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How To Use Pinterest Analytics For Your Business

Jessica Prouty — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:58:09 +0000

You can use all the Pinterest tools available to make your boards stand out from the crowd but if you just set your content out there and forget about it, how will you know what’s working or if anyone is even viewing and repining your content? Measuring the success of your efforts is essential to the successful use of Pinterest for businesses and that’s where Pinterest Analytics come in. With the analytic tools featured here, you can gather as much or as little information as you need. Whether it’s for business use or personal use, you’ll be sure to know every detail about your Pinterest activity.

1. PinReach

To get started with PinReach, sign up on the registry page. There are three ways to sign in; Use your Twitter or Facebook account or if you prefer, use your email address. If you use a social site to connect, you’ll need to allow the app to access your account.

Simply enter the Pinterest username you want retrieve stats for. Don’t worry if you don’t know your username, the image will show you where to find it when you’re logged into Pinterest. Press “Create” to generate the analytics.

You’ll now be directed to a neat dashboard of your Pinterest analytics. The first section will be your “Pinterest Score History” which shows how many viewers were on your account and viewed your boards. I have been a long time Pinterest user so I’ve become an intermittent Pinterest user and as a result, you can see my view count is pretty low.

The next section shows your “Repin” counts and if you hover over the colored dot, it will display what the pin was and how many repins it has.

Similar to that is the “Popular Boards” section. It displays the most popular board repins and counts. If you hover over the column, you’ll see the board name and the repin total. The board shown here with over 4K repins is a Pinterest community board. This is a great example of the potential reach and growth that’s possible with having a community board.

In the “Boards” tab, you’ll see a summary view of all the major stats for the individual boards from most popular on down.

The “Pins” tab gives a beautiful display of the most popular pins with a color image and a repin count in the lower corner.

In the Influential followers tab, you’ll see who repins your content most along with how many times they repined it. Use this section as a good place to start recognizing or thanking people who spread your content.

2. Pinerly

Pinerly is a new analytics tool that is currently by invite only. To get an invite, you enter your email address to be put on the waiting list. The more people you share the Pinerly link with, the sooner you’ll get your invite. Once you receive access to Pinerly, follow the directions in the email to register your Pinterest account and gain access to the Pinerly dashboard.

Pinerly works differently than some of the other analytic tools; You need to create a Campaign to begin tracking your analytics. You do this the same way you create any pin by uploading an image either from a website or from a file.

Enter the URL and description then click “Pinerly It” to enable the click-through tracking. This isn’t creating an advertisement, it looks just like any other pin with the added ability to easily track click-throughs, repins, and likes.

The “Pinalytics” tab will show you real time information and compare your campaigns against each other. The comparison is helpful to see if a campaign has little or no clicks. If so, you can make adjustments to the images, description, time, and board it was posted to until you achieve your goal for that campaign.

The “Suggested” pins tab is excellent for finding new and creative pins direct from the dashboard. There are 7 categories to choose from with new pins added to each regularly. Pinning new content from various sources will help your Pinfluence scores increase and keep your visitors engaged.

The “Follow” tab features a place to follow interesting pinners from 19 different categories! You’re sure to make some great connections and find some great new content to share on your boards! P.S. I told you Pinterest isn’t just for women!

Future features of this platform are set to include scheduling your pins so you can post at peak hours automatically, not just when you have time. Pinerly is a great source for analytics and so much more!

You now have some great tools and ideas for using them to your business advantage, so head over to the links and see which analytics tool will best fit your style and start measuring your Pinterest success. Do you use Pinerly or Pinreach? Tell us about your experience!

How To Use Pinterest Analytics For Your Business originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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SlowPal: Browse Your PayPal Transaction History Without Waiting

Soumen Halder — Thu, 24 May 2012 21:30:43 +0000

PayPal seems to offer a brilliant service as long as you are ready to put up with its outlandish rules. You can use it to pay and receive online payment, and you can view the history to check your transaction record. However, long time users will notice that viewing the Paypal history is often a slow, laggy and a sub-optimal experience. SlowPal is one solution for this.

SlowPal offers a smart interface to handle and browse your PayPal history. Sign up for a free account and link your PayPal account. Once you are done, you will have to wait for sometime until you get a confirmation mail from the service that your account history (PayPal) is successfully imported. Once the account is set up, log in again to access the PayPal transaction in a seamless manner.

The spiffy interface is itself a relief to the eye as compared to the dull Paypal interface. In addition, the tool also offers a nice interactive way to browse through your PayPal transactions. The reports are categorized in a considerable manner so that you can sort your transaction in all possible ways you might need to. There are 5 types of filters you can choose from to look out for transactions you wish to find:

Type of transaction: Here you get to choose from various types of transaction you have carried out through your PayPal account. Options are bills, currency conversion, payment, recurring payment etc.
Status of Payment: The payment status is an useful feature to check on pending transactions.
Currency: Intelligent way to track currency conversion rates to your country currency used by Paypal for different transactions.
Time period: A monthly or quarterly report can be generated with this time span feature.
Additional filter: You can type in a keyword or a payee name to accurately search any transaction.

All the transactions are neatly tabulated with key attributes which include timestamp, type, email, name, transaction ID, currency, status, amount, fee and net payment. Clicking on the transaction ID opens up a popup with details of the element. You can also sort the transaction based on all the aforementioned attributes by clicking any of them. There is also an option to download your PayPal account history in CSV format which is useful for having better insights on your business by creating better charts with the data.

When it’s money or data, security is a major concern. And being online means you will do everything to protect your online money transactions. So you might be a little concerned if SlowPal is reliable or not. The tool is completely built on PayPal API and all your data on PayPal is imported using SSL. You can rest assured your data will be in safe hands. Nevertheless you can always revoke the permission from Paypal (My Account -> Profile -> My Account Settings -> More account settings -> Service providers -> Click remove beside the service you wish to stop authorizing). SlowPal is for companies or individuals with a lot of transactions to monitor. However, I would recommend general PayPal user to use the in-built account history manager as long as you don’t desperately in need of a faster way to browse through your transaction history.

SlowPal: Browse Your PayPal Transaction History Without Waiting originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Tinychat For Web Allows You to Chat, Listen to Music And Draw Simultaneously

Laura Tucker — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:58:43 +0000

While everyone knows about Skyping and Facebook Chat, TinyChat is much lesser known. Just like the other forms of chatting, TinyChat is available across multiple platforms. It’s available both on the web as well as on mobile devices. However, unlike the others, you can do more than chat. You can also listen to music or watch YouTube videos together, and even draw together.

My son and a friend were chatting via their computers. They both had Tinychat going on their computers, and were chatting, watching, listening, and drawing away. I had to find out about this. They graciously let me in on their chat, and it was like a whole world of possibilities that opened up. It would be great for business as well as personal use.

Because I’m an Apple and iOS person through and through, it means the first thing I did was look for an app. I found an app available for both my iPhone and iPad. Opening that, I was presented with a choice of browsing existing chats, starting my own chat, or joining a chat. To join the chat with my son and his friend, I could either type in the room name or accept an invite from Facebook or other similar social networks. The problem with trying to connect through the Facebook notification was that it sent me through the Internet instead of through the app. Safari can’t handle the TinyChat website because it’s most likely Flash. Because I was trying to go through the iOS app, I had to manually type in the name of the room.

It turns out because it’s a flash-enabled website, that much of the functions on TinyChat that make it so great to use weren’t available on the website. The only function that was available here was just the video chat. There was no texting, drawing, YouTube, or sound files I could view or listen to here. While I could have switched to a flash-enabled browser (I like Photon) and enjoyed all the functions, I decided to switch to my Mac to make it easier for review purposes.

I rejoined the chat this time from the web on my Mac. This time I had all the functions available to me, as I would have using a flash-enabled iOS browser. Opening it on the web, I could see the same three videos before of everyone talking, but I could also “see” if they were typing in text. It also notifies you when someone joins or leaves the room, just like other chat rooms.

One very unique feature of TinyChat is the Whiteboard. This is a board that anyone in the chat can draw on, even simultaneously. You can jot down notes for a job you’re discussing or just have a lot of fun on it with your friends. It has all the standard drawing tools on it – lines, text, pencil, eraser, etc. It opened up in a separate window, so instead of flipping back and forth, I moved the window out to a separate pane so that I could see it and my video chat at the same time.

