding

2011-10-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

It doesn’t exactly require an IQ of 170 to realize that setting up a business or securing funding for an existing one costs more money than what most entrepreneurs have at their disposal. However, this should not be your stumbling block, should it?

The lesson is simple; entrepreneurs may believe that their business ideas are innovative but more often than not, this is far from the truth. I also had to learn the hard way. We often waste a significant amount of time seeking funding which could be sourced if we came up with alternative methods of finance such as “seeding” which is provided by firms for start-ups, ”sweat or private equity’’ or ”bootstrapping’’ such as sharing rent with a business partner and keeping your team small.

The sad reality is; Investors will not release funds unless due diligence has been undertaken by you as a business owner. Ask yourself, “How you will meet revenue targets for the first six months?” “ Does your business have a competitive advantage over competitors and the potential to expand?”

A common mistake that entrepreneurs make is; focusing too much on how their product/service works and not enough time explaining what problem it solves. Research has shown that consumers are more likely to purchase solutions to existing problems, so highlighting why customers will buy your product/ service will prove more effective when pitching your proposal.

Below are some of the most common reasons why funding is rejected.

Little or no owner equity, which is money that the owners, shareholders or other members of the business invest into it.
A poor earning record.
Low quality collateral. This is calculated at 70%-80% of actual value for land and buildings, 40% for movable assets and 40% for debtors.
Questionable management.
Slow trade or loan payment record.
If it is a start-up business.

I’ve always thought that banks were flexible but quickly remembered that credit is taken from someone's deposit and bankers need to protect that. Imagine what would happen if you deposited $100 000 into the bank and then I came along asking for a loan for $80 000 at 10% interest rate then failed to pay it off… What would happen to your money then? More importantly, what sort of chaos would we encounter at a global level? Someone would probably have to call you and tell you that your money is all gone! So certain procedures have to be implemented to avoid such a nightmare.

Here are the 6 C’s that bankers use to determine whether your business is credit worthy.

Character

This is based on past performances on one’s personal loans, then business credit history is reviewed. So, having a good track record will help your case immensely.

Conditions

Bankers will look at the industry sector, usually he/she will want to find out if the market is growing, static or in decline. How you propose to be competitive and if you actually made an effort to research thoroughly before arriving at these assumption is key.

Capacity

Credit can be paid back with future cash-flows, so bankers will want reassurance that your business has the capacity to generate net profits and the quality of your team’s credentials goes a long way when this is assessed.

Collateral

This is a secondary source of payment, fixed property is a great option because movable assets can only be resold at a fraction on the original price should your business fail to pay off its credit.

Credibility

How realistic is your plan? This is where your business plan comes in handy, as it demonstrates your knowledge on the operations and direction of your business.

Contingency Plan

With the possibility of change in events within the market, what other options do you have to sustain your business? This illustrates that you as an entrepreneur can think ahead and will give you an advantage when looking for a loan.

Failing To Plan

2011-10-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

Business Plan

A lot of people overlook this when starting a business, but a business plan is vital to both new and existing businesses. It is typical for many people to think of business plans as significant or applicable to newly created start-up businesses; the truth is, a quality and comprehensive business plan will also be very important when it comes to obtaining equity or liability finance in order to facilitate the expansion, diversification and growth phase of existing businesses.

Generally, a start-up business plan will be useful for a new business in terms of looking ahead and preparing for success. It essentially helps in terms of developing a strategy for your business. Furthermore, with existing businesses, it will help assess the past and strategically plan the future of the business. In essence, drawing up a business plan for an existing business can help all concerned parties see where they have come from and plan where they want to go.

An effective business plan can help the owners, managers and other interested business stakeholders properly allocate precious resources, focus on the key issues facing the business entity, and properly prepare for future challenges and opportunities.

It is vital for a start-up company to have a quality business plan in order to attract lenders, grant providers, business support groups, investors and potential business partners. There is a very high probability that no investor or potential finance provider will agree to invest in the business without having to first review and verify the information contained in the startup business plan or business plan for an existing business entity.

All business plans, both for startup businesses and those for existing entities, will need to include such components as a description of the company and what it does, the products it manufactures or the services it provides, the outlook for the market, company forecasts, a detailed financial analysis of the company, and resumes of its key personnel. (Templates)