Computer Solutions in the greater brisbane area.
Hints and Tips
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MYOB & Emailing Invoices / Statements
Today I tweeted in frustration the MYOB Team (@myobteam) that I am still, after a number of years of complaining, finding that MYOB cannot produce a proper PDF copy of Invoice and Statement forms. I was fed up, having complained about this any number of times, and never had any resolution from MYOB.
I have had several clients complain of the same thing. We have a lot of small business clients using MYOB, and so are quick to hear when things aren’t right. This problem has plagued both our own business, and many of our clients, over many versions of MYOB.
Today, my prayers were answered. MYOB were quick to get back to me, and for the first time that I have complained of this issue, they actually offered solutions. To ice the cake, their advice actually worked!
Where you find that your logo or other graphics you’ve included on the form do not come out on the PDF, you need to install Apple Quicktime [Download] (yeah, that baffles me too, but there you go). I tested it, and sure enough, our logo started appearing on the PDF versions of our documents.
We have also seen issues where specific fields on forms simply don’t appear on the PDF version, but do on the print version. The MYOB team responded that this is usually caused by the text in the field being slightly too big, so you have to make sure your number fields are both wide enough for the biggest number you might see and also tall enough, which turned out the be the problem in our case.
Now that we know what the problem is, at least we can deliver the fix, so if you can’t get your forms to email correctly from MYOB, give us a call!
Why your new website should run on WordPress
Are you considering having a website created from scratch but don’t have any idea on how to make one? Why not install WordPress on your web hosting server, instead? WordPress is an open source blogging platform which can also be converted into a website for free. Multiple business owners and bloggers alike are already using WordPress because of its exceptional flexibility and functionality.
Compared to the traditional web site creation, WordPress has big advantage because of its numerous plugins and themes. With the plugins and themes, your website can be customized according to your needs. All plugins are designed with specific purpose. One of the most popular plugin is called Akismet, which purpose is to protect your site against spammers. Some of these plugins are available free of charge but you can also hire a developer to create unique plugin that is customized according to the functionalities that you need.
There are also numerous themes which you can use to make the website’s appearance more appealing to its visitors. Same with the plugins, themes are also available either for free or for a minimal cost, but you can also ask a web designer to tweak the existing theme according to your specifications. However, there’s more to WordPress than just website customization. Below are some of the advantages of using WordPress as a Content Management System tool.
Ease of Use
WordPress is very easy to setup especially if Fantastico is present in the cPanel of your hosting account. If Fantastico is not available, you can still install WordPress into your web hosting account manually by uploading the core files via FTP.
Hassle-Free Updates
Updates and upgrades can be easily done by clicking a link. Everytime a new update is available, a message on the administration panel will appear to inform the site’s administrator about its existence.
Open-Source CMS
Anyone who has experience in PHP language can work within the codex to modify certain operations and functions. A developer can visit wordpress.org to view the CMS documentation to help him go through the codex, themes and plugins modifications with minimal effort.
Virtual Assistant Friendly
Updating the website’s content can easily be done through outsourcing. You can give a VA his own username and password to input the necessary file to update content to the site without worrying that he might mess up the entire site.
Learning to build a website using WordPress is a bit challenging and fun at the same time especially for the newbies. And today is the best time to start learning the skill.
We can help!
The hard part of building a website is, well, building it! Once you have a great wordpress website design implemented, all you need to worry about it adding the content, and thats super easy! Give us a call and find out how we can do all the hard work for you, and get your business humming with a new wordpress website today!
New wave of malware infection
We are getting a lot of calls this morning about malware infections on peoples computers; So far they are all different infections, but it’s rather strange to get such a spate of them all at once, leading us to believe a new exploit has been found and is being actively exploited ahead of Microsoft fixing it.
All the clients we have seen infected this morning have been using Internet Explorer, so we strongly recommend everyone go to getfirefox.com and switch to Firefox, so as to help avoid these kinds of expensive problems.
Guest posting on other sites.
Getting backlinks to your site is one of the most powerful ways to build your online presence and improve sales. The problem most people face is just not knowing where to start to get more of this online marketing gold. Here’s one great idea;
Writing an article for another website is a great way to get an instant high quality backlink to your website. There are plenty of sites that publish stories regularly, and plenty more blogs run by individuals who would be happy for some extra fresh and original content they can use on their site.
Look for sites that do not compete with yours, but where your product or service overlaps with the topic of the site; For example, a lot of products and services would not compete with a builder, but would be of interest to the builders client base, and have some relevance for people building a new home.
Once you’ve found a prospective site, decide on what sort of article you could write for them. Make sure you are an authority on the subject, because they aren’t going to want a poorly written article for their site. You don’t even need to write it yet, but you could write a few of these, and then offer them to sites. I tend to look for the site opportunity first, though.
