Gadzooki

3 Free Ways To Improve You High-Tech Web Presence

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At some point, you decided that you wanted to have a blog online, or at least you wanted to have a web landing page. Especially if you’re trying to promote yourself as technically savvy, you probably found out quite quickly that you were in competition for people’s attention. And that means you need to figure out some way to up your game. 

Unfortunately, sometimes that improvement in presentation online costs a lot of money. You can hire various people to do spectacular work for you, but those results will come at a cost.

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Protection and Security Regarding Online Sales

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If you have a business where you do any digital marketing or online sales, then you know how important protection and security are concerning data and information stored on servers or in the cloud. Your clients and customers expect that their information will be secure if they give it to you. Especially when it comes to financial data or health data in some cases, you need to do everything within your power to make sure there are no security protocol breaches.

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Using Hi-Tech Online Security Measures To Your Advantage

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If you are like most people these days, you have a sense of anxiety about your security and privacy online. So, you can either hide from interacting online, or you can use all the latest technology available to create the most protective umbrella around yourself that you can. But that does take a little bit of effort and knowledge.

There are several topics that you should at least be generally aware of concerning online security measures. You should know how firewalls work. You should use password applications to promote better password security. If you have a website that you run, you should build in web security to the framework. And you should always read the news about the latest hacking activity so that you know how to protect yourself from the worst consequences that might happen.

Firewalls

Whenever you have a system that is connected to the Internet where information comes and goes, you should always set up a firewall. In most cases, these firewalls are set up automatically using the latest technology for most general purposes. The trouble is that sometimes you have to customize these firewalls, especially if you have sensitive data on your system or if you’re running a business. If you don’t understand firewalls, the automatic settings may not be where you need them to be.

Password Applications

It can be difficult to remember passwords. They can be even more difficult to remember passwords that are secure. That’s why it’s not wrong to use a password manager. That way you only need to know one master unlocking password, and the rest of them are automatic. These password applications typically will even create passwords for you that are secure, and then automatically archive them where only you can get them.

Built-In Web Security

If you run a website or have a webpage online that you post from, then there are automatically security risks from having your information attached to it. Because of this, there are online security plug-ins that you can install directly inside your web framework. Especially if you run a WordPress site, it’s essential that you install the latest versions of these security checkpoints, and then regularly maintain them.

Read News and Updates To Stay On Top of Things

Even if everything that you have set up to secure yourself and your business from online hackers is automatically updated, it’s still not a bad idea to read up on all the latest tech news as it relates to hacking, hackers, and data thieves. If you generally know the environment that the overall tech industry is going through regarding security and privacy, that will give you a better idea what to base your decisions on making personal choices online with your safety. [Read more…]

Tips For Starting Your Internet Based Business

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Started a business that solely exists on the internet is probably one of the easiest things you can do these days. The options are endless. You can offer goods and services through the internet and read people all over the world.

Basically, you just need an idea, some items, or a talent you can offer as a service. Many people work online as writers, photographers, crafters, artists, web designers, customer service reps, and even data entry specialists. Some of them still leave the home to mail items or take photos, but the majority, if not all of, the money they make is made by promoting their business or products online. [Read more…]

Software, Mobile Tech, and Gadgetry to Help You With Home Design Decisions

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helpful-tech-in-designing-a-home

One cool thing about living in the modern world is that you can use new tech to help with all sorts of design projects, including things like home design. In the past, there were sketches, photos, blueprints, and a potentially detailed imagination, but sometimes those leave something to be desired in terms of number-crunching. With new tech, you can get a much more complete idea of what you want to accomplish in advance.

That said, a few areas of interest in that realm might be looking through contracting company websites for design applicability, using virtual reality tech, thinking about how artificial intelligence might help your cause, using augmented reality apps, and the fact that so much data is searchable when it comes to material properties. [Read more…]

5 Tips for Staying On Top of Mobile Social Media Feeds

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Your smartphone is most likely your favorite gadget by default, simply because it’s on and with you most of the time, if you’re the average person these days. And though most people have some use of Internet browsing for information and GPS maps for location, a lot of what you do is with social media.

So, what are some ways that you can make sure that you’re completely up to date with all of the social media updates that are constantly emerging and evolving? Follow these five tips to ensure that you’re on the cutting edge.

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Listen For Rumors of Change

New formats and updates are perpetually in progress for all of the major social media platforms, but before big changes come out, there are often rumors of them. If you listen to these rumors, for instance, news about changes to Facebook, then you will be in the right mindset of adopt them as soon as they come out officially. If you can beta test some of them on your gadgets, that’s a benefit of being an early adopter as well, as you can help developers make a great product. [Read more…]

4 Reasons Your Website’s Slow

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You’ll find all kinds of tricks, hacks and tips for speeding up your website, but if those apps or other approaches aren’t on the up and up, you could be penalized severely. The reality is that there are many reasons why your site and/or computer is slow, and you need to troubleshoot to find the real problem. Otherwise, it will likely only get worse and (worst case scenario) you’ll drive away viewers and customers.

website

For starters, make sure you have a solid in-memory database which can boost your speed and overall performance. Many times, it’s a simple upgrade that’s in order. Maybe you’ve outgrown your old needs, some of your technology is outdated and doesn’t play nicely with others, or you haven’t prioritized maintenance. Otherwise, here are a few other reasons slowness might be plaguing you: [Read more…]

Two Tiered Internet

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A report by Jupiter Research has suggested that a ‘two tier’ Internet could come into place in the near future. It would enable ISP’s to charge businesses for quicker access to consumers. This is bad news for the customer for two reasons: first that trend could be reversed and second that trend WOULD be reversed when the business passed on the costs to the end-user.