Ever watch a YouTube that you just can’t wait to show your friends? Now instead of emailing or sharing it on Facebook or Twitter, you can watch it together on TinyChat. Search for a video from directly within Tinychat, and when it opens up, it does so so that everyone on the chat can see it. Laugh together! Songs can be opened up the same way to also be enjoyed together. Additional options are going full screen and taking a snapshot of the people in the chat.

There are just so many possibilities available with TinyChat. I can see using this during chats, especially with a larger group of people. It just isn’t the most iOS friendly because of the Flash video use, but it can still be used, with the right browser, or with limited function in the app.

Tinychat

Tinychat For Web Allows You to Chat, Listen to Music And Draw Simultaneously originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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4 Awesome Pinterest Tools To Expand Your Web Influence

Jessica Prouty — Tue, 22 May 2012 14:58:21 +0000

I’ve been a long time user of Pinterest (almost since it’s inception) and absolutely love it. I first started out using it for my personal hobbies and recently started a board for articles I write along with other technology related pins. Now, I realize not everyone has embraced Pinterest like I have. You might use Pinterest, but not know how to engage others in your Pinterest activities with a community board. Today we are going to explore my top picks for Pinterest Tools that will help you to use this platform for more than just browsing pins.

1. WooBox

Woobox is one of those really cool tools that does it all. The main feature of Woobox is to show your Pinterest boards and pins as a tab on your Facebook page. Creating Facebook Tabs is easy but this tool makes it one-click-easy to draw your Facebook fans over to your Pinterest page. Just click on the “Install Pinterest” tab in Woobox and allow the app access to your Facebook account.

Next, you will associate your account by entering your Pinterest Username. The Page Mode can be set to display “All Pinboards” or “Pins From A Selected Pin Board”. In the “FanGate” section, you can enable one of the features to require visitor’s to Like your page before they can view your Pinterest tab.

Once it’s set up, you’ll see it displayed as any other tab under your cover photo with the Pinterest logo.

To see the viewers perspective, click on the tab to open your boards. The first view will show all of your boards just like they are displayed in your Pinterest account. Each of those boards can be clicked and viewed independently so the boards and individual pins can be repined.

You can further analyze your Pinterest interactions by click on the “Stats” button.

It will display the current tally of Views, Visits and Likes. Once your app has been active to collect information, you can choose to Export The Stats From The Last 90 Days as a spreadsheet.

2. Pinzy

Pinzy isn’t a marketing tool but it can help you see what the competition is posting. It’s a handy Chrome extension that allows you to view the thumbnail images on Pinterest in full size just by hovering over them! No need to click through just to see the enlarged photo.

To use it, just hover over any pin and you’ll see the image enlarged. I love this tool because I don’t have to click through to see if it’s something of interest. I don’t use Chrome often so hopefully Pinterest will roll this feature out as part of their website soon!

3. PinAlerts

PinAlerts is a great tool if you use Pinterest for business. Within seconds of setting up your account, you’ll receive an email of the pins that were added from your site that day and be notified when anyone pins something from your website thereafter. Register and verify your email then enter the domain you want to receive alerts from. Select the interval you want to receive alerts and press “Create A PinAlert”.

You can add multiple domains to receive alerts on and manage all of them from within that dashboard. Use the alerts to thank the people who are repining your content and ask them to follow your other boards.

4. PinPuff

PinPuff calculates your “Pinfluence” measuring your popularity on Pinterest and the value of your pins. Simply register by entering your email address and Pinterest username and PinPuff does the rest! This could be very useful if you’re using an eCommerce site or planning to do some advertising as the first section gives you the “Pin Worth” and the “Cost Per Click” your content would generate.

The next few sections show the scores for your “Reach”, “Activity”, and “Virality Scores” along with some encouragement or suggestions to improve the scores.

A summary of all your board stats can be found at the bottom and your total Pinfluence Score along with your top boards in the right sidebar.

There are so many neat tools being developed everyday as Pinterest gains momentum and catches on around the world. Try these tools out and let us know what you think. We’d also love to know what tools you use and love! Leave a comment!

4 Awesome Pinterest Tools To Expand Your Web Influence originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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SABnzbd – A Great Way to Download From Newsgroups

JJ — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:58:12 +0000

Have you been wondering what this whole newsgroup fuss is about? Usenet is one of the oldest parts of the internet, and millions of people download vast amounts of content from it. There are often tricky aspects to doing so, however, with the need to download multipart files, recombine them, check them for errors and possibly repair them. Thankfully there is a solution to this – an automated newsgroup download manager called SABnzbd. Quite simply, SABnzbd makes Usenet as simple to use as possible – even easier than torrenting! Once setup, all you need to do is feed it NZB files and it will do the rest. NZB files essentially contain a list of parts that must be downloaded from specific newsgroups in order to makeup a complete file.

The following guide only applies to the Windows version, but setup on OSX is very similar. Note that you need a valid Usenet account to use this software. Easynews is what I use, but there are many others to choose from.

Installation Guide

To begin, download the appropriate version for your operating system here.

Step 1. Download and run the installer, clicking next until you see the section where you can select the tickbox for “NZB file association”. Select it and click next to finish installing.

Step 2. Once it has installed, a web browser will open with a list of languages for you to select from. Select your language and click “Start Wizard”.

Step 3. The first thing you need to enter are server details, which will be provided by your Usenet provider. I have filled them out with the Easynews server details below. Click “Test server” once you’ve filled these out. After a few seconds it should say “Connection successful!”. If it doesn’t, then you may need to recheck your server settings. Click Next.

Step 4. You can select whether or not you wish to be able to access SABnzbd from another PC on your network. The choice is up to you. You can also password protect it. Click Next.

Step 5. This next section allows you to enter your account details from various newsgroup indexing sites. This is for automation and best fiddled with once you get your head around the basics of SABnzbd. Click Next.

Step 6. SABnzbd will tell you that it is restarting and a few seconds later you should be presented with the following page, which is the download management area.

Step 7. Just a couple more things you probably want to set before you set SABnzbd loose. Click Config in the top left hand corner, then click Folders in the menu on the left. Changing the Temporary download folder and Completed download folder to locations of your preference. If you want you can also specify a “Watched” folder, where NZB files that are downloaded will automatically be queued up by SABnzbd for processing.

Step 8. Test it out! You need to feed it a NZB file to test out the download functionality. I’ll leave this part up to you – there are a wealth of resources from which to grab NZB files (e.g. nzbmatrix, newzbin2.es, binsearch.info etc). Some are paid and some are free.

For the purposes of this guide I used binsearch.info and searched for “trailer”. I found a Mass Effect 2 trailer in the search results, ticked the checkbox next to it and clicked “Create NZB”. This generated a NZB file that Google Chrome automatically downloaded to my Downloads folder. As I had set my downloads folder to be the watched folder in SABnzbd, it found the file and started grabbing it from Usenet. As you can see in the screenshot below, the trailer downloaded at a healthy ~3mb/sec.

Once the file finished downloading SABnzbd automatically extracted it. I could then find it in my completed folder and play it with VLC, as per the screenshot below.

Conclusion

There is obviously much more to SABnzbd, and not all of it can be covered in this article. Briefly, some additional things that may be useful are noted in the image below. If you have any questions, please ask!

SABnzbd – A Great Way to Download From Newsgroups originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Are You TwitterTastic? 4 Tools To Determine Your Influence On Twitter

Jessica Prouty — Fri, 18 May 2012 14:58:21 +0000

Twitter is a great way to share content and engage with other people similar to you. It’s also a great place to learn and keep up to date on current happenings but that’s not where it ends. When you post material to your Twitter account to share with your followers, does anyone view it? Do they pass it on or just pass on it? In this article, we’ll discuss 4 tools that can help you determine your influence in the Twitter world and what you can do to improve so your messages reach their full potential!

Do You Make The Twitter Grade?

Tweet Grader is a free tool by HubSpot that gives you the opportunity to check the power of your Twitter profile compared to other Twitter users. Your score is based on an algorithm of certain criteria predetermined by Hubspot. To see your TweetGrade, just enter your Twitter name and press Grade to see your score.

