Design a Website That Saves You Time and Money

Sabtu, 31 Juli 2010

The Internet has been popular for long enough that many people have forgotten one of the key reasons for having a website: saving time and money by helping customers help themselves.

If you can remember the business environment before the late 1990s, you may recall that customer service was a much more “hands-on” affair, and it usually involved a phone call or an in-store visit to get information. Before the Web became ubiquitous, servicing the customer involved the time of a trained employee, and it didn’t always result in a positive return on investment. Solving customer issues was based more on verbal than visual cues, and customer satisfaction could be mixed as a result.

On the sales side, it was necessary to send out salespeople for face-to-face contacts. Plus, businesses kept the local printer busy generating trifold brochures and folders, which often contained product descriptions that had to be reprinted when critical specs changed or were inadvertently left out. In the days before the PDF, printing up a batch of sales sheets could run you hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on the size of your audience. Invariably, you’d end up tossing out reams of unused glossy paper when the product was discontinued or upgraded.

For most businesses, websites have offered solutions to those problems. In the same way that advances in software have made accounting a lot easier, a good website design can help your business save time and money when it comes to personnel and marketing. Let’s look at some examples:

    * If your customer service people are answering the same questions over and over, you can update the FAQs section on your website with the relevant information or make sure that it’s prominent in another section on your site.
    * If people are frequently asking for more information about a specific product, you can showcase that product on your website and then train your salespeople to guide callers to that page. This creates a real-time conversation with in-depth information, and it increases the potential for a closed sale.
    * While it still pays to follow up a valuable sales inquiry with a snail-mail reply, you can often save the cost of shipping bulky sales collateral by including the same information sheets on your website—along with videos and other promotional materials that can be viewed by window shoppers and warm leads alike.

For years, institutions like banks have been training their customers to use automated features like online banking in lieu of calling customer service or using a teller. Although most small business website owners don’t have the complex infrastructure that a bank website requires, they can still benefit greatly by enhancing their sites to address specific customer questions. Better yet, you can head off issues at the pass by showing pricing or related information up-front. If you’ve ever had a long sales conversation in which the client had an issue with the price or service level, you probably understand the value of placing such important information on your site.

If you’re continually being asked for an item you don’t (or can’t) sell or if people want a related service outside your capability, you may want to let people know that you don’t offer it. For example: If your business provides commercial pest control but not residential service, your website would be a good place to point that out. As an added service, you could partner with another company to make sure that a site visitor can be sent to the right destination for residential requests. And if you have enough site traffic, you can even sell ad space to a company that can take care of those visitors.

Using your website to streamline your small business operations offers you a lot of advantages as your business expands. For instance, you can increase your revenue without having to add to your headcount. You can also improve employee satisfaction because self-service customers (or nonconverting callers) will free up your staff to concentrate on more profitable work. By adding interactive features to your site, customers can do things like place orders, make appointments, or schedule reservations online 24 hours a day—which helps to cut down on the dreaded “Monday” call crush that most brick-and-mortar companies tend to experience.

Revisiting your site content—or creating a brand-new website—can take a lot of pressure off overburdened employees without adding to the cost of personnel, especially in an era in which people are more likely to look to the Internet before picking up the phone.

The Ten Commandments of Blogging

By this point, you should know just how important it is to blog. It’s a great way to get content out there for search engines, and it’s a great way to get people interested in your website. You have a voice that’s worth listening to—especially if you know something about your industry. People love reading new information about the things they’re interested in.

Mandy Boyle’s recent article on 10 Tips for Beginner Bloggers helped to get you started. Now that you know what to do, you can start thinking about the things you should avoid doing. Because, after all, it’s one thing to get people to start reading your blog. It’s a completely different thing to get them to stay. Human beings are fickle (I’m allowed to say that because I’m a fickle human being), and they won’t stick around for something that isn’t interesting.