This idea of charging stems from the basic economies of scale operating within the broadband business. In the UK, over 65% of households have a computer, with a high percentage in that bracket having high-speed home Internet access. To keep their margins, ISP’s must continually have new customers, as well as offer a low price – high service deal. Naturally, this is a difficult balance to maintain. This would mean that charging consumers (or businesses, whichever way you see it) would be a potential area for more revenue.

This whole idea can have a massive impact on the use of the web, if allowed to go ahead. The group of early adopters who are most likely to be using P2P downloads, online gaming and VOIP services will take a hit. Their bandwidth, or the bandwidth of the services they subscribe to may be ‘managed’ to such a degree that they are no longer very attractive.

The other issue with the idea of pricing is that, for me at least, it flies in the face of what the Internet (or rather the web) is about. You can sum it up in a word. Freedom. Here in the West we may take it for granted, but over in China even Google restricts access to ‘undesirable material’. The very idea that I might have not access, or rather might have slower access to a particular site or service is a slap in the face both to me and the services and sites that I have interest in.

I am a businessman and I accept the limitations of every business, including my own. We do what we do of course to make money. However, there are so many different sources of revenue available here that to attack the people you owe your livelihood to (your customers) would seem like a huge backward step. With that in mind, how can you keep your customers happy and continue providing a high quality service, whilst making more money?

If you run an ISP, why not try some of these ideas:
1) Run your own content rich, portal style site, such as Yahoo.
2) Not everyone has the resources of MSN/Microsoft. What can you offer to be individual?
3) Broadband has pretty tight margins and once someone has your service provided they’re happy they are likely to stay. Can you enrich their experience with say extra paid for content (or affiliate links) rather than penalise them for using your service?

Just a few thoughts to consider for those ISP entrepreneurs out there…

Europe’s Time Online

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According to the BBC, Europe is online 24 hours a month. A report by tracking firm comScore confirms that more than 122m of us aged 15 plus uses the Internet each day from home or at work.

Whilst the UK is average in terms of net penetration/access (62%), Russia is languishing in last place with only 11% of the population having access. However, the UK has the most active net population with users spending closer to 35 hours online.

Bob Irvins, manger of comScore Europe, offers “Is someone online when they are watching tv over the Internet?”. I guess it depends on your definition, but I’d say definitely yes. The reason for the yes is that the user may have a messaging client running or even be looking at a website whilst watching tv.

The net, tv, music and games are all converging slowly but surely. Most, if not all household devices will end up online to some degree. I’m not sure if we’ll ever see the self-cleaning, self sufficient house of the future but convergence is a trend that is set to continue.

Some issues however remain. These include green concerns, problems of cost and a view of society being segmented by wealth even further. As long as these issues are considered then there should be no reason why we shouldn’t journey apace further with our virtual lives.

Who Do You Write For?

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More than 40,000 new blogs are created each day. This is huge. Times that by a week even, and you’ve got a vast number. A phenomenon. Blogs give people their own space to write what they want, when they want. They are also reasonably derestricted in what they say, and how they say it. Blogs though are only the tip of the iceberg.

The web is added to (and to a much lesser degree taken away) every day. People add content just about everywhere. Text is more dominant than images or interactive components, but they’re all growing. The 90/10/1 rule still applies (whereby 90 might read, 10 may comment and 1 may go off and create similar of their own) but even with that in the equation the web is growing at what seems like lightspeed.

So, looking at the title question, just who do you write for? Do you own an affiliate site so write for advertisers and consumers – followed by yourself? Do you write a non-profit support site? Do you troll the boards of an obscure yet brilliant Podcast?

Some of us are prolific writers across a number of mediums (of which I am not really one though I do try!), parleying in digital conversations across cyberspace. Others of us pretend to be someone else, or write online to have a space to which only we have access. Either way, our online discourse says a lot about us.

Of course, the digital communication platform of the web makes things so much easier and quicker that life seems to be about the quantity rather than the quality at times. Overall though, this is another sign of the web growing up. Soon, everyone will have a (my)space to express themselves. As this happens, the digital and the physical draw another step closer together as our digital and ‘real’ identities merge.

Returning to the eponymous question and answering it, I write for myself. Well, not only myself. But I tend to write about things that interest me. Computer games, cars and maybe other things – but you’ll see that last bit didn’t have a link. It’s my personal creative space! Of course, I enjoy writing for you all too. Every comment is of course a person showing a genuine interest in what I have to say and I in turn respect and enjoy that.

I am also an occasional board or forum member. I tend to use these though as a platform for discussion and always avoid anything that looks to be getting out of hand. Where I have more knowledge on a subject I’m more than happy to share it. One day though, I hope to move my writing focus. Maybe I’ll cover that in another article when I’m writing more about writing!