You will see your Twitter Rank, Follower Count, who you Follow, and your Grade along with a short bio of your account. If your score is low, take this opportunity to check these things for accuracy and make some adjustments until your score is in a more comfortable range.

Under your bio, you’ll see your Follower History. If you click the link there, it will show you a chart of your Follow and Following history.

Use the “Tools” tab for more neat features like seeing a list of you top Tweeters!

What’s Your TweetEffect?

TweetEffect is a neat tool to tell you which Twitter updates made people follow or leave you. All you have to do is enter your Twitter username and select “Tell Me About My Effects”.

When it’s done retrieving your results from Twitter, you’ll see a short summary of your activity.

How Far Do Your Tweets Reach?

TweetReach- shows how many people have viewed your tweets, how many have retweeted, and who your highest exposure is from. Just like the other tools, simply enter your Twitter username and Search.

The report will generate a tally of how many accounts your last Tweet reached. The bottom half of that report will show a week in review chart of your Tweet History, over how many days and how many contributors. The pie chart is a handy visual that displays how many replies and retweets you received form what you shared.

If you scroll down a little, you’ll see the report for your “Top Contributors”, “Most Retweeted Tweets”, all Contributors, and your Tweet Timeline. This report will allow you to see where you fall short and thank those who are contributing to your Twitter success. I can see that my report could use some diversity so I’ll be working on getting my content shared by more contributors.

What Do Your Twitter Analytics Tell You?

Twitalyzer is a probably the most important tool in this article. It’s designed to give you insight on your Twitter Ananlytics that are easy to read and follow. To get started, just enter your Twitter username and Twitalyze!

The first page you will see is an overview of your activity with some metrics giving you an idea of where you fall in the Twitter world of users. I’m a fairly recent Twitter user so my scores will likely be much lower than yours if you have been using Twitter ongoing.

If you click on “Check Out Our Metrics Dashboard”, you’ll see a dashboard full of different metrics that will help you determine where you need to focus more energy and allows you to see what’s working well.

As you can see in the image below, the dashboard metrics are showing me what the Potential Reach is and the number of people I am Effectively Reaching as well as my Klout scores. Those will give me a guideline to where I could focus more energy and time.

With these 4 tools, you are sure to be TwitterTastic in no time! Don’t just put information out in cyberspace, track where it goes, who sees it and is anyone even listening to what you’re saying? If so, great! Use the Twitalyzer tool to help you gauge your progress and if not, use the tools to help you improve in areas that are scoring low and one day you’ll be glad you did!

Are You TwitterTastic? 4 Tools To Determine Your Influence On Twitter originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Easily Convert A Spreadsheet to HTML [Quick Tips]

Damien — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:30:19 +0000

You probably have done a lot of work on Excel or other spreadsheet application and you want to convert all of them into HTML document so you can place it on the Web. What should you do? This may seems like a simple question with obvious answers, but plenty of people are still having difficulty getting it done. There are several ways that you can convert your spreadsheet to HTML document, and luckily, you don’t need to be a HTML coder to do so.

1. Use the “Save-as” tool in your office suite

I am not sure about all the office suite, but for Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice and LibreOffice, they allow you to save your document as a HTML file. And yes, all your data will be converted to HTML format too.

To do this, you just have to go to “File -> Save as” and select HTML web document from the list. The naming convention might vary for different office suite.

Once you have exported it, you can edit the HTML document or open with a browser to view it.

2. Google Docs

What if you don’t have office suite on your PC and you don’t have permission to install software on your system? Here’s a simple walk-around: use Google Docs (or Google Drive)

1. Upload your spreadsheet document to Google Docs.

2. Go to “File -> Download As” and select “HTML”. It will probably open your current spreadsheet in a new tab, in webpage format. All you have to do is to right click your mouse and select “View Source”. Copy all the source code.

3. Paste the HTML source code to a text editor and save it with a .html extension.

3. Using a web service – Tableizer

If you prefer a more manual method, you can make use of a web service to convert your spreadsheet to HTML document.

1. Go to Tableizer.

2. Copy the data in your spreadsheet document and paste it in the input field. Click “Tableize it”.

That’s it. It will generate the HTML table code as well as a preview of how it looks like on the Web. You can simply copy and paste the HTML code to your Web document.

I have tested Tableizer with several documents and it works well with most of them. For some instances, it has difficulties interpreting a carriage return within cells. Your result may vary.

Note: If you have used Macros or formula in your spreadsheet, they might not translate well in the HTML format.

What other ways do you use to convert your spreadsheet to HTML?

How to Easily Convert A Spreadsheet to HTML [Quick Tips] originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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A User’s Guide To Facebook Ads

Jessica Prouty — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:58:03 +0000

Facebook Ads are a great way to drive new fans to your Facebook business page. As you build your fan base, those fans will connect to the page and become long term customers influencing their friends to become fans of your page or product creating an instant Word of Mouth Marketing strategy. When you go to a business page in Facebook, you will now see all of your friends who also like the page or product. This gives credibility to your brand because consumers are more apt to believe in a product when people they know like or use them. Whether you’re ready to get started with Facebook Ads or just want to know more about them, here are a few tips to make sure you use your budget wisely.

Know Your Audience

You can’t effectively market your business without knowing who your target audience is. In your Facebook Timeline dashboard, you can use your Insights data to help you identify your audience and from there, begin to break your advertising down by the demographics. Then use the Facebook Targeting Tools to help you deliver the ads according to those demographics. If you have a physical location, you will want to use the Geo Targeting option to target the people in your local area for in store promotions. Demographic Targeting by Job Title, Age or Gender as well as Likes and Interests Targeting can help you create target specific ads for a better ROI.

If you want to use the targeting feature by Job Title or Interest, you would enter it into the “Precise Interest field”. When you begin typing your keywords, Facebook auto-populates a list of related keywords with that audience’s population so you know how many people that particular ad will reach.

Engage customers

Now that you know how to target your audience with an Ad, the next task is to decide where to display it. You have several options for this and it’s best to mix it up putting some in your news feeds, as a custom tab or in a message. You can even place them on a new fan’s page as a thank you response when they Like your page. Their friends now see it in their feed as well so it has a far reaching effect.

Nobody likes to be brow-beat by a sales pitch day in and day out, so don’t use your Facebook Page solely for that purpose. Keep your fans and customers engaged by posting informative articles about your product or how your product helped solve a problem. Display photos, videos and polls that keep the fans engaged with you and other fans of the page. Social Fresh is a good example of this method with varied posts of polls, articles and images. All are brightly colored and customers are always engaging in conversations and debates with each other and the brand here.

Create An Ad

We have walked through all of the technical aspects of using the Facebook Targeting Tools to get the most ROI with your Ads so now we’ll put all of that together to actually create the Ad.

1. Design Your Ad

Navigate to the Facebook Ads Page and click “Create Ad”. Decide on which Timeline it will go, where you want it displayed, then choose the image and text to be displayed. Make sure you use bold colors that will stand out from the blue and white background of Facebook.

2. Target Your Audience

Using any of the desired targeting tools, enter the demographics you want to target with this ad. Facebook will generate an Estimated Reach of your ad based on the information you selected so you’ll be able to see the demographic reach at a glance.

Set A Budget

It’s now time to set your budget for the ad but first you need to decide if you are optimizing for “Likes” or “Clicks”. The option to optimize by Likes isn’t available to everyone just yet so you may not have this option right away. Your budget can be set as lifetime of the ad or by the day. You set how long you want the ad to run by selecting the dates in the “Campaign Schedule” and Facebook will auto-populate the CPC based on your targeting and budget allotment.

Review Your Ad

The last step is to review your ad for accuracy. You will see a summary of your target audience, your CPC and the total budget along with the duration of the ad. If you need to make any changes to the ad, now is the time to do so by clicking “Edit” otherwise click “Place Order”.

Manage And Refresh Your Ads

You’ll want to monitor your ads to determine the effectiveness of them. Within the Ad Manager, you’ll be able to see which ones have the highest click through rates, lowest cost per click, etc. The Advertising Performance Report and Demographic Response Report can be accessed in your Ad Manager by going to the Reports tab. Tracking and adjusting your ad content and target may be necessary as you first start out and these reports can help you determine what’s working and what’s not. It’s also recommended to refresh your ads weekly to prevent your click through rate from dropping. That can be anything from changing text or simply changing the image of the ad.