So . . . let’s take a look at 10 things you should avoid doing:

   1. Thou shalt not bash thy competition. That sounds simple enough, right? People aren’t going to your blog to hear you talk about how bad the other guy is. They’re going there for great information about the products or services offered by your business. Your blog gets ugly when you start mudslinging. It reminds me of ads around election time, when we’re inundated with ads that pit one candidate against the other. Nobody comes out looking good. Stay positive and stay informative. Trust that the public is smart enough to decide for themselves.
   2. Thou shalt not be full of thyself. People aren’t going to your blog to hear you tell them how awesome you are. One of the cardinal rules of writing (not just blogging) is this: Show me; don’t tell me. Prove your awesomeness through knowledge of your industry. Make yourself a resource of valuable information. Show your readers things they might not have seen otherwise.
   3. Thou shalt not be redundant. We’ve all done it. You’re flipping through the channels on TV and you see that your favorite show is on. But it’s a rerun. You say, “Oh, I’ve seen this before,” and you change the channel. Don’t let people do that to your blog. Keep your information fresh. You can write about the same topic again; just find new ways to spin it.
   4. Thou shalt not rely on spell check. Nothing turns people off like typos, spelling errors, and bad grammar. It makes your blog difficult to read, and it has a tendency to devalue some of your credible information. If you know that spelling and grammar are weak points for you, have someone proofread your blog posts before you hit that “publish” button. They might catch something you didn’t see.
   5. Thou shalt not overuse jargon. It’s important to remember that your customers will come to your blog to learn about your industry. Your readers aren’t necessarily going to be industry professionals. No matter how comfortable you are using the lingo, it’s a good idea to tone it down to make sure your readers are up-to-speed with you. If you’re writing a blog about myocardial infarctions, for example, just say “heart attack.” More people will understand you, and your readership will grow.
   6. Thou shalt not blog as an island. The saying goes that no man is an island. Well, no blog is an island either. Don’t discount your readers’ opinions. Get interactive—ask your readers for their opinions. If you get a conversation going, you’ll get more people reading.
   7. Thou shalt not forget about thine blog. There’s nothing worse than a blog that might as well have cobwebs on it. You set out to write an informative blog, so write it. And do it regularly.
   8. Thou shalt not have other blogs before me. Unless, of course, you feel like you can keep up with it. This is sort of an offshoot of #7. If you don’t have the time to cultivate a readership for one blog, what makes you think you can have two? The best blogs take time, attention, and a little bit of love.
   9. Thou shalt not lie. Don’t make promises that you’re not going to keep. If you tell your readers that you’re going to have a post up on Thursday, then put the post up on Thursday. You want your readers to trust you, so you need to stay honest with them. Don’t lie about your business either. Don’t say that you sell a certain product if you don’t. Lying to gain readership is going to backfire on you in the end.
  10. Thou shalt not be stale. The best blogs have personality. If I wanted textbook information about your industry, I’d read a textbook. Use images and formatting to change the look of your posts. Be engaging—be yourself!

Once you get out there and start interacting with your readers, you’ll know what they want to hear. Nothing about blogging is etched in stone. Just stay open and honest, and your readers will trust you as a source of valuable industry information.

White Teeth And Healthy Tips

Senin, 19 Juli 2010

Have you ever counted how many times you smile in a day? Sure amount more than brushing your teeth. Definitely a beautiful smile with healthy teeth. For white teeth and healthy, consider the following tips first.

In essence, the true color of our teeth are white. But with the number of food substances through the teeth as well as by factors of age, so the color white teeth can not survive forever. That's what we should watch. If you have problems with dental appearance, do not worry because now there are many ways to treat and overcome.

1. Take care of before already become corrupted. Use a straw if you drink coffee, tea, sodas and red wines. Thus, the beverage of your teeth directly. Drinks are usually the cause of tooth decay is very strong.

2. Expand to consume foods that act as natural tooth whitener. Examples of fruits and vegetables. Natural materials are quite effective for cleaning teeth including: apples, carrots and celery.

3. Strawberry fruit is a very special tooth whitening. It is easy. Mash strawberries and stick it on all your teeth by using finger. Let it stand for one to two minutes. After that Rub your teeth with a thorough clean.

4. A number of substances can be attached to your teeth easily. Therefore you must mecegah stain teeth or plaque formation. Use broccoli, lettuce or spinach leaves to prevent it. Vegetables had proved very effective to prevent stains teeth affairs.

5. Use toothpaste that acts as a bleach. Usually this kind of toothpaste models sold in the market. But of course it took quite a long and very intensive treatment to get maximum results. Now that most toothpastes have been using enzymes and chemical formulas, so you do not need
Feel free to consume berpemutih toothpaste.

6. Easy and simple way to care for the permanent tooth brushing your teeth white is three times a day and every meal. But beware of brushing teeth. Do not be too hard because it can actually make the tooth abrasion and damage. More good use an electric toothbrush and set the time to brush your teeth for two minutes.

