Posts by Sariscos

Hey Everyone!

It's been years since I posted. I wanted to write about this and I thought DaniWeb would be a great place to do so. The topic at hand came about while reading throughout the years my newsfeed about online advertisers knowing too much about us. I would see the occassional legal disclaimer saying that Facebook has no right to any content the user produced. Sometimes you see people abandoning or closing their accounts (only to come back shortly thereafter. Regardless, there's this feeling of insecurity promulgating and I really wanted to debunk these fears that people are stressing over. Here's a couple of fears I want to address:

Fear #1: "Advertisers have access to my photos, what I tell my friends, they know everything about me."

In today's marketplace, advertisers have to compete for the best possible demographics from their audiences. Before the internet, there were surveys taken in a number of ways. One way is that advertisers would use demographic data and compare it to sales data for particular geographic areas. Using that data, they can determine the best possible locations to solicit their products and/or setup a store to access that market. Another way would be calling people on the phone or approaching them in public. However, the data they were collecting wasn't as concise as they liked it.

In marketing, the more concise your demographic data is, the more money you command in that data. It becomes worth more money. Knowing someone's basic data like …

I was rather excited when the iTwin came across my desk. It came in a very small package, but you know what they say, “good things come in small packages.” To my delight, this device happened to be a very good thing. I found this device to be perfect for the business professional on-the-go. It looks like two USB flash drives connected to each other. Doesn’t matter what side you plug in, you just plug in and it installs automatically, like a plug and play device (make sure both sides are connected). Once it’s installed, it acts like a private connection between the host computer and the client computer. For those of you familiar with Dropbox, it works similarly. You have a shared folder that you can download files from. An advanced feature over Dropbox is that it will automatically transfer the file to the computer you’re intending it to send to. You simply just copy a file into the “remote” or “local” computer.

Depending on which computer you started with will determine which one is the “local” computer. I found it not to really matter, since I’ve used this on several devices. You simply just have to install it on the new device with both pieces so that it can identify where the local computer is. Even then, there is no master/slave relationship going on. Each end acts alike and with no advantage over the other, they’re just labelled differently. I found the …

Alas, it’s okay to be power hungry. That is to say, if the power goes out, or even flashes, you’ll have an uninterrupted stream of juice flowing to your electronic device. Eaton, the manufacturer who sent us one of their new products, the 3S750 (450W) Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS), is always looking to raise the bar on excellence. The 3S series can be used as a home or a small business solution. The other models are the 3S350 (200W), and 3S550 (330W). Eaton is a brand name that represents quality. The last review we did on one of their products, the 5PX UPS , received an excellent rating. I promise you, this model takes no shortcuts.

The Outlook

My first impression was that this UPS seemed like your run-of-the-mill home UPS. The device has a glossy black finish on the top panel with bright white letters and symbols. Underneath the top panel sits a black non-reflective case. The power button, which about the size of the tip of my thumb, is a solid green light. When in backup mode, the button flashes green.

Energy Efficiency

This model was designed for energy efficiency. The proprietary EcoControl Function automatically powers down the EcoControl outlets when the load connected to the master outlet is turned off. This feature can be enabled with the Personal Solution-Pac software. I find this useful because you would put your PC into the master and have peripheral …

SRS has released an attachment for Apple’s iPod, iPad, and iPhone devices. As a musician, I really have a deep understanding of how tonal range works on audio devices. I was very pleased to hear that I would get to do a review of this, although I have to admit I’m pretty skeptical when it comes to audio attachments that claim to improve sound quality. I’ll get into detail about my experiences shortly, but first let’s look at exactly what the SRS iWow 3D actually is.

What the iWow 3D is, is an audio enhancement device that connects through the 30-pin Apple connection. The other end of the device connects to a female port which allows stereo cables to be plugged into. You can purchase it in three different packages: iWOW-3DHF (iWow 3D, faceplates, in-ear ear buds), iWOW-3DF (iWow 3D & faceplates), or just the iWOW-3D. This device utilizes patented technology which enables the user to create a more amplified, clearer sound to the audio peripheral used. SRS claims that there’s a widening of the sound, which seemed vague to me at first, but after using it, I understood that it wasn’t a surround feature, but a tonal feature.

In my experience with using this device to connect to speakers, I found that although the bass was deeper and the treble was clearer, the overall sound quality is almost entirely dependent on the quality of speakers you have. The frequency range of …

The use of torrents is not legal.