Now it’s your turn to go create an ad for your business! Come back and share your experience of creating and using Facebook Ads with us! We’d love to hear how it has impacted your business and marketing strategy.

A User’s Guide To Facebook Ads originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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A Comparison Guide Of The Various Cloud Storage Services

Damien — Sat, 12 May 2012 23:58:50 +0000

When it comes to online storage services, you are pampered with choices. Although Google is a titan in the Internet, that doesn’t mean its newly launched Google Drive will replace all other players and become the de-facto for cloud storage. Conversely, there are many other players that are able to provide you with more value for your money. Here is a comparison table of the various popular online storage providers and how they stack against each other.

	Free Storage Space	Pricing per month (US$)	Desktop client	Mobile Support	File Sharing	Unique Selling Point
Dropbox	2GB, free referrals upgrade up to 18GB	$9.99 for 50GB $19.99 for 100GB	Windows Mac Linux	Android iOS Blackberry	Yes	Support almost every platforms, sync seamlessly
Skydrive	7GB. Existing users can have free upgrade to 25GB for a limited time	$13/year for $20GB $32/year for 65GB $65/year for 100GB	Windows Mac	WP 7 iOS	Yes	A generous amount of storage space to start with and great integration with Windows OS and devices
Google Drive	5GB	$2.49 for 25GB $4.99 for 100GB $7.99 for 16TB	Windows Mac Linux (coming soon)	Android iOS (coming soon)	Yes	Great integration between Google Docs, Gmail, and Picasa. Cheap and affordable storage space upgrade
Ubuntu One	5GB	$2.99 for every 20GB	Linux Windows	Android iOS	Yes	The native sync client for Ubuntu and supports music and contact sync
iCloud	5GB	$20/year for 10GB $40/year for 20GB $100/year for 50GB	Requires iTunes, for Windows and Mac only	iOS	No	Integrate seamlessly with iOS device and Mac.
Amazon Cloud Drive	5GB	$20/year for 20GB $50/year for 50GB $100/year for 100GB $200/year for 200GB $500/year for 500GB $1000/year for 1TB	Windows Mac (only a upload/download client, not a sync client)	No sync client for mobile (yet). Mp3 saved in the Cloud drive can be played with the Amazon MP3 Android app	No	Music purchased from Amazon will be saved to the cloud drive for free, without affecting the storage status
SpiderOak	2GB	$10/month per 100GB increment	Windows Mac Linux	Android iOS	Yes	Encrypted online backup
SugarSync	5GB	$4.99 for 30GB $9.99 for 60GB $14.99 for 100GB	Windows Mac	Android iOS Blackberry Symbian	Yes	Able to sync any folders on your computer
Box	5GB. Android users and Apps email holder can upgrade to 50GB	$9.99 for 25GB $19.99 for 50GB	Windows & Mac version only for business and enterprise user	Android iOS Blackberry	Yes	Good focus on business side
Wuala	5GB	$39/year for 20GB $79/year for 50GB $129/year for 100GB	Windows Mac Linux	Android iOS	Yes	Wuala encrypts the data on your computer before it is uploaded. During the upload, your data is split up into many different pieces and stored in multiple places to make certain that you never lose a single file.
iDriveSync	5GB	$4.95 for unlimited sync storage	Windows Mac	Android iOS	Yes	Data are encrypted at the data center

The Analysis

If you are looking for a cross-platform compatible storage service, Dropbox is the one to go. It is the easiest to use and supports the most number of OS and platforms.

If you need plenty of storage space and are looking for a cheap and affordable storage provider, you can consider either SkyDrive or Google Drive. For up to 65GB, SkyDrive has the lowest price per GB. When the storage space go up to and above 100GB, Google Drive is the cheapest. However, on the mobile side, you don’t expect Microsoft to come up with an Android app for SkyDrive and Google might not be so keen to create a WP7 app for its GDrive too. If you need to have mobile access, this is something you need to consider as well.

iCloud is the obvious choice for iOS users since it is deeply integrated into the OS. It may not be the cheapest choice though, but with all Apple stuff, it just works.

Amazon Cloud Drive is really useful if you are a regular Amazon customer, particularly if you buy MP3 and eBooks often. I have a feeling that Google will merge its Drive and Music services together in the future, but as of now, Amazon has really done a good job linking your digital download and the cloud storage together.

Being a Ubuntu user, I really like the way that Ubuntu One is integrated into the system. The syncing and restoration is seamless that I can reformat my PC and still have my settings and configuration intact the next time I boot up my PC.

Wuala and SpiderOak are good if you are paranoid about the confidentiality of your files in the cloud. Both services are cross-platform compatible and encrypt your data by default. Wuala offers more storage space for free (5GB) but if you need more than 100GB of space, SpiderOak is slightly more affordable.

Which storage provider is your favorite?

Image credit: By wwarby

A Comparison Guide Of The Various Cloud Storage Services originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Present.me Lets You Offer Information with Engagement

Soumen Halder — Sat, 12 May 2012 14:58:51 +0000

Have you ever wondered what happens when a Powerpoint presentation gets clubbed together with a video that narrates the facts in the presentation? Present.me does just that. It offers you with a nice medium for communicating and sharing information at the same time.

Richard Garnett, co-founder of Present.me has a beautiful way of describing the service. If you were to explain facts included in a presentation how would you do that? This is the core concept behind Present.me. Consider a real life situation where you have to present a sales report for the last quarter in the sales meeting. You’ll use a presentation to show facts and narrate it to make them meaningful. Is it possible online with Slideshare (which is just facts) or Youtube (which is just narration)? True virtual environments can be created with other apps to provide a similar experience but that will need two persons (one who the data presents the data and to whom the data is presented to) to be there at the same time. Present.me can meet all the demands, presenting data, explaining them and without needing the two persons to be there simultaneously.

How To Use Present.me

1. Create a free account (you can use Facebook or Google to sign up). Once you are in, you can upload the content by going to the Create menu (at top).

2. Choose from the types of content you wish to upload and proceed to the next step.

3. You can choose files from your Google Drive (Docs) or upload presentation, PDF etc. I uploaded a PDF document.

4. Once the document is uploaded, you will get a choice to record a video by letting the service access to your computer’s camera. You can also upload a recorded video, but that will require you to upgrade to a paid account.

5. Now you can record the video and use the slides from the presentation the same way you would present it to someone in front of you. Once finished, publish the new presentation for the viewers to enjoy. The new kind of presentation can also be embedded into a webpage.

Pricing

The service has a free account that allows you to upload 3 presentations (each not exceeding 15 mins) per month. The paid plans offer you more choices and an ad-free interface. The free plan is worth a try considering the usability and engagement it offers to any presenter.

After you get all the facts right, curate it in a way that’s consumable, what, according to you, is the best way(s) to present the information? So far you used to have three choices. You can create a presentation, a Youtube video or an infographic. Each one has a specific purpose. An infographic is best for representing a survey or study over a large margin in concise form. Whereas a video or presentation is good for demonstrating and present a report. Now that you have a richer medium to present data or explain something, do you think it will be a better choice for you? We are eager to hear your opinion.

Present.me

Present.me Lets You Offer Information with Engagement originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Put Your Facebook Account On Lockdown (Part 2)

Jessica Prouty — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:58:57 +0000

In Part 1 of Putting Your Facebook On Lockdown, we discussed how important it was to adjust the settings in your Facebook account to protect your privacy. I gave you tips for setting up your account (or to change your current information) and showed you how to setup each category to keep your private information just that… private. Part 2 of locking down your Facebook account will cover how to protect your account information from apps and how to customize your posts so only those who are supposed to see it, do!

App security

Did you know that even if you think you’re careful of what you view or allow, it’s not only what apps and websites you allow to access your Facebook account, it’s also what your friends allow on theirs that attach to your account and impact what information is shared about you. Malware is a piece of software that is automatically installed on your computer without your knowledge. Apps are a common place for Malware to hide and can be easily added to your computer when you visit sites while logged into your Facebook account. Managing and cleaning up this section of your account requires more vigilance than simply checking a security setting box. When you open this section, you may be surprised at how may apps are actually attached to your Facebook account.