Then, contact the site owner and make the offer. Be to the point, don’t try to make out you are offering free content because you are a great person, tell them you thought you could offer content their visitors would appreciate, and you are looking to gain a link back to your site from theirs. At this point, consider if they could offer YOU some content too; There are many products and services that overlap in both directions, and doing an article swap is even better!
Once you have agreement, try and incorporate one or two links in the article itself, using anchor text that describes your product or service. This is the best kind of backlink you can get, one that tells Google not only that your site is worth a visit, but exactly what your site is about.
One important point; You are going to need to write a fresh article for every site that takes you up on your offer. Giving multiple sites the same copy will result in those sites being penalised by Google, and most likely, they’ll take your content down.
Let us know how you go in the comments!
Why we don’t use Google
I just read an interesting post by John Jonas about how he lost all his google stuff recently. He describes how one evening he found that his entire Google account had disspeared; When you tried the usual password recovery, Google told him there was no account matching his email address! As John uses Google for just about everything, he was pretty worried, seeing as every email, every document, his whole business, had just dissapeared!
John goes on to describe a whole bunch of steps that Google users should take to safeguard against such a time, but really, is there a case for risking your business like this? Google have, as John puts it, a ZERO policy, meaning you get zero communication from them. They can delete your account on a whim, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Personally, I would never trust any part of my business to a company for which there is zero support. A business needs someone on the other end of the phone, so when things inevitably go wrong, they can be fixed quickly and without fuss. Even better, when i can actually meet a representative of the business in person, then I know what kind of attitude they have, and can make a judgment on using their services or not.
My advice; Don’t use Google for your email and documents. There are many better solutions that don’t see all your important data locked up in a black box you can’t always get access to.
Top SEO Tips for WordPress Websites
Bringing traffic to a website is the most important goal of every internet marketer. In order to realise this goal, it is essential that the website should be placed on the first page of each search results in every major search engine such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing to fully maximise the site’s earning potential. Setting your site on the first page of search engine results can be made possible through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques. SEO consists of different strategies that, if followed consistently, will bring the site to the top of search engine results. If you have a WordPress website that is not showing good performance in search engine results, then perhaps the following techniques below can help you.
1. Create A Great Content. Nobody wants to visit a site with nonsense articles. Well-crafted contents will surely increase your site’s visitors and will keep them coming back for more. Because of your good content and good volume of visitors, asking for a link from a successful webmaster to his site would not be difficult.
2. Create Backlinks For Your Site. Visit forums and other blogs which are related to your niche and post helpful opinions or ideas and don’t forget to include a link to your site in your profile or signature. You can also ask other webmasters if they allow guest posting on their website. Guest posting is also a way of getting backlinks for your site.
3. Be Mindful of Your Keyword Density. Keyword density is the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears, in proportion with other words used in an article. Keywords should be used for a few times within the article; otherwise, search engines will likely give you a red flag for keyword stuffing.
4. Place the Keywords In the Title. Use the keywords in the article title if possible; but don’t force it. It would be confusing to your readers to have a title with incorrect grammar structure. Properly place the keywords throughout the article. Well-placed keywords will surely drive traffic to your website.
5. Enable Pretty Permalinks. The WordPress default permalink format is short, ugly and it’s meaningless to anybody and even to search engine.
(Default permalink format: http://www.yourwebsite.com/?p=507 )
“Pretty permalinks” are more user-friendly and search engine friendly because they provide more information about the page to the search engine.
(Pretty permalink format: http://www.yourwebsite.com/title_of_your_article)
Your internet marketing success depends on how persistent you perform your search engine optimization tasks. These tasks may be small but doing them correctly will help your business to stay on top of the competition.
Choosing an ISP for your business.
Whether you’ve been in business for a while, are just starting out, or planning on moving your business, you should take a good look at your internet service provider (ISP), and see if you are getting the most from your provider. Most businesses choose an ISP based on one of two things; Either they go with Bigpond because it seems easier, or they shop on price. More considering needs to be given to both the choice of ISP, and the choice of plan;
Support IS important
There will come a day when you need to call your ISP for help figuring out why your connection has stopped working. You need to consider how good the call centre is for a given ISP. Believe it or not, it’s possible to get your internet connection from a company with a local australian call centre staffed with trained engineers. We can tell you from a load of experience that his makes a big difference to how fast problems get resolved.
Network Quality
You should also think about the quality of the ISP’s network. Some ISP’s have very basic networks, and many many customers, and that means each of their customers gets a substandard connection. What they don’t tell you, is that the data YOU want to get at has to come down the same wires that every other customer of that ISP uses, so if they don’t have very many connections to the rest of the internet, and if their connections are small, it doesn’t matter what speed your local connection is, you will be shackled by the poor quality network further up the chain.