Torrents are 100% legal. As long as the information is not copyrighted, you can do whatever you want. Why is it illegal if I were to seed a word document I wrote?

Google plus seems more to me like a glorified Twitter than anything close to Facebook. It looks a lot like Facebook, but many of the great features on Facebook are not on Google. I don't even think we can even make a comparison.

We're asking the community to write quality content and in return, those who do well we be rewarded. Contest details will be announced soon.

We've all heard that networking is a powerful tool to drive business. We've also learned that e-mail marketing can be effective if it's done right. Combining both creates a formula for success. It's imperative to always stay on top of people with as many angles as you can possibly get. Customer service is always key. However, in order to get those customers, you must stay on top of them and make them a priority so that you can give them excellent customer service. Here's a great technique on how to generate new business.

First, we begin with networking. It's absolutely the most important thing you can do at first. Cold e-mails and calls are not as effective as meeting people in person. When someone can attribute a face to a name, they're more likely to respond to you. This is especially the case if you had a great conversation with a lot of laughter and smiles. Those conversations that are enjoyable usually reverberate back into a positive memory of you. When you go out to events, it's very important to meet as many people as you can and try to engage them where you spark their interest with what you have to offer. Networking is not about pitching anyone. It's a horrible idea to try to pitch to people when networking.

Instead, you should consider networking as simply an introduction. You tell them who you are, what your company does and what you do there. Simply leave it …

There's no way to get it off the internet. The only way you could retrieve a windows key off your computer is if you go into your computer properties or flip the the laptop upside down and there should be a windows key there for you. I'm not sure if that will be the version of windows you're looking for.

I was going to start a rumor, but apparently since you all know I'm a team member, that just ruins the fun. So like our good friends at Apple do, I'm starting a controlled leak. Here's the details:

DaniWeb Contest

We're going to run a month long contest.

There's going to be a many winners.

More details to follow.

Netvani, hasn't anyone ever told you to look at Wikipedia for assignments? You don't necessarily source it, but it's usually a good place to get an overall idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising

As far as your last post, you don't advertise because people are getting smarter. You advertise for several reason:

1) Brand Exposure: You want your brand name out there. It doesn't matter if anyone purchases your product or service. It just matters that they recognize your name. For example, if you watched the Super Bowl in the United States, you'll see a bunch of commercials for several products. One of them was GoDaddy.com. No one knew about GoDaddy before that ad. Now, when people think about making a website, the place they go to first is GoDaddy. That's just brand exposure. GoDaddy is now synonymous with making websites.

2) Solicit sales. In order to have a business, you must generate sales. Advertising on the internet is extremely powerful because you specifically target groups of people based on certain behaviors, demographics, geographics, etc... Traditional advertising was never able to get as specific as you could with the internet.

3) Cost. The cost associated to advertising on the internet is much cheaper than if you were to do it with traditional means. That is to say if you only have a $100 to work with in your budget, you can still advertise on the web. Also, there are many different types of ads you can run on …

UPDATE: Facebook video chat works really well!

Market Segmentation strategy is a lot easier on the web than most would consider. In the past, advertisers would have to bid on traditional media space in order to market to specific markets. If you were selling Count Chocula, you would have to be in children's magazines or advertise during children's programming time slots. If you're selling pharmaceutical drugs, you'll have to wait for adult programming. It's not as effective in the traditional market space because you might be trying to sell a toy geared more towards a boy and maybe half the viewers are automatically disqualified because they're girls. Even though you're paying for 1 million views, only 500K are qualified for your product. That's a tremendous reduction for what you were looking to do.

On the web, it's much easier to segment, especially if you're a webmaster. If you have a website that you're required to sign in with an account, you can gather details about your users and segment based on age, gender, location, interests, etc... It's very valuable to segment out your viewership because you can charge higher rates to advertise. Essentially the more you can segment, the higher you can charge. In theory, if you really wanted to reach one person to advertise to you, you can charge them a fortune because that's some uber-specific criteria that only you're privy to generating.

Dzen,
The call feature is going to be powered by Skype. It will be Skype to Skype connections, which are fully encrypted. I don't even think the NSA or CIA could tap into it.

Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg announced today that there are going to be a few changes to Facebook. The big story is that Facebook has teamed up with Skype to deliver video chat so that you can talk to your friends through Facebook. This is no surprise considering the partnerships Facebook has forged within the past 5 years. If you recall, Microsoft bought a small stake in Facebook for $240 million in 2007. This past May, Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion. You would imagine that Microsoft would utilize one of their largest assets to help power one of their best investments.