To check your profile for a list of Facebook Applications, click on the “Edit Settings” in the Application Settings.

When you click on the “Edit Settings” link for one of the applications, you’ll see what the app has access to and you can edit those settings. If you no longer want that app on your Facebook account, click the “X” to delete the app. It will be deleted temporarily but you’ll eventually see it back in your list. The best way to avoid apps attaching Malware to your computer is to log out of Facebook before surfing the Internet.

You may not realize it, but the apps your friends use on Facebook can also access information about you, like your photos, hometown and current city. If that’s a concern for you, there are two ways to manage how your information is shared. The first and most extreme is to disable all platform apps to completely prohibit any third party Facebook apps from accessing your account. You can do this by clicking “Turn Off All Apps” in this section.

The second option is to deselect the boxes of information that you don’t want shared with the world. You can do this in the “This App Can” section of each app. As seen above, I allowed Pinterest to post on my behalf but I deleted the rest of the default sharing options.

Blocking People

If someone is contacting you or posting negative comments on your wall, you can block them from being able to access your account. Go to that person’s Timeline and hover over the “Friends” tab. You’ll see a drop down menu of options to choose from. You can simply click “Restrict” to block them from accessing your Facebook page or you can “Unfriend” them altogether.

Custom Privacy

In addition to each category setting above, you can customize your Facebook account further so that only specific people can see certain updates and the same can be done if you want to hide updates from certain people. Just change your “Privacy Setting” to “Custom” and the window will open where you can select who will see that information. Making lists of family, coworkers, or whoever you will send bulk email to will make this step much quicker.

Post Security

Facebook is a place where you share all of the big things and small things with your family and friends. Though we should always keep security in mind, it shouldn’t keep you from sharing pictures of your family or a vacation for fear of it being seen by the wrong people. When you write a status update, you can select who sees that update by clicking on the padlock icon next to the “Post” button. Then only those people you select will be able to see the post and comment on it.

If you follow all of the security steps in part 1 and part 2 of Putting Your Facebook On Lockdown, you shouldn’t have any trouble with a hacked or compromised account. I will be making some changes to my account and cleaning up some things that don’t need to be there. Will you join me in making Facebook more secure for you and your family?

Put Your Facebook Account On Lockdown (Part 2) originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Put Your Facebook Account On Lockdown (Part 1)

Jessica Prouty — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:58:41 +0000

Protecting your privacy is becoming even more important because there are so many ways for hackers, spammers, and malicious software to attack your computer and steal your personal information. Educating yourself on how to properly configure your security settings is vital in protecting yourself from these attacks. With some simple adjustments to your Facebook settings, you can begin to take measures to protect your personal information immediately. Did you know that it’s not only what apps and websites YOU allow to access your Facebook account, it’s also what your friends allow on theirs that attach to your account and impact what information is shared about you. You have options so let’s learn how to use them!

Set Yourself Up For Success

Having your Facebook account hacked or seeing a friends account spam your inbox with malicious emails is becoming more common. If your account is hacked, that means they have accessed your email account and if you use the same email account for your online banking or any other sensitive information, you could be in danger of identity theft and or hacked bank accounts. Here are a few things you can do to manage that.

When setting up your Facebook account you should use an email address dedicated just to your Facebook activity. That way, if your account is ever jeopardized, your personal data is still safe. There are plenty of free email services like Gmail, Yahoo , and Hotmail that you could use for this purpose.
Your password should be strong and secure. For heaven sake, don’t use “password” or something easy to guess! It should be complex with upper and lower case letters as well as numbers or symbols. Use this password STRICTLY for your Facebook account so if it were to be guessed, your other accounts are still safe.

Where Are My Security Settings?

1. At the top of your Timeline Toolbar, click on the arrow to open the drop down menu and then click Account Settings.

2. From the left sidebar click “Security”. You’ll now see several settings in this section you should look at and adjust accordingly. We’ll look at each of them and you can decide which settings you think should be enabled for your account.

Enable Secure Browsing

This feature encrypts your Facebook information making it hard for anyone to access it without your permission. Malware and virus attacks are limited when you browse on a secure network.

Login Notifications

Use this to be notified by text or email when your account is being accessed by a device that hasn’t been used before. This can foil someone’s attempt to log into your account as you.

Login Approvals

It’s great to be notified if someone tries to access your account but there are times when you’ll log in on someone else’s device and you still want to be able to use your account. Setting the Login Approvals will require you to enter a code each time your account is accessed from an unknown device. Only you receive the code by text message so if a hacker was trying to access your account, they wouldn’t be able to login.

App Passwords

If you have login approvals turned on, you may not be able to access some of your apps. You can instead create app passwords instead of your account password to securely log into apps. Click the “Generate App Passwords” to set up passwords for things like Xbox and Skype.

Recognized Devices

When you open this section you’ll see a list of devices that have accessed your account. If you see any that you don’t recognize, remove them from the list. Everything on the list will be allowed to access your account without having to prove identity.

Active Sessions

Here’s one that shocked me when I saw a few active sessions that weren’t me! Look over the active sessions and clear out any you don’t recognize as your own. If you had active sessions that weren’t you, you (and I!) need to setup the proper security settings we are going over in this section ASAP!

Privacy Settings

Now that we have discussed how your Facebook should be secure in the settings, let’s look at how to set privacy and security settings for posts and what is posted about you. From the main drop down menu, select “Privacy settings”.

You will now see what your current settings are for sharing on Facebook. You can choose one of the settings for who can see your updates and then you can further customize each of those sections.

How To Connect

Select how people can find and contact you by looking at each of the settings. Choose the ones that make sense for how you use Facebook and how you want to connect to others who use it too. You never know who’s looking at your wall or information so it’s best to limit the amount of specific information you share, like your address and phone number.

Tag Your It!

Protect your personal information and activities by choosing what can be posted to your timeline, who can see what’s posted, and who can see posts you’ve been tagged in. You can also enable the settings to review posts before they appear on your Timeline.

That’s a lot of information to digest, so take some time to adjust what needs adjusting and come back for part 2 of this series. In Part 2, we’ll discuss the importance of managing apps and what information they access as well as customizing posts that will show only to those selected. Don’t let the dark side of the Internet scare you away from taking part in the fun of social media, just be smart about what you share and how!

Put Your Facebook Account On Lockdown (Part 1) originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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11 Tips For Navigating The New Gmail Interface

Jessica Prouty — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:58:24 +0000

The release of the new Gmail interface went live in late April 2012 so you may have observed some changes when you logged into your dashboard for the first time. While the function of Gmail remains, the new additions to the interface make it more user friendly with lots of customizing options which are great for maximizing your efficiency and productivity. Let’s look at some tips and tricks for navigating the new Gmail interface so you can get started on creating a Gmail that works for you!

Email Options

1. Inbox Display

The default setting for emails to display in your Gmail account are set to “Comfortable“, which displays emails in large print and wide sections. You can adjust how they are displayed by clicking the “Settings” tab in the top right corner and selecting either “Cozy“, which makes the font and spacing more slim or “Compact“, which makes them… well compact! The “Compact” setting seems to make your inbox look less full and more tidy.

2. Inbox Type

There are also some great ways to sort your inbox messages that can help you be more efficient with your time. Hover over the “Inbox” tab to see a small arrow. Click the arrow to open the window of display options for your inbox. Each tab will show you what it’s best used for so you can make an educated decision on which will be the best for your Gmail purposes. You can also change your inbox sorting preferences in the menu above the email messages by clicking on that inbox type.

3. Custom Search

Of course, Google is all about searches so in addition to being able to search their engine for information, you can also search within your Gmail account by entering information into the fields to narrow your search.

4. Create A Filter

You can create a filter from within the search box by clicking “More” and then “Create Filter.” Setup how you want emails delivered from this particular subject. Since I’m looking for a car, it’s a time sensitive email. I want the email to be “Starred”, labeled as “Personal”, and “Marked As Important” so I am sure to see when something I want has become available. This is a great way to make sure important emails don’t go unnoticed because they won’t blend in with all the rest of the inbox messages.

Settings

The Settings tab is where you’ll be able to really customize the way you use your Gmail. There’s more than I can cover in this one article so we’ll just touch on some of the key features that will be useful for most people. All of the following features can be found in the “Settings” tab.