Email is critical
Nobody does, but you should read the acceptable use policy of your chosen ISP. There are often serious gotcha’s in these conditions, than can impact your business. A good example is Optus, who have this as part of their acceptable use policy;
7. (a) You must not use the service to spam, send bulk and/or unsolicited messages. This includes, but is not limited to commercial advertising, informational announcements, charity requests, petitions for signatures, chain letters and political or religious messages. You must only send such a message to those individuals who have explicitly requested it.
Clauses like these are a red flag, because once they publish it, they have to find some way to enforce it. In the case of Optus, they simply monitor your email volume, and if you send too many emails, they cut off email service, and more recently, cut off the internet connection completely.
As business owners will always need to communicate with their clients, ISP’s who are not email friendly like Optus must be avoided.
Uploads should be free
Many ISP’s now charge for both data you recieve, and data you SEND. This never used to be the case, but many ISP’s see this as an easy way to improve their bottom line. You should make sure your ISP, and the plan you choose, does NOT penalise you for the data you send.
The price should be fixed
The other trick some ISP’s use is to give you a cheap monthly rate, and charge you a very high rate for usage. Make sure your chosen plan is a flat rate plan, with no extra charges for data. These plans might seem more expensive, but are not, because the rate for excess usage is extremely high and will be many times more than the monthly fee.
Contracts should be avoided
Most ISP’s will lock you into a 2 year contract, but if you can find one you are happy with that give you the option of month to month, you should take it. Being locked into a contract for any communications product means you will likely be stuck paying too much later on, and you lose a lot of flexibility.
The hardware matters
As part of the 2 year contract, most ISP’s will give you the router you need to get online. You should consider getting your router from your IT Support provider, because you will almost always get a better unit with more features, and you will also benefit from the support of your IT provider, which is almost always going to be better than the ISP, even great ISP’s like Internode.
Your New Website’s Number 1 Feature
Are you ready to get started with a new website for your business? There’s plenty to figure out, but the funny thing is how many business owners miss the most obvious, and most important feature of their new site.
When you get the first draft for your new site, have a look at the top. Do you see your main contact details featured prominently? If not, it’s probably time to consider a new designer, because unless you feature your most important contact details right at the top of EVERY page on your site, you are wasting time and money.
What do I mean by “most important contact details”? These would be the ways you MOST want visitors to get in touch with you when they are ready. For most small businesses, this is your phone number. Email address is good to, and if you are more of a retail store that you want people to come and visit, make sure your address is up there too.
Your website is about answering the questions of your prospects, and when they have enough answers, make it super easy for them to get in touch, and buy your product or service!
In App Purchases and your Kids.
Many of our clients have children, and these days, most of them end up with the iPods or iPhones as they move through their teenage years. One of the traps we are seeing is kids racking up huge bills via what is known as in app.
Many games available for devices like the iPhone and iPod Touch take advantage of a model where they sell you things to use in the game, after giving you the game for free. In many cases, it’s not obvious to the user that they are buying things with real money, as the purchases are often couched in fictional currency.
To get an idea, read about how a four year old playing smurfs started costing his mum money.
The best way to avoid the problem, is to disable the ability to purchase things within an app, and here’s how you do it;
Go to the SETTINGS section of your iOS device, and choose GENERAL
Next, tap on ENABLE RESTRICTIONS. The device will them ask you to enter a four digit pin code, which you will need later to turn this off again if you want to. As long as your children don’t know the code, they cannot enable in app purchases.
Once thats done, just scroll down to IN APP PURCHASES, and turn them off!
That’s it! Now your safe from surprise charges.
A good surge board will save you money
I read an article at PCMag recently that really made me wonder; The writers summary suggested that surge protection was a waste of time and that you should buy a good UPS instead.
This is utterly wrong.
First off, the only people who need a UPS are those who’s machines are often doing critical work and where a cut in power would trash valuable data. If that’s not you, you probably do not need one.
The problem the writer experienced is one that many people do. It’s called a cheap surge protector. By cheap, I don’t really mean the price either, because I have seen plenty of $200 surge boards that are no better than $30 ones. Let me explain what makes a good one.
The first thing to concern yourself with is the ability of the board to absorb surges. This is usually measured in joules, which is a measure of energy. The way a surge protector works is by absorbing the extra power, a bit like a sponge absorbs water. Just like a sponge, there is a limit to how much it can absorb. Take a look at most, and you will find many of them only take around 500 joules, whereas a good one will absorb over 4000 joules.
The next thing to check is what happens when the board reaches this limit. In the case of nearly every board on the market, the surge protection simply stops working, and the board turns into a regular power strip. You have no idea it’s past its use by date, unless you happen to look at it and see a warning indicator, which some have. You have to ask yourself, how often do you crawl under the desk to check it?
A good surge protector will actually stop working entirely when it reaches this limit. No power to your equipment means no chance of a surge sneaking through once the board has done its job, and it also means that should you get hit with a massive surge or series of surges, your equipment will still be protected.
So go out and buy yourself a new surge board, and ask how many joules it will absorb, and what happens when it reaches that limit.
