My New Favorite Screen Share App

There are many instances where you want to either share your screen with a prospective client or you want them to share their screen. One of the most popular apps for this is Join.me, but unfortunately it doesn’t work on Linux, which is the operating system I prefer.

I went searching for something I could use with Linux and I came across Quick Screen Share from the makers of Screencast-o-Matic! I tested it out with my Mom to see if it was easy enough for even non-tech savvy people to figure out and since she runs Windows Vista, I was able to see how well it worked across multiple operating systems.

It was very easy to set-up and it ran just fine if you have Java up to date. If you have issues with Java on your computer, then it might not work, otherwise you’re golden.

Have you used Quick Screen Share before? Let me know what you thought!

Watch Out Twitter, Here Comes Google+

The battle for social media supremacy is about to get interesting with Google+ entering the arena. Facebook really doesn’t have much to worry about , but Twitter could be replaced by Google+. Ryan Single gives a first look at Google+ here and Peter Yared from VentureBeat explains how Google+ could make Twitter the next Myspace:

“There are numerous comparisons between Google’s new Google+ social offering and Facebook, but most of them miss the mark. Google knows the social train has left the station and there is a very slim chance of catching up with Facebook’s 750 million active users. However, Twitter’s position as a broadcast platform for 21 million active publishers is a much more achievable goal for Google to reach…

… So, how can Google go after the 21 million people who are actively publishing on Twitter, and, more importantly, the few thousands that own the majority of Twitter followers? These types of posters are generally publishers, and Google’s core competence is serving publishers. Publishers pay a lot of attention to Google, from search engine optimization to increase the ranking on Google searches, search engine marketing keyword ads to drive traffic, and on-site advertising solutions ranging from AdSense to DoubleClick.

Publishers are interested in increasing their search rankings and improving their reach. Posting content to Google+1 increases search rankings. The black toolbar across the top of all Google services (other than YouTube), which integrates both Google+ and Google+ notifications, definitely provides reach and is now in front of as many user minutes as Facebook commands. Users commenting or liking on items from publishers will show up in their friends’ toolbars. Even if they only have a few friends, the overall traffic bump will be significant. The Google+ bar has not yet been activated on YouTube, a key publisher and celebrity channel, and likely will broadcast YouTube likes, comments and shares.

While Facebook is not sweating about Google+, the threat to Twitter is significant. Google has the opportunity to displace Twitter if it gets publishers and celebrities to encourage Google+ follows on their websites as well as pushing posts to the legions of Google users while they are in Search, Gmail and YouTube. Google was turned down when it tried to buy Twitter for $10 billion, and now it is going to try to replicate it. With Google+, the company actually has a shot.”

Is Your WordPress Website Secure?

If you have a WordPress blog, you should take precautions to ensure that yours is as secure as possible against hackers. If a hacker gets into your blog, he can potentially redirect your hits elsewhere or mess with the code.

So what steps should you take? First of all, there are some simple things you can do. Always upgrade to the latest version of WordPress, as this usually fixes vulnerabilities that hackers are exploiting. Next, be sure you are changing your password periodically. And don’t forget to back up your blogs and try installing an IDS (Intrusion Detection System). You might try the WordPress Database Backup or another backup plug-in to help make sure you have your data backed up in case a hacker messes with it.

There are other plug-ins you can download to improve your security. One of them will change your username from the default “admin” to one of your choice. It’s called Change Admin Username, and the reason it’s helpful is because the hacker knows that every WordPress user has the username “admin” by default, so he can focus on cracking the password. If you change your username, then that’s one extra hurdle for them. Luckily, it’s a free and easy-to-use little plug-in.

Another helpful plug-in allows you to keep track of all the login attempts for your blog and the IP addresses of each one. This is called the Login Logger, and it helps because it lets you know sooner rather than later whether someone besides you is trying to login to your blog. At the very least, you’ll know you should change your password.

It would also help to have the WordPress Security Scan plug-in, because it works like an anti-virus scanner to make sure that you’re secure. It looks for security vulnerabilities and malicious code, and will suggest the right actions to take to fix them. This is another layer of protection to prevent future damage if a hacker hacked into your blog or will try to in the future.

While each one of these plug-ins and methods is a viable way of improving your WordPress blog’s security by themselves, using all of them in tandem is the most effective way to minimize vulnerability to a hacker. This is definitely not an exhaustive list of plug-ins that can protect you, but it is an excellent place to start. Happy blogging!

How To Achieve The Highest Rates Of Email Deliverability

We all know that building an email list of customers and prospects is crucial for building a business offline and online. Here is some great advice to ensure that your email messages reach the inbox of your subscribers. If because afterall, if your messages aren’t getting through then what’s the point of building a list?

Sam Weber from Genius.com writes:

“Deliverability is a measure of the percentage of your email communications that are delivered to a recipients’ inbox. As a Marketer, a high rate of deliverability amplifies your marketing efforts and ensures that people interested in hearing from you receive your emails.

While 100% deliverability is the goal, it’s challenging to achieve and requires a multi-faceted approach.

List quality
List quality and list management is a significant topic in its own right that deserves high priority in your email marketing efforts. It’s important to understand that email addresses ‘churn’ at a rate of 30-40% per year as users move ISP’s, change employers, or change email addresses in an attempt to avoid spam. Equally important is being aware that some users will sign up for a newsletter or other collateral using an old or bogus email address or will request to opt themselves out after a period of time. Also, email addresses can be accidentally mistyped (e.g. name@yhoo.com)

Unmanaged lists or previously un-contacted recipients pose a high risk of bounces and complaints.

As a sender (and to comply with anti-spam laws), it’s important that you actively manage your contact lists. Well-managed lists will result in fewer bounces, fewer complaints and increased delivery to the…”

Continue Reading @ Genius.com!

Choosing the right autoresponder service is also important when it comes to receiving a high rate of deliverability. Which is why I recommend you use this one.

Google, Bing and Yahoo Join Forces With Schema.org

Now that Google, Bing and Yahoo have joined forces to create a common vocabulary for structured data markup it’s time to learn exactly what all that means. Trust me, this was a little over my head as well, but after I read the “getting started” section on Schema.org it all started to make sense.

“Most webmasters are familiar with HTML tags on their pages. Usually, HTML tags tell the browser how to display the information included in the tag. For example, <h1>Avatar</h1> tells the browser to display the text string “Avatar” in a heading 1 format. However, the HTML tag doesn’t give any information about what that text string means—”Avatar” could refer to the a hugely successful 3D movie, or it could refer to a type of profile picture—and this can make it more difficult for search engines to intelligently display relevant content to a user.

“Schema.org provides a collection of shared vocabularies webmasters can use to mark up their pages in ways that can be understood by the major search engines: Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!

“You use the schema.org vocabulary, along with the microdata format, to add information to your HTML content. While the long term goal is to support a wider range of formats, the initial focus is on Microdata. This guide will help get you up to speed with microdata and schema.org, so that you can start adding markup to your web pages…”

Continue @ Schema.org