5. Buttons

You’ll notice that the default setting for the new Gmail interface buttons are now icons. Most people don’t know what the buttons are simply by looking at an icon and would rather have the words on the buttons.

Changing your buttons to a text view is easy. Simply scroll down a little to see the settings for “Button Labels”. Here, you can change the default Icons setting back to” Text”. Scroll to the bottom of the settings list and “Save Changes”. Now your buttons will have the words for their function listed on them.

Your toolbar will now look like the one below, showing you exactly what each button does.

6. Stars

Gmail’s idea of making yellow stars and yellow Important icons make it difficult to tell them apart. You can customize and color code your stars in the “Settings” tab. Drag and drop any of the icons from the “Not In Use” row up to the “In Use” row to activate them.

To use them, click on the star next to the email you want to highlight and keep clicking until you find the color code you need for that item. The colors will come up in succession of how they are arranged “In Use”.

7. Labels

Gmail uses the “Label” system instead of the typical folder filing system most email services provide. Next to each “Label” is a customization tab where you can change the color of a Label to identify it at a glance. Simply click on the color you want to use for the Label.

In that same drop down menu, you can rename, remove the label or add a sublabel.

8. Circles

Another new feature in the Gmail interface incorporates your Google+ circles into your email settings. When you “Enable” “Circles”, and enable “Show In Message List” incoming messages will display a colorful tag when the sender is from one of your Google+ circles.

You can also manage and edit your Google+ circles from within your Gmail page by hovering over the Circles tab. Click on the arrow and then Edit Circles.

Gmail Design

9. Themes

If you read my articles, you know I’m a big fan of customizing everything. Tools and sites we use on a regular basis are more interesting and fresh when they can be changed according to mood, season, or need. Gmail “Themes” are a great place to insert some color and personality to your email dashboard and if you have more than one account, the themes can help you determine which account you’re in without having to look for the address. There are several solid color or picture backgrounds to choose from in the “Themes” tab under your “Settings” menu.

“Labs”

10. Change The Sidebars

The default dashboard has everything on the left side of the screen. I like things balanced and don’t use chat very much so I wanted to move that feature out of the way of my everyday actions. You can also do this by clicking on “Labs” in the “Settings” tab and enabling the “Right Side Chat” lab.

11. Undo Send

How many times have you hit the send button and then realized you forgot an attachment or didn’t reply all? Hopefully you never sent an email to the wrong person but if you ever did send something that you immediately want to take back, the” Undo Send Lab” can save the day. When you enable it, it allows you to undo a sent email within a few seconds of sending. After that, well, you’re just out of luck!

I think you’ll find some very useful and colorful ways to enjoy the new Gmail interface with these tips. What changes have you made to your dashboard? What features do you use most? Come back and share your thoughts, we’d love to interact with you!

11 Tips For Navigating The New Gmail Interface originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Add Social Shortcuts to Your Windows Desktop

Jessica Prouty — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:58:35 +0000

Social media is an essential part of every business marketing strategy and it’s growing in popularity everyday. Some of us use it to gain knowledge, share what we have found useful and interesting, or just for entertainment. Regardless of why you use social media, having it a click away can help you keep tabs on what’s going on in your social circles at a glance. The way Pokki is displayed simulates the look and feel of phone apps with cute icons, sharp color and easy accessibility. Here’s how you can make social shortcuts for your Windows PC.

Within Pokki are many different kinds of social shortcuts that can be added to your PC and freeing up your browser tabs for other things. Not all of them are productive and I would highly suggest that you only add the sites that will enhance productivity, not take away from it. The idea here is to have the sites you either need to keep tabs on as part of your job or you visit often right on your desktop so you can quickly add updates or check in on current news within the sites you frequent. If used properly, this option can be a great time saver or resource for connecting quickly to people within your circles of influence. Today I will focus on the most popular social media sites and show you how to use Pokki.

Explore Pokki

Navigate to the Pokki website and sign up for an account. Once you log in, you are free to explore the options available for social shortcuts. Choose from “social sites”, “useful utilities”, “”productivity” (including the popular Pomodoro Timer) and more.

When you hover over any of the site icon, it will give you detailed information about the shortcut and the features it offers. The screenshots will help you see how efficient they will be compared to logging into the sites directly.

Choose Your Sites

Tweeki

This shortcut is a great mini version of Twitter. Since the shortcut is right in your taskbar, it’s easy to take a quick look at what’s going on in your Twitter feed or to post a Tweet yourself. Click the Tweeki Download button on the Pokki page and follow the prompts to access you twitter profile.

The icon automatically loads onto your taskbar for easy access. To open it, click on the Twitter bird icon and log into your account.

Upon logging in, you will see that it looks like a mobile version of Twitter with all of the necessary features of the full size site. The first tab is the Trends tab where you can see what the most popular topics are.

The feed is the next section, which will likely be the one you will keep open on your desktop. You have the full feed visible and have a place at the bottom to add your own tweet or re-tweet something of interest right from the shortcut.

The mentions, direct message, and search features are all there as well. Everything you know and love about Twitter right on your desktop! This Twitter shortcut is best for the simplicity that other social media managers don’t offer and with a 100% user rating, I’d say many others agree!

Facebook

The Facebook shortcut gives you a very streamlined look at your news feed and notifications in an easy to see and use interface. The icon in the taskbar will display a number if you have notifications so you can take a quick peek and also catch up on any current happenings in the news feed.

To install it, go to the social Pokki page and click on the Facebook Download to install the shortcut. It will now appear in your taskbar along with any other shortcuts you downloaded. Click on the icon to open and log in and you’re ready to roll!

Gmail

If you have one or more Gmail accounts, you will find this shortcut extremely useful! You can now access all of your Gmail accounts with the click of a button right from your desktop! Never wonder if you have email messages waiting in your inbox again- any waiting messages will be displayed next to the icon,

To get started, go to the Gmail page in Pokki and download the shortcut. When you sign in, click on the arrow next to your account name. A drop down menu will give you the option to sign into more accounts and sign out of individual or all accounts. You can also switch between accounts by clicking on the name of the account you want to access.

YouTube

If your business or hobby revolves around YouTube video’s, you may like this shortcut for keeping tabs on your competitor’s content or for finding future ideas. Just like the other shortcuts, navigate to the Pokki YouTube page and download the YouTube shortcut. The play button for the YouTube shortcut will be placed directly on your taskbar upon download for easy access.

All the features you need are available in the shortcut version so you can search and watch video’s from each category or by entering keywords in the search bar. The only thing I would like to see added to this shortcut is the ability to log into your own YouTube account to create and view your content as well as track the analytics. Hopefully that’s a feature that will come in the future.

I love having these shortcuts on my desktop for easy and quick viewing. The one click access means I can get in and get out without interfering with my productivity. Let us know which shortcuts you downloaded and how they are working out for you!

How to Add Social Shortcuts to Your Windows Desktop originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Publish Your Site to Google Currents

Damien — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:30:52 +0000

Google Currents is the Google’s answer to the popular social magazine app – Flipboard. In short, it is a simple and elegant mobile app that you can use to read online publication on your iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Before today, Google Currents is only available for US citizens, but from now on, everyone can download the app and use it on your mobile devices. If you are a web publisher, this is a good news for you, as you have another means to increase the exposure of your brand.

How Google Currents work?

Instead of subscribing to RSS feeds like any other RSS feed reader, Google Currents allows you to subscribe to publication. Each publication is just like a magazine and can make up of blog posts, videos, images, Google Plus update or any other stuff that the publisher wishes to place in the publication. When you first start the app, you should be already subscribed to a few default publication, like Fast Company, Forbes and so on. You can tap on the “Add More” button and subscribe to publications from various categories.

Once you have subscribed to your favorite publications, you can set it to sync in the background at regular interval, so it will always be populated with the latest content. In addition, you can also get it to download the images and content and read it offline.

* Make Tech Easier is on Google Currents too!. Subscribe to our publication now.

How to create your own publication?

Let’s say you are a web publisher and you wish to get onto the Google Currents platform and enable readers to subscribe to your publication. The only problem is, how do you create a publication without any technical coding knowledge? Google Currents Producer is the answer. It is an online publishing service (provided by Google) that allows you to publish your own edition/publication without any coding knowledge. All you need to know is a few mouse clicks, and where to locate your site’s RSS feed URL.