7. The easiest and fastest way but it costs more is by bleaching or whitening. Models of this kind of dental care are readily available in dental clinics and beauty clinics. This kind of treatment can last for two to three years. But still, after the bleaching, you should keep food and beverages
consumed.

Healthy Foods for Healthy Living

There are several ways diet would lose weight if you follow the right way as they are designed. but it does not mean that all foods fit into a diet is a healthy food, but it does not mean you should change your diet to conform with the rules of the diet.

Rather than worry about following the diet, it's better to think about a healthy lifestyle instead. Begin by learning to choose foods that are good for you.

The closer the food is taken from the cycle of nature, then the food is better for you. Fresh fruits and vegetables have a lot of great vitamins and minerals, boiled them to retain the most nutritional value and be careful with sauces, they may be high in calories and fat is not good for you.

Apple is good for the body, but the apple pie made really not good for the body. Serve seafood two or three times a week. Fish and chicken meat will be healthier on serve in the form of baked than fried.

make it a habit to drink water, milk and 100% fruit and juice as the main drink softdrink and limit sweet drinks. If you are bored with mineral water, try adding a few pieces of lemon to add a touch of flavor.

Do not forget to eat a variety of foods to get all the vitamins and minerals you need to be healthy.

Five Types of Food Super To lose weight

Kamis, 15 Juli 2010

It is true that some specific foods can help you lose weight. The result is visible. The five types of foods are:

1. Grape.

A study and a 2004 study at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California, has made a grapes name as a destroyer of fat . Eat half a grapefruit before meals can help people lose weight. From the research, it turns out the influence of capsule grape, grape juice, and red grape is very helpful, but the story of a real eating grapes showed the best results.

Sardines is a boon to anyone who wishes to lose weight. Because rich protein, sardine can stabilize blood sugar, making you feel full, and helps stimulating metabolism. And because it is also extremely containing omega-3, sardine can strengthen the cardiovascular system and helps improve mood. In addition, sardines tasty, easily available and cheap


Green tea is still regarded as a solution to slimming. Moreover, green tea rich in antioxidants, improve heart health, aid digestion and regulate blood sugar and body temperature. Green tea can increase metabolism and accelerate fat burning, thereby helping to lose weight. Results of research, five cups a day is an appropriate amount to lose weight.



Pumpkin is rich in fiber. Various studies show that high fiber intake is related to health, including weight reduction.







5. Beef Eaters of Grass. The meat is a good diet if it does not contain antibiotics, stereid, and hormones. Diets with high protein associated with weight loss due to various reasons: Stimulating protein metabolism, helping you feel full longer, and helps reduce excessive appetite.

Acer: Acer enters tablet market, proposed to launch two tablets by year end


The introduction of tablet computers has marked the beginning of a new era in mobile computing or should I say, internet based computing. There is an unconfirmed report that Acer, one of the market leaders in computer hardware, is planning to bring out two tablet computers by the year end.

The features of both the models could be similar except for the screen size. Both the tablets will be equipped with ARM-based processors and Google’s Android platform with 7 inch and 10 inch display screens respectively. Multimedia capabilities and Adobe Flash Player 10.1 are other features including Android 2.2 Froyo or a newer version of Android (hopefully 2.3 codenamed Gingerbread if the release timings fall in place).

To clear one’s doubt, Acer is not all new to the tablet market. They had launched a 7 inch eBook Reader with Qualcomm processor at Computex last month with Android as its Operating System but almost appeared as a multi-purpose tablet. Otherwise, if you are a Windows fan you can try your hands on a bigger 11.6 inch Acer Aspire 1825PTZ convertible notebook.

Benefits of Tea For Dental Health

Selasa, 13 Juli 2010

Today, tea has become one of the existing form habits in the community. By drinking tea body will feel more refreshed. In addition, tea can also reduce stress. However, the benefits of tea are not only limited to that alone, tea is also beneficial for protecting the teeth because it has anti-cariogenic effects that can suppress the formation of caries. Caries or better known as tooth decay is a dental health problem in a very often encountered in the community. Caries is the localized demineralization process that starts from the tooth surface (enamel) and can reach into the roots of teeth.