Interestingly enough, these past few weeks have become a Social Media showdown. First, the announcement of MySpace being purchased for $35 million (possibly less) by Specific Media and Golden Gate Capital, which was an expensive loss for News Corp. After Justin Timberlake successfully brought “Sexy Back,” he’s going to try to bring MySpace back utilizing the power of the music section. MySpace was originally purchased by News Corp. for $580 million. News Corp was hoping to take a $480 billion loss, but unfortunately, that too is a steep price to pay for a dying social media champion.

We then had the private launch of Google+, which everyone, wants to get their hands on. Google+ looks almost exactly the same as Facebook. From a distance, I can’t tell the difference. It has that feel that we’ve all come to know and love. The big deal about Google+ is that you …

If you've taken a marketing class, you were definitely taught about the "4 P's" (Product, Place, Promotion and Price). I could sit here and talk about that, but I'd rather get a little more specific and talk about how it pertains to internet marketing.

Product:

What are you selling? What are you offering? What makes you unique compared to your competitors? These are all very valuable questions to ask yourself before moving forward with an advertising campaign. Perhaps you have many products that you offer. You must decide which product will be most effective to advertise. After all, you're going to be spending money on a campaign, so it would be valuable to show off your best product or promote a new, highly anticipated one.

Marketing is much different online than it is conventionally (TV spots, radio, magazines, etc...). You have to remember that it's a lot easier to avoid an advertisement online than it is when you're viewing other vehicles. It's imperative to have your best foot is forward to attract the visitors to your advertisement. You really have about 2 seconds to attract their interest, or they're going to view the content they're searching for. You must use this time wisely and present your product in such a way that it is attractive.

I've seen really great products being advertised poorly. The creative is really important to get right. It should definitely blend in with the site and at the same time make the …

Perhaps you should just delete the entire http://www.daniweb.com/internet-marketing/25 tree, which seems to consist mostly of low quality link spam to dubious MLM marketers and other related scams.

I'm working very hard on this section; trying to improve it.

I thought that the PS3 controller would prove to be beneficial. Most techies can identify with it.

When was the last time you backed up your computer? More importantly, have you ever backed up your website? While malware and viruses are still around, many people know what to do when their computers are having problems. There are endless products for scanning your computer system and deleting those problem issues. But the vast majority of website owners rarely, if ever, back up their sites. It is generally too hard or involves too many steps to be done quickly.

Website owners may have an old copy of the original site and a copy of some of the pages they recently changed, but few are organized enough to have a complete current copy of their existing sites. There have been services that offer this in the past, and some hosting services offer it as an add-on, but the cost has been prohibitive in most cases.

Well now there is a company that offers this service and the costs are minimal if not free.

CodeGuard not only backs up your site, it monitors it on a set time frame and alerts you to any changes that have been made. If you have not changed the content on your site but there is an alert that there were changes, you know you have been hacked.

"When disaster strikes, use CodeGuard to easily roll back the changes," the site explains. "CodeGuard checks your site hourly, daily or weekly... you choose. If we notice that anything has changed, …

Everyone and their mother is ranting and raving about Google+. I have a Facebook newsfeed of people begging to get on this new social network. Friends and colleagues of mine tried inviting me to no avail. Unfortunately the window to get on lasted less than a day. Now the system to get people on is completely shut down.

In my opinion, this was a terrible move by Google. Yes, you are getting a buzz and everyone wants to flock to your system. However, if you're setting up a social network and want people to use it, don't you think you should allow these invited people to get their friends on? I mean after all, how many contacts could you possibly have out of the limited number of profiles that's allowed to exist on the site?

I understand that they want to test a small segment. However, isn't the point of testing a website, especially a social media website to see how it will perform? I'm pretty sure heavy traffic is a great way to test new system. Nonetheless, if you want people to adopt something, especially early, you should make it available to a lot of people. Generally, the people receiving these invites are probably related to the industry the inviter is in. You would want to get a full spectrum of input, not just from a few select people.

In conclusion, I believe this is hurting Google's effort to get this out. People might be buzzing …

Specs

The two print cartridges use a dye based ink where the black cartridge’s resolution is up to 600 x 600 dpi whereas the color cartridge renders 4800 x 1200 dpi. The printer is capable of borderless printing, up to 4 x 6 inches. There are three ways to connect to this printer: USB 2.0 connection, Pictbridge connection and Bluetooth. The duty cycle lasts about 500 pages before you’ll have to replace the ink. Using HP’s standard printer language (HP PCL3 GUI), this printer is capable of 8 built-in fonts and typefaces, which are scalable.

