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August 12, 2013

Freedom on the Internet – Will we loose it soon?

| Technology | No Comments

This is a pretty worrying notion for me, as the Web is equal to life for me. The vast amounts of information, the possibilities to make a living AND a richness in it, and the even more vast amounts of entertainment. It is a very very scary thought to lose it all with a single ball or a single government decision.

Especially since Obama came to the presidency, the government is pushing for the restriction and filtering of the Internet content plus trying to rationalize taping people’s browsing habits. Today i will present ways we are losing our internet freedom and what we can do each to prevent it. Lets start now first with the ways we are losing our dear freedoms:

Ways that we are losing Internet Freedom:

Most of us are pretty well aware of how we are giving out our personal information like we give out carbon monoxide to the air. Social media, blogs, web applications are all asking us for our personal information, and we are giving it out in order to reach the stage we want in the website (such as starting to read an article, being able to post in a forum etc.). Search engines like Google and Bing are really pushing it by associating our Internet history and habits with our accounts that have our real life personal information.

Websites like Facebook and Twitter are making it easy for our much more personal information, such as our home’s locations, our relatives, and our facial features. They can realize what we did in the last 2 hours by seeing our updates (this is not the case if you do not share your personal info on these social networking websites). News websites are making it possible for us to login with our social media, associating our political opinions and our statements with our real life names.

Of course, all this information can be held against us in our court, without anyone having the privilege to ask “how was this information acquired?”, We barely stopped SOPA and PIPA, and we don’t need more fights from today if you take the following steps yourselves.

So the obvious things to do here will be:

  • Do not give your very most information like name, surname, home adress, work adress on social networks and websites, or give false / dummy ones like John Smith instead.
  • Do not vote for Obama in 2016. He is pretty supportive of the measures to restrict people’s freedoms and write new legistlation that will permit authorities to access your online information and history.
  • When leaving a comment (an opinion, a correction, a statement) in different websites, such as news blogs, do not leave you real name, only your e-mail (also a tip: your e-mails should not have your real name and surnames in it)  and a dummy name. use http://example.com for the website if you don’t want a backlink / have your website found by others.
  • Use Tor , i2p or similar encrypted browsers to do your browsing so it can’t be tracked by authorities.

Last advice should be to choose a liberal ISP or VPN and thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 24, 2013

Website Applications Improved Through The Cloud

| Business | No Comments

Having fast application speeds isn’t just a bonus for today’s customer—it’s absolutely vital. Customers expect your applications to perform at a level that’s comparable to what they’re used to. If yours don’t meet their expectations, they can easily find an alternative that does. Taking advantage of the cloud is one affordable solution that small businesses have embraced to improve Web applications and step ahead of the competition.

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How it Works

For those who don’t know much about the technology involved, it’s worth offering a brief explanation of exactly how cloud computing functions. Local, in-house computers no longer have to be your sole operation systems. With the cloud, an entire network of computers orchestrates the running of your applications, offering better reliability and speed. The user only needs the cloud computing system’s interface software, typically just a Web browser, and your cloud’s network handles everything from there.

Benefits for your Brand

Businesses often forget that their brand image doesn’t just stop at the marketing campaign. One of the best ways to attract and maintain customers is by simply offering good service. Of course, this alone isn’t exactly the best business strategy, but service can often speak louder than social media. Faster services equal a positive brand image and sends the message that your company is innovative and on the cutting edge of modern technology.

What about Security?

With headlines about hacking and information lost due to server failures, it would be negligent not to ask questions about the security of cloud computing. According to CTO and cloud expert David Grimes, “Cloud computing is as secure as other forms of computing.” Cloud systems can be both public and private configurations, the latter of which eliminates many questions about security. They also offer security in the nature of their construction. If a physical computer fails, the virtual machine can automatically restart on another physical computer within a short time frame. This ensures resilience and reliable access to your important information.

Ahead of the Game

PC Mag contributor Samara Lynn claims it’s a myth that small businesses are flocking to the cloud. She cites a business survey conducted by Brother that revealed 42 percent of small business owners aren’t using the cloud for their business. Of course, this also means that the majority of small business owners are, in fact, using the cloud, just not for that specific purpose. However, adapting to this trend would put your business further ahead of the substantial 42 percent that simply makes do without the cloud. Since customers expect faster, better and more reliable services, this could give you a significant edge over the competition.

Taking Advantage of the Improvements

With its ongoing acceptance throughout the IT community, cloud computing is on its way to being the undisputed champion of today’s computing systems. Cloud databases offer efficiency that can’t be beat and at a cost that’s viable for small businesses on a budget. Because technology evolves at such a fast rate, it’s especially important not to delay when keeping up with new trends. Innovation often works by building off of the inventions and technologies of the past, so keeping up with current tech developments ensures a smoother transition into future progress.

July 9, 2013

Trim Your Budget With The Cloud

| Business | No Comments

What’s the primary trait shared by all successful companies? Positive cash flow. Admittedly, that’s a lousy answer. Still, companies that manage to provide products or services for less than customers pay will stick around. That’s the tricky part, though. There are only two basic ways to do that: charge more or spend less. You can’t keep raising your prices whenever your profit margins slip, so you have to find ways to trim your budget, making your business leaner and more efficient. Fortunately, cloud computing provides five easy ways to do just that.