Caries formation is influenced by many factors, such as oral hygiene, tooth itself, the food consumed, as well as heredity (genetics). The main factor of caries is Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus sobrinus. These bacteria to ferment sucrose to obtain energy for their survival and to form acids that can damage the surface of teeth.

Tea, especially green tea and black tea contain various components of compounds that can inhibit the formation of caries. Catechins which is a compound in poliphenol group is the main compounds that are active in protecting the teeth from caries risk. Catechins contained in tea have anti-streptococcal activity that can inhibit growth and kill S. mutans and S. sobrinus. Catechins also inhibited transferase activity in S. glukosil mutans and S. sobrinus is an important enzyme in the fermentation of sucrose.

Poliphenol overall in green tea inhibits the enzyme amylase from S. mutans, whereas black tea contains more poliphenol can inhibit the enzyme amylase from S. mutans and S. sobrinus. Amylase is also an important enzyme in the fermentation of sucrose by the bacteria.

In addition, poliphenol can also inhibit bacterial adhesion to the tooth. Poliphenol binding proteins and bacterial surface hydrophobicity resulting in lower aggregation / bacterial adhesions.

Tea also contains high fluoride. Fluoride makes teeth more resistant to demineralization (tooth mineral decomposition) by the acid and activate remineralisasi (formation of tooth mineral) on the surface of dental caries that are not readily occur.

Problem of bad breath can also be overcome with diligent tea. This is due to the better oral hygiene and inhibition of activity of the bacteria occurred.

The benefits of this tea can be felt more by drinking freshly brewed tea from tea leaves rather than from tea bags or tea that has been in the packaging. At tea bags, containing compounds which are less useful and only contain a lot of caffeine alone. This is because tea bags contain tea leaves filings which largely consisted of the base and stem, whereas there are useful compounds in the leaves. While the contents of bottled tea has many beneficial compounds that are damaged and lost.

However it should be noted also that a good tea to drink to prevent caries is tea without sugar because sugar is one of the trigger factors of caries.

To get the maximum result we must drink tea every day after meals. But the effort to maintain healthy teeth, of course not stop here. Oral and dental hygiene remains the single most important thing we must guard.

Source

    * Www.books.nap.edu
    * Www.greenfacts.org
    * Www.jmm.sgmjournals.org

Tablet pc function, advantages and disadvantages

Senin, 12 Juli 2010


A Tablet PC is a laptop PC, equipped with a stylus and or a touchscreen. This form factor is intended to offer a more mobile PC; Tablet PCs may be used where notebooks are impractical or unwieldy, or do not provide the needed functionality.

The term Tablet PC was made popular in a product announced in 2001 by Microsoft, where it was defined as a pen-enabled computer conforming to hardware specifications devised by Microsoft and running a licensed copy of "Windows XP Tablet PC Edition" operating system or a derivative thereof.Tablet PCs are personal computers where the owner is free to install any compatible application or operating system. Other tablet computer devices, such as eBook readers or PDAs, do not provide this option and are generally considered another category. The original Microsoft licensing specification required proximity sensing of the stylus, which Microsoft termed "hover". This requirement was dropped with the later announcement of the UMPC.

Booklets

Booklet PCs are dual screen tablet computers that fold like a book. Typical booklet PCs are equipped with multi-touch screens and pen writing recognition capabilities. They are designed to be used as digital day planners, internet surfing devices, project planners, music players, and displays for video, live TV, and e-reading.

Slates

Slate computers, which resemble writing slates, are tablet PCs without a dedicated keyboard. For text input, users rely on handwriting recognition via an active digitizer, touching an on-screen keyboard using fingertips or a stylus, or using an external keyboard that can usually be attached via a wireless or USB connection.

Tablet PCs typically incorporate small (8.4–14.1 inches/21–36 centimetres) LCD screens and have been popular in vertical markets such as health care, education, hospitality and field work. Applications for field work often require a tablet PC that has rugged specifications that ensure long life by resisting heat, humidity, and drop/vibration damage. This added focus on mobility and/or ruggedness often leads to elimination of moving parts that could hinder these qualities.

Convertibles

Convertible notebooks have a base body with an attached keyboard. They more closely resemble modern laptops, and are usually heavier and larger than slates.

Typically, the base of a convertible attaches to the display at a single joint called a swivel hinge or rotating hinge. The joint allows the screen to rotate through 180° and fold down on top of the keyboard to provide a flat writing surface. This design, although the most common, creates a physical point of weakness on the notebook.

