We all know how many usernames and passwords we have to keep track of nowadays. It can be a nightmare to remember them all. Just do as I do and never lose or forget a password again. Keepass is a little program that is free and open source.
It stores and protects all of your passwords with the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and the Twofish algorithm to encrypt its password databases. Both of these ciphers are regarded as being very secure and AES is apparently used by the U.S. Federal Governments National Security Agency (NSA) for protecting top secret information.
Don’t risk losing your data, especially if you use a laptop. What if your hard drive fails, your laptop gets dropped etc. Can you retrieve your data easily? Carbonite is an easy backup solution that backups to the cloud using encryption to protect your data. The program runs in the background and is very easy to use. You just set it and forget it. It is also only about £42 per year for unlimited backup. This is an insurance policy worth having.
Dropbox is great if you work on multiple machines or in multiple locations. Transferring work onto a data stick and having multiple versions in several places can get very confusing. Dropbox solves this by creating a folder that backs up to the cloud into your account. You can then install Dropbox on your other machine(s) and it will automatically synchronise all of your dropbox folders. Anything you add or update in your dropbox folder gets added or updated in your online dropbox and then gets updated on your other machines. What’s more it happens automatically. It’s easy and has a free account that gives 2GB storage.
Don’t fancy spending on Microsoft Office? No problem, Open Office is an open source version that offers a great alternative. While it is not identical to Office it does all of the same things, albeit slightly different to use. It offers all of the usual stuff such as spreadsheets, word processing, presentations etc. and it exports / saves in all major formats.
Gimp is an open source free graphics editor. It is a little on the advanced side if you have only ever used Microsoft Paint, however, if you are interested in getting into creating your own web graphics this would be the software to master. It is free and is said to be as good as many of the high-end graphics packages such as Photoshop. Not only that, there are loads of tutorials for it on YouTube.
With this small collection of tools you have your data and passwords all safe and secure, you have nailed multi-location working and have all the documentation and graphics software you will ever need. Check them out and feel free to leave comments or links to tools you rate highly.
Using photographs and images in your blog posts can really help you stand out and get noticed. It is a fact that people are drawn into content that has a visual aspect. Solid text is less likely to be read if not accompanied by an intriguing image. Additionally, photos can help you in the search engines – see article: SEO Tip: Optimize your Images for Search
So, here are some resources for free and paid for images. With the quality and abundance of free images and photos there is no reason for not using images in your blog posts. The following video covers photo and image resources available and below the video you will find a list of links to them.
In my experience, the paid for ones are usually better quality and there is more choice, however, the free photos are really great too if you are prepared to do a little searching.
Feel free to share this post using the Share/Bookmark link at the bottom of this post and it would be great to read your comments about your image and photo resources.
The following links are free photography libraries mainly sourced from Photoshop Support. It may be worth looking there too incase they update their list.
Many local business owners may not consider online marketing as a high priority when it comes to their business. Or they may have thought about it but don’t know where to start. Well, these days with more and more people searching for products and services on the Internet, online marketing has never been as important to local businesses.
For me, the days of flicking through the Yellow Pages or Thompson Local to find local services is a distant memory, simply because the speed and accessibility of the Internet makes it so much quicker and easier to find local businesses online that provide the products and services I am looking for.
It surprises me though that here are still local businesses that don’t see the business potential of marketing themselves online, especially when you think about the potential revenue opportunity that could be available to them if they developed an online presence; all those potential clients and customers searching for products and services they sell. It is an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed.
Don’t just take my word for it, download the report below to learn more about creating an online presence and how this could help your business to attract more clients and potentially generate more revenue.
Now, I am no expert on article marketing, but our website has definitely benefited in a small but steady way from a small flow of clickthroughs and linkbacks over the years as a result of submitting some of our pre-written articles. I get better returns from other forms of marketing so would not personally spend long on this, however, you might want to try it.
Simply submit some of your pre-written work into some of the top article databases and monitor the results for yourself. Whether it is beneficial will depend on your industry sector and article subject so it may be more beneficial for you than me.
When I say pre-written, I mean we wrote them and put them on our own blogs first until they were indexed. This is important in my view as Google knows where the article originated from and gives that location the higher weight in terms of search engine ranking.
You can check to see if an article has been indexed by copying a line of your article text into Google… for example… here is a line from a recent article on our Media Music Now blog … “For a few months, I have been hearing about the Dr Who adventure game”. (you need to use the quotes)
This only scratches the surface, but it is a good starting point without being overwhelmed.
Although I rate this list, I have never used a syndication service as it suggests as I know Google prefer natural methods. On that basis automatic syndication is not something I have used.
Good luck, and feel free to share this post and your results.
P.S. If you are doing this, I assume you have a website that you own to link back to? If not, get in touch with us
If you are looking to set up a Wordpress website then look no further than WebCentric360 They are cost effective, really know their stuff and goes the extra mile to give good solid advice, just a pleasure to work with and I’m a completely committed customer.
Using photographs and images in your blog posts can really help you stand out and get noticed. It is a fact that people are drawn into content that has a visual aspect. Solid text is less likely to be read if not accompanied by an intriguing image. Additionally, photos can help you in the search engines – see article: 
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