The media types that are supported are paper (plain, inkjet, photo), envelopes, brochure paper, transparencies, labels, and cards (index & greeting). The sizes of the media are: letter, legal, statement, executive, envelopes (No. 10 & Monarch), cards (3 x 5 in, 4 x 6 in, & 5 x 8 in), and photo (5 x 7 in & 4 x 6 in). You can create your own custom media size, but it has to be between 3 x 4 in and 8.5 x 14 in. For those of you interested in duplex functionality, this model has that paper handling option.

According to the press release of this printer, it can hold up to 90 lbs. in cards. I really highly doubt you’ll need to support more than 2 lbs. of paper in this printer. However, if you’re using some of the heaviest compounds in the universe, …

I'm really surprised they're allowed to take information out of the building without having it checked in/out.

I doubt this will work, but maybe an update to SP3 might fix things. If it was a degenerative problem it's likely to be a software issue.

Shell Assembly & Builders

C#nstruction

Construction .NETwork

Welcome Kerry!

It's a pleasure having you look at the back of my head all day!

[ATTACH]21438[/ATTACH]
:)

LMAO - Classic. Jean Luc Piccard. Yes!

To boldly go where no man has gone before.

Hi OldWarriorGirl,

I know exactly how you feel. I'm on my third XBox 360.

First, I want you to consider where the placement of this XBox 360 is. Is it on a floor? Is the floor carpet? Dust causes havoc with the XBox. That's why my 1st one failed... lots of dust.

Secondly, what's up with the discs? Are they new? Are they scratched? I know kids, kids like to leave discs laying around. Perhaps there's some stuff on it. Usually when it can't read a disc, it's 1 of 2 things.

A) The disc is damaged
B) The laser that reads the disc is damaged
C) The XBox doesn't read the disc with the laser that reads games, but rather the DVD laser which then prompts "Please insert an XBox 360 game" (In 10 different languages)

Sometimes just taking the dust cleaner for the keyboard solves a lot of issues. Something must be getting into that XBox.

Nonetheless, the refurbs that they send you aren't so great. It's a gamble. Maybe they fixed something else that was broken, but did not see the other errors because it may have worked at the time.

I hope this helped you out.

Hi Jingda,

I guess he got mad and bought a different drive. Hopefully he upgraded to Blu-Ray. DVD is so 2006.

Assuming that you're downloading legal, copyright free content, here's a few tips to get faster downloads:

1) Upgrade your connection. Yes, it's the most obvious.
2) Find more Seeders. Files with more seeders are more likely to have higher download speeds because there's more people to grab little bits of data off of.
3) Avoid Leechers. Just cause you're seeding doesn't mean you need 4 or 5 people downloading stuff off of you. You should monitor your connections and make sure that you set it to a low #. Don't set it to 0 because you're not helping the cause. I set mine to 2 normally.
4) Find More Torrent Links. Yes, you can add to your list of torrent links that's spying for you. You should add as many as possible seeing that many of them get shutdown daily. Keeping it up to date will find you more seeders.

That's all I got for now. Let me know if that helps. Happy seeding!

Hi Martin,

How often are you updating your site?

If you continue with the same content you have for a while, Google will signify that as less relevant and will return more relevant searches for their end users. If you constantly update your content, as well as providing new content, I assure you, you will get more traffic. The key is to keep updating, avoid duplicate content, and always add new content.

As far as link building is concerned, I think Google has a really tight grip on the controls of that. I wouldn't worry too much about it for SEO purposes. As long as what you have is desirable, your link will find it's way on many pages. Hope this helps.

Cheers!

Try downloading the drivers for it from the manufacturer's website. That's really strange. It should be detected automatically. Perhaps the drive is malfunctioning or broken.

Compare your upload and download speeds at speedtest.net with Internet Explorer and Firefox. I highly doubt that your connection speed is slower. Perhaps your computer is being heavily taxed by Firefox (maybe installed improperly).

I don't know if Outlook 6 supports that.

Try changing the file extension in the picture you're using. Perhaps it's not being detected. .gif, .jpeg should work fine.

I would contact several ad networks for your request. They may be able to fill your site with appropriate ads as opposed to the generic ones you're getting. Google Ad Sense should be really good with that. I'm surprised you're having problems with them.