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No Hardware

Buying, maintaining and upgrading physical servers can quickly eat up an IT budget. Even if your business is too small to need racks of servers, just one file server can cost thousands of dollars. Enter cloud computing. With no initial investment, you can deploy any type of server you need.

Dynamic Resources

The biggest benefit cloud computing offers e-commerce businesses — and any other field with predictable ebbs and flows in sales — is the ability to dynamically scale servers. Gone are the days when a company had to maintain spare capacity in its servers in case users began flooding the website. Now, when there’s a traffic spike or a lull, cloud hosting clients can scale back resources, saving money by only paying for capacity currently in use.

Reduced Staffing

The monthly fee your company pays for its cloud services covers the costs of maintenance and hardware upgrades. That frees up more money for expanding the business’s product line or increasing customer support staff. IT staff employees are expensive, because they’re so valuable and a necessary part of any company with in-house servers. With cloud computing, however, you’re paying for a small portion of the host’s staff and are effectively splitting the cost with the cloud host’s other clients.

Increased Resilience

Cloud hosts often have multiple physical data centers in geographically distant locations. The host mirrors client data at multiple sites, so if there’s an outage, disaster or server failure, your server will be back up and running quickly, often within just a few minutes.

Backup Services

Even if you’re not using cloud hosting or infrastructure as a service (IaaS), your business can benefit from cloud backup. Decades ago, when companies backed up their files locally onto reels of magnetic tape, IT departments made sure to keep full copies of all data off-site. By doing so, they mitigated the risk of fire, natural disasters or a costly mistake. If anything happened to the local data, someone could retrieve the tapes and restore everything. Now that the cloud’s available, nobody has to haul around physical storage or spend hours overseeing the backup process. Instead, businesses can store data on cloud servers and access it at any time.

In order to keep your business competitive, you must find ways to reduce your expenses without reducing the quality of your infrastructure. By subscribing to whatever cloud service meets your needs, you can maintain an inexpensive, flexible, robust infrastructure and focus more on your primary business goals than whether to hire a new server administrator.

April 23, 2013

Print is Not Dead…Totally

| Business | No Comments

Though we live in a technologically-based environment, print media is still an important part in our day-to-day lives. Contrary to popular belief, print media is not dead, well, at least not yet anyway. Because it is still alive, there is no reason why you, a small business owner, cannot take advantage of print media advertising.

As a small business owner you are aware of the struggles and concerns for ensuring your business is a success. It costs money to properly utilize online advertising and hiring social media networkers to run the online part of your business. Because print media is not as popular any more, it is still one of the more cost effective methods for advertising a small business to the local community.

Types

There are many different types of printing services you can use to promote your small business. These include flyers, doorknob hangers, business cards and newspaper ads. All of these mediums are effective when they are delivered to the right people. Flyers can be hung on billboards at stores, in community centers and at parks throughout town. They can also be left on car windshields during a big event in the community. Door hangers can be hung throughout the community on front doors or on mailboxes. Business cards can be left everywhere you go, including stores, restaurants and offices.

Needs

Find out what the community needs from your business. Ask yourself what you can offer residents that they truly need, not just what theywant. Discover if certain areas of your community need your products and services. Do this by asking your customers where they live or conducting a survey in various neighborhoods in the community. This will tell you where to concentrate your print advertising efforts.

Business to Business

Go to other local businesses and offer a swap advertising plan. This is where you offer to have flyers and business cards posted in your place of business in exchange for them to do the same with yours. Go around town introducing yourself to other business owners and make a connection with them. Do not solicit other businesses, offer them a networking option with your business. This works great, especially if the products and services you offer complement those in a neighboring business.

Enhance the Online Presence

Print media can be used in conjunction with your online marketing endeavours. Think of print media as another way to get the word out about your Facebook page or website address. Print these locations on all of your print media advertising, especially on your business cards. Make it your mission to get your printed materials in the hands of everyone who comes within five feet of you and your business.

As you can see, print media is not quite dead yet and until it does die, there is no reason why you cannot take full advantage of its potential. Making print ads and delivering them to the right people in your community will help get the word out about your business and drive those new customers to your store. If you already have an online presence, this is another way to also drive customers to your website, where they will turn into loyal customers.

 

April 17, 2013

Social Media is a Proven Tool for Ecommerce Sites: So What Are You Waiting For?

| Social Networking | No Comments

If you are an Internet entrepreneur, then you are already well aware of the power and influence of the online community when it comes to your business’ success (or lack thereof). Therefore, you simply cannot afford to overlook any of the ways in which the Internet can be used to your advantage, and that means you should be developing your social media presence. If you are still a stranger to the ways in which social media can be a powerful tool for the betterment of your ecommerce site, then the time to get in the know is now.

Need some convincing? If so, just check out the impressive numbers of a big-time online retailer that has used social media to its advantage. Fab.com is a virtual store that specializes in “everyday design” items (basically, you can find everything from refurbished vintage typewriters to pug-faced t-shirts on this massively popular site). Read More