Some manufacturers have attempted to overcome these weak points. The Panasonic Toughbook 19, for example, is advertised as a more durable convertible notebook. One model by Acer (the TravelMate C210) has a sliding design in which the screen slides up from the slate-like position and locks into place to provide the laptop mode.

Convertibles are by far the most popular form factor of tablet PCs, because they still offer the keyboard and pointing device (usually a trackpad) of older notebooks, for users who do not use the touchscreen display as the primary method of input.

Hybrids

Hybrids, coined by users of the HP/Compaq TC1000 and TC1100 series, share the features of the slate and convertible by using a detachable keyboard that operates in a similar fashion to a convertible when attached. Hybrids are not to be confused with slate models with detachable keyboards; detachable keyboards for pure slate models do not rotate to allow the tablet to rest on it like a convertible.

Tablets vs. traditional notebooks

The advantages and disadvantages of tablet PCs are highly subjective measures. What appeals to one user may be exactly what disappoints another. The following are commonly cited opinions of the tablet PC platform:

Advantages

* Usage in environments not conducive to a keyboard and mouse such as lying in bed, standing, or handling with a single hand.
* Lighter weight, lower power models can function similarly to dedicated reading devices like the Amazon Kindle.
* Touch environment makes navigation easier than conventional use of keyboard and mouse or touch pad in certain contexts such as image manipulation, or mouse oriented games.
* The ability for easier or faster entering of diagrams, mathematical notations, and symbols.
* Allows, with the proper software, universal input, independent from different keyboard localizations.
* Some users find it more natural and fun to use a stylus to click on objects rather than a mouse or touchpad, which are not directly connected to the pointer on screen.

Disadvantages

* Higher cost — convertible tablet PCs can cost significantly more than their non-tablet counterparts although this premium has been predicted to fall.
* Input speed — handwriting can be significantly slower than typing speeds, the latter of which can be as high as 50-150 WPM; however, Slideit, Swype and other technologies are able to provide alternate, speedier methods of input.
* Screen and hinge damage risk - Tablet PCs are handled more than conventional laptops, yet are built on similar frames; in addition, since their screens also serve as input devices, they run a higher risk of screen damage due to impacts and misuse. A convertible tablet PC's screen hinge is required to rotate around two axes, unlike a normal laptop screen, subsequently increasing the number of possible mechanical and electrical (digitizer and video cables, embedded WiFi antennas, etc) failure points.
* Ergonomics - a tablet PC does not provide room for a wrist rest while the screen is folded into slate mode. In addition, the user will need to move their arm constantly while writing.
* Slower processing - tablet PCs tend to have slower computational and graphical processing than traditional laptops in their price range. Most tablet PCs are equipped with embedded graphics processors instead of discrete graphics cards. In June 2010, the only tablet PC with a discrete graphics card was the HP TouchSmart tm2t, which has the ATI Mobility Radeon HD4550 as an optional extra. Incidentally, its Core 2 Duo processor has a maximum clock speed of 1.6 GHz. The Fujitsu LifeBook T5010 options provide CPUs with speeds up to 2.8 GHz, but all support only integrated graphics.

Bank Of America Online

Sabtu, 10 Juli 2010


Bank οf America іn line аt Bank οf America a hole οn Wednesday rocked thе gaming community. Whіlе thе failure happened, online gamers frightened, whісh means thаt thеіr accounts wеrе closed due tο thе online gambling law fresh іn thе United States. Bank οf America solved thе problem οf Sun’s customers саn υѕе thеіr accounts again. Thіѕ іѕ thе second time thаt online players hаνе received. Bank οf America іѕ one οf thе planet’s lаrgеѕt financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small аnd medium enterprises аnd large corporations wіth a full range οf banking, investing, asset management аnd οthеr financial аnd risk management products аnd services. Thе company offers іtѕ customers іn thе United States, serving 58 million consumer аnd small business wіth more thаn 5,900 stores, more thаn 18,000 ATMs аnd award-winning online banking wіth nearly 30 million active users. Bank οf America іѕ a leading global wealth management аnd a global leader іn corporate banking аnd investment аnd trade іn a wide range οf asset classes аnd service companies, governments, institutions аnd individuals nearly thе planet . Bank οf thе United States industry thе support іt hаѕ аbουt 4 million small business owners, offering a range οf innovative аnd simple tο υѕе аnd online services.