1. Go to Google Currents Producer. You need to be on Google Chrome and sign in to your Google account. Once you are logged in, the first thing to appear is the Publisher Agreement. You will need to read through it (supposedly, but I don’t think you will, right?) and agree to it.

2. On the next screen, you will be prompted to enter the name of your edition and the RSS feed of your site. If you are running a video site on YouTube, you can add the channel name as well.

3. Once you click the “Create” button, it will start to pull articles from your site and compile them into a magazine format. At this stage, the barebone of your publication is ready and you can publish it anytime to make it live.

Configuration

At the main screen, there are plenty of options for you to customize the look and feel of your edition. The first part is the Edition Settings. This is where you can change the name, category, icon, splash image of your edition, and whether to collect email address from the reader and track its performance using Google Analytic.

The sections is the important feature of Google Currents as it allows you to add content to your publication. You can add feed(s), upload articles from Google Docs, pull photos from Flickr, Picasa or the web, YouTube channel, and even update on your Google Plus account. There are plenty of content you can add here to make your publication interesting, so be creative.

If you are proficient in CSS, you can go to “Sections -> Blogs -> Section Template” and edit the stylesheet of your publication look-and-feel.

The “Grant Access” section allows you to grant permission to others to manage your edition.

At any point of time, once you have made an update, you can click on the Android, Tablet, iPhone or iPad link to check how your publication looks like in each device. You can even rotate it to check the landscape view.

Lastly, after you have completed all the configurations and are happy with the result, go to the “Distribute -> Publish” section and click the “Publish” button.

That’s it. Your site publication is now live!

* Make Tech Easier is on Google Currents too! You can subscribe to our update by clicking on this link on your mobile device.

How to Publish Your Site to Google Currents originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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How to Use Facebook Groups and Lists To Market Your Business

Jessica Prouty — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:58:43 +0000

With all the changes to the Facebook Timeline Pages for business, most of the focus has been on how to setup your Timeline while staying within the guidelines. In a previous post 10 Useful Tips For Mastering Timelines For Pages, we walked through the features and setup of the Timeline. Now it’s time to start using the pages and features to your advantage. Let’s look at a work around for what the Facebook Timeline has removed and focus on how you can use Facebook Groups and Lists to ensure your business still connects with customers to regain the free marketing platform you are used to.

The Facebook Groups and Lists feature is often overlooked as a way of promoting content or communicating with your audience but with only 16% of status updates getting to your fans, it’s a great work around to ensure that everyone who should see your updates, does. Create focus groups where you can poll and chat with everyone at once or customize the type of content you distribute to reach a more targeted audience. If your business is support related, you can also create group pages as a forum for certain topics as reference for users. The possibilities are endless.

Create A Group In Timeline

If you have a regular Timeline Page, start by logging into your Facebook account and navigating to the Facebook Groups creation page and click “Create Group”. Create the type of group you want and add friends from your list to that group.

Pick a category icon and name the group. Next, select the privacy settings you want for the group. “Public” allows anyone to see the group information page, members of the group and the posts by the group members. The “Closed” option only allows members to see the posts but anyone can see the group page and the members of the group. The “Secret” option only allows members of the group to see any information about the page, group members and posts. When you have a security option selected, press “Create”.

Create A Group List In TimeLine Pages For Business

Click on the gear icon under your Timeline Cover to open a drop down menu. From the menu select the “Add To Interest Lists”. Click on New List and a window will pop up where you can select the people and pages to feature.

Name the Group List and select the security option you want to have for the page. The “Public” setting allows anyone to see your list and subscribe to it. The “Friends” option allows only friends to see your List and subscribe to it. The “Only Me” option wouldn’t be visible to anyone. It would only be seen by you.

The members in the List will be notified as a private message in their notifications when you make updates and posts in that group page. This means when they sign on to their Facebook page, your content will be waiting there for them, not lost in the feed of thousands of other updates and posts. This could be a very good marketing strategy for business if they take advantage of the feature and do a little leg work to get it going.

The Option To Choose

In addition to creating Groups and Lists for your business, users can take advantage of another neat feature in the new Timeline. The ability to go beyond the Like button is now possible. Users have more control over groups they belong to and what things they get subscribed to in their news feed. In the old Facebook Pages, the Like button would disappear after a fan joins your page. Now if a fan hovers over the Like button of your page, there’s an option to start an interest list to see special news feeds on related topics or create a new list customizing who is in the list and what pages the content comes from. Fans can also choose to subscribe to your lists (which will appear in the drop down menu) to have your general status updates displayed in their new feeds and unlike the page if it turns out to be something they no longer want to see updates for.

Get Discovered By Creating Specific Lists

Creating a topic specific list is an excellent way to get noticed by potential fans. By creating a list in a certain niche that’s relevant to your business or field, you will broaden your reach beyond the fans that already know about you. When a fan subscribes to one of your Lists, if it’s public or closed, it will be visible to all their friends. To do this, pick a category in the lists tab and then click on the people and pages you want that list to include.

Name your List and decide which security option you want for it. Click done and it will now be added to your drop down of Lists viewers can subscribe to.

Encourage Fans To Spread The Word

Once you have your Timeline setup the way you want and Lists created, it’s time to spread the word! Share it to your audience so that others are made aware of the lists and topics related to your product. Once they follow, their friends are notified and others may join them. The more people who subscribe, the more authority that list has when users search for lists to follow.

In conclusion, it seems that the Groups and Lists features could be a great marketing strategy. I’m going to try some out for myself and see how many others are using this approach. Did you know about this feature and are you going to use it for your business Timeline? Leave a comment and let us know!

How to Use Facebook Groups and Lists To Market Your Business originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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5 Great Websites to Find College Courses Online

Laura Tucker — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:58:39 +0000

Taking online courses certainly isn’t a new idea, but with changes to technology and the advent of mobile devices, it’s certainly making this a much more popular option. There is less and less of a reason to have to sit in a stuffy classroom or lecture hall listening to a boring lecture. Why not cover that same lecture on your own time, at your own pace, and in your own comfortable atmosphere?

I started looking into this option for my college-aged son. He’s in his first year of college, and that year didn’t go as expected for him. He fell behind with the course work as he began to realize his chosen major of engineering wasn’t as exciting to him as he originally thought it would be. With a new switch in major to science and with the intention of teaching it eventually, he needs to get caught up, and wants to take some classes locally while he’s home for the summer. I started exploring options for where he could find the courses online to increase his options.

1. Online Educational Database

This is a great place to start. You can look up specific degrees, and it will tell you where you can obtain these degrees online. However, it doesn’t offer options for finding individual coursework. It does have invaluable resources, however. These include resource materials, broadcast learning sources, and digitized textbooks, both in audio and text versions, that are offered for free. Anyone who has purchased college textbooks recently can tell you how much of a savings that could be. You obviously wouldn’t be able to find all your textbooks this way, but could save yourself some money. It’s worth the time to search.

2. StraighterLine

They don’t offer degrees, only savings. They stress that they aren’t a college, but there are online colleges who have partnered with them, and they have also partnered with the American Council on Education (ACE)’s College Credit Recommendation Service. If your target college is part of ACE or partnered with StraighterLine, the credits will transfer. They also stress that sometimes you can get a college not partnered with them to accept your classes for credit if you show them the website and ask. The prices are indeed the draw here. For a $99 monthly subscription service, you can take classes for as cheap as $39. Or, you can avoid the subscription and pay $399 instead.

3. Worldwide Learn

Worldwide Learn isn’t offering you anything other than finding the schools for you that will offer you the types of degrees you want online. This holds for whether you’re looking for an Associate’s degree or a PhD. Although I have to admit getting a PhD online just sounds like it wouldn’t hold much water to be very respected. Yet, it is available. The colleges they feature include DeVry University, University of Phoenix, and Ashland University.

4. Make Use Of

Free. Who can’t resist free? That’s the obvious upside to this one. The downside is a big one, though. The courses aren’t for credit. However, some of them are complete courses. If the credit doesn’t matter to you and you are just into learning, this is perfect. If you need a little extra help on top of the paying course you’re already taking, it could also be of benefit. Even MIT has made some of its coursework available in this list.