Facebook is actually a really powerful marketing tool. If you can tap into the viral aspect of Facebook, you'll see great results. Targeting keywords in Facebook is very beneficial because the right people will be exposed to your advertisement. Don't expect high click through ratios. Facebook is more of a branding tool. You're better off marketing on tech sites where people are seeking solutions. If you just want brand exposure, Facebook is the perfect place to do it.

I thought Packard Bell went out of business. Then I read this post and went to their site. I guess they're everywhere but the United States.

Hi Robin,

It really depends on the amount of traffic you're getting. You'll probably be stuck with an ad network if you're not generating hundreds of thousands of hits. If your site grows large enough, you could get in touch with an ad agency and they'll give you decent sums of money for targeting programmers in those fields.

For webmasters out there, most find that dealing with an ad network is the best/easiest way to go. In many cases it is. You just slap some code on your site and then you get a check in the mail. Most of the sales stuff was already done for you, so you just ride the wave of money. However, your wave of money could be a lot larger. Here's why:

Let's say a brand name wants to advertise like Coca-Cola. So Coke is going to go to an ad network and they're going to say "hey, here's a lot of money, bring about brand exposure for us." (If it were to be a site representation firm, the firm would go to Coke and sell you) So now these middlemen come to you and say "we have a client lined up for you, we're going to pay you such and such to advertise it." You say, "great fantastic, let's get started."

So you're about halfway through your campaign and you notice that the Click-Through-Rate (CTR) isn't doing so well. To make matters worse, Coke gets some figures on the campaign and they don't like what they see. They want to cut their losses and get the remainder of their money back. So now these middlemen come to you and say "our advertiser has cancelled the remainder of the campaign, sorry."

Now, you're sitting out of lot's of money that you could've had if you went with a different …

Hi John,

I really appreciate your input. Don't worry, I'll have more articles/tutorials talking about advertising on the web.

Thanks for you input cocolio. I actually bought myself a HP dv7 before I even reviewed this laptop.

Internet marketing can be one of the toughest ways to advertise to consumers. With changing trends and technology, it's hard for even a seasoned internet marketer to produce excellence. Many ad campaigns on the internet today are ineffective and produce low quality results. Below are tips I believe are valuable to run a successful campaign:

Addressing the Overall Goal of the Campaign
Ever go to a website and see an ad completely irrelevant to the website? For example: Let's say your looking at a cooking website for a recipe and there's an ad for window treatments. Since you're only looking for a recipe and not really considering remodelling your house, where's the relevance? That particular campaign may result in a very low click-through ratio.

Even though you may have achieved the overall impressions you're trying to attain, the click-through ratio may be as equally as important depending on the type of campaign you're running. If you're not a household name, you may just want to advertise to bring about brand awareness, but more importantly, have people look at what your product is all about. If you're a big company like Pepsi Co., most people know what you do, what your main product is, so just brand awareness campaigns for a new product might suffice enough.

I'm not interested in large companies because they're already successful. I'm more concerned with smaller businesses who want to effectively market their products. What you want to do is specifically …

How could someone demote page rankings of a site they do not own. Also, why would anyone ever want to demote their own site? Very interesting topic by the way.

As you may know, DaniWeb was affected by Google's Panda (of doom). Fortunately, thanks to you guys we're still running and looking to grow! Hopefully more sites won't get pandalized by these culprits.

PS: This is the first panda I do not think is cuddly.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your feedback. I'm really glad you enjoyed it. I did post one of our in house pictures. The flexibility picture is our picture (not the girl, but the laptop). Next time I'll put more of our original pictures in the article. Again, thanks so much for your feedback, it's greatly appreciated!

Coors Light if I'm cheap. Stella Artois if I'm spending more money. If I really want to spend money, I'll buy those fruity drinks with the umbrellas in them.

IE 9 is a great browser. Microsoft really made some headway. I'm surprised no one is using Netscape (joke).

Hi Garwil,

Knowledge is power, especially in the realm of programming. You came to the right place to share your ideas and contribute feedback. We welcome you with open arms to our loving community!

Welcome to DaniWeb. Please feel free to make use of the site as much as possible and ask any questions in the appropriate forum thread. Happy posting!

Agni, I agree with concerns. It is obvious that Google has become king of our information. It could just take one really savvy hacker group to compromise the data of millions, if not billions. Once they get our financial information, hackers will be more enticed to breach Google for financial gain. I wouldn't worry too much about it though. Everything is shifting in this direction. Thanks for your comment.