5. DistanceEducation.org

This one offers complete degrees. The price isn’t cheap, but it’s what many universities charge for just one year. They feature two hundred accredited colleges with degrees from Computers and Technology to Education to Legal and Criminal Justice. If you’re looking to get your entire degree without leaving home, this is a great place to start.

The point of all this is that it’s out there for the taking. College degrees don’t have to kill you (or your parents) financially. You don’t have to go that far from home, even if the local community college isn’t your cup of tea. There are no reasons left to not pursue a college degree. It can be as easy or as cheap as you want. And now I just need to convince my son of the same thing.

5 Great Websites to Find College Courses Online originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Here’s An Online App That Can Analyze Your Offline Life

Soumen Halder — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:58:41 +0000

In the days of social networking, there is no prize for guessing that we are actually missing out on our real social life. The one we share with real people everyday throughout life or whatever is left of it after Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes it is really necessary to be reminded of the offline life and the app we are going to feature here does just that. Not literally but finding areas of improvement. Social Life Audit (SLA) is an online service that based on some key observations interpret how you engage socially in real life.

The fact that we are almost nobody without a Facebook profile is yet again proved here. Why?? This very tool that offers to audit your offline life and does so by evaluating your Facebook activities. You need to have a Facebook account to use SLA. Your social rating depends on how circumstantially you share your real life on Facebook. The more the merrier. No wonder I failed miserably.

SLA is powered by the Face.com’s facial recognition API to analyze the photos related to you (uploaded, tagged or liked/commented). Once you are recognized, the game begins to roll in the more obvious direction. Your moods, the number of people you are with, the number of people from opposite sex you are seen with and even the mood of those people are considered as parameters. Based on the observations made, the algorithm estimates your score and comments on your social behavior.

The service serves a better purpose when it comes to evaluate location based services (or check-ins). Facebook check-ins are compared with the popular Black-book listings to find out whether you have been hanging out at the right place or hanging out at all. Well my result was even worse, my city was not even listed (and I was instructed to move to a city with improved social life, such a bummer, although it’s normal for any average town).

Apart from auditing your own social life, you can get a glimpse on your friends social engagement too. Search for a (Facebook) friend by typing in his name and you will get a comparative view of friends social rating matched to yours.

The observations made are not close enough (not because I failed) for those who uses Facebook as a promotion/marketing tool, or people who are strictly aware of the Facebook’s privacy concerns and refrain from sharing their real life in full detail. However for most of the Facebook generation, the results can be considered to be near perfect (for some I know personally, it does). The app seems to rely too much on Facebook. Images speak a thousand words, true, but if images were to be considered to evaluate somebody, there are other places/services where people love to share their life in pictures, such as Instagram or Flickr. It would be better if more location based social networks like Foursquare or interest based services like Path or Pinterest gets considered in the scoring system, as in current scenario people (and a notable smartphone population) tend to share their life here too. Overall, the app does a great job based on a unique idea but fails to seal the opportunity. So worry not if you fail here, better put your efforts on getting a life out of Facebook, that’s what the SLA is here to remind you.

Here’s An Online App That Can Analyze Your Offline Life originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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9 Great Photo Handling Tools For New And Occasional Photographers

Trevor Dobrygoski — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 14:58:50 +0000

Do you love images? There are a lot of photography junkies or wanna be photographers out there who will eagerly say yes. If you are just starting out in the world of digital imagery and are a little short on cash, here are some free applications and storage options that will help you get started.

Not all of the applications are super powerful. An increasing number of them have mobile applications available. With the cameras on most smart phones getting better with each new model, the photo manipulating applications are getting better and better all the time too.

Image manipulation

Aviary (Phoenix)

Aviary is an a really powerful web-based image editor. Considering it is web-based versus a downloaded application, Aviary offers a ton of features such as: layers, editing tools, different brushes and effects tools. What sets it apart is you are given all the tools you really need to modify or combine pictures with all the confusing tools removed.

Gimp

Photoshop is the go-to for almost every industry and the photography industry is no different. However, there is always free software available that will do the majority of what you need to do. We have talked about GIMP add-ons here on Make Tech Easier. GIMP offers a whole section of their site to add-on letting you touch up or add any effect you could want to your images called the GIMP Registry.

Picasa

Picasa is Google’s image editor. Like most things Google, Picasa integrates really well with other parts of Google like Android phones and Google+ or does well as a stand alone. While Picasa is not as robust as an application such as GIMP, you can touch up your images and even add some effects.

Cloud storage

Skydrive

Microsoft’s cloud storage option, Skydrive, gives you unlimited storage for pictures. That’s right, unlimited. There is a limited size file you can upload. If you have a file larger than 50 MB or more than a couple images to upload, you can use Windows Live Mesh to sync your image files and folders to your Skydrive.

Box.com

Box.com is a great service that offers up 50 GB of space for free (for Android users). You have great access from mobile devices so if take a cool picture from your Android or iOS device, you can upload it for later editing.

Dropbox

Dropbox has been working on some cool updates. They recently added automatic uploading for all of the videos and movies from your Android device. Another upgrade you get is, they raised the free storage from 2GB to 5GB when you download Dropbox for Android. Downloading the Dropbox desktop application lets you keep files in constant sync with the web. There is also a recovery option in case you mess up and overwrite an image.

Image effects

BeFunky

BeFunky is a pretty cool web application that lets you add simple effects as well as touching up your photos to make them look like a million bucks. If you are a mobile phone photographer, there are applications for Android and iOS devices.

Psykopaint

Psykopaint is an effects web application to make your digital images look like they are paintings or drawings. There are a bunch of different brushes to give you different effects. A nice feature about Psykopaint is you can use layers to separate different effects. That way you can go back and hide or enable a layer to see what looks best.

Pho.to

Pho.to has several different sections. The effect that caught my eye is the cartoon effects. What the cartoon effect lets you do is add a cartoony look to your images, but you can also add animate portraits. Being able to add animations to your images brings a whole new dimension to portraits.

Conclusion

Not everyone needs the most powerful tools available. Heck, most people I know are using their phone to take pictures, even the pictures for life’s most important moments. Several of the applications mentioned, especially the storage options, are general purpose and great to use whether or not you are serious about your photography.

What free or low cost applications do you use to edit your images?

intro image

9 Great Photo Handling Tools For New And Occasional Photographers originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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Schedule Your Emails to Send Later With RightInbox

Damien — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:00:45 +0000

Have you ever come across a situation where you need to send an email at a particular time but you are not available to compose/send that email at that time? If that is so, you will need a scheduling tool that can help you to send your email at a later time. RightInbox is an extension for Firefox and Chrome that plug into your Gmail and allows you to schedule email to send later.

If you remembered, there is another Gmail scheduling tool – Boomerang, that we covered sometime back. So what is the difference between these two services? Boomerang is now more matured and comes with the option to return your emails back to your inbox. RightInbox, being the new kid on the block, is simpler to use, more intuitive and is free (for now)! While there are little differences between the two (as of now), it is important to note that RightInbox is still in beta and any new feature they implement in the future could go in a direction dramatically different from Boomerang. At the moment, we just have to wait and see.

To get started, simply visit RightInbox and install the extension for your browser (Firefox or Chrome).

Next, login to your Gmail and you will be prompted to grant access to the RightInbox app.

Once you are done with that, you are ready to schedule your emails. To do that, just compose an email, set the subject and recipient’s detail, and click the “Send Later” button.

A popup dialog box will appear to allow you to choose the time to send your email. You can also add a specified timing (and timezone) to send the email.

Once scheduled, your email will be placed in the Draft folder and remain there until it is sent. An additional line of “Scheduled to be sent as xx:xx” will be appended to the subject line of the scheduled emails. This allows you to check your Draft folder and see which emails are scheduled and the time they are supposed to go out. Not to worry, when the email is being sent, the appended line will be removed from the subject line.

Conclusion

The features of RightInbox is pretty limited at the moment, but for scheduling emails, it works good and well. According to Daniel, the developer of RightInbox, the service is still in beta and more features like response tracking, improvements for sending large files, finding bulky attachments, email marketing will be added to the service in the future. Until that happen, you can enjoy the free email scheduling service and help RightInbox test its product.

RightInbox.com

Schedule Your Emails to Send Later With RightInbox originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)
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