Free Beer and Chocolate

Every company has its own experience on Twitter. But whether a business has been here for a couple of years or just a few months, its twitterers tend to find that certain approaches lead to success. In this section, we share that wisdom, which falls into a couple of big categories.

Think about Twitter as a place to build relationships

Instead of approaching Twitter as a place to broadcast information about your company, think of it as a place to build relationships. Put into practice, that means you could do things like:

Include in your Bio and/or custom background the names (or @usernames) of the people twittering from your company account. It’s also a good idea to include additional contact info, like email addresses.

Listen regularly for comments about your company, brand and products—and be prepared to address concerns, offer customer service or thank people for praise.

Tip: In addition to keeping an eye on your @messages, you can use our Saved Searches feature to easily track mentions of your product, brand, company, etc. From your Twitter home page, simply run a search, and then at the top of your results page, click “Save this search.” A link with your search term will appear on the right side of your page, and whenever you click it, you’ll get real-time results for that query. To delete a search, just head to the top of your results and click “Remove this search.”

Use a casual, friendly tone in your messages.

While you shouldn’t feel compelled to follow everyone who follows you, do respond to some questions or comments addressed to you.

If you like a particular message, retweet it. People often appreciate the sharing and amplification of their ideas, so look to retweet cool stuff.

Post links to articles and sites you think folks would find interesting—even if they’re not your sites or about your company.

Make sure your tweets provide some real value. You know better than we do what is valuable, but here are few examples to spark ideas:

• Offer Twitter exclusive coupons or deals
• Take people behind the scenes of your company
• Post pictures from your offices, stores, warehouses, etc.
• Share sneak peeks of projects or events in development

Don’t spam people. Twitter’s following model means that you have to respect the interests and desires of other people here or they’ll unfollow you. The most common way to run afoul of that understanding—and to thus look like a spammer—is to send unsolicited @messages or DMs, particularly when you include a promotional link.

Of course, if you run an account that focuses explicitly on sharing exclusive coupon codes or sale information, you’re probably just fine posting promos. But tread carefully, and consider explaining in your bio or background how the account works.

Tip: You can test the waters by sending just a few promos to start, and then continuing only if people show interest.

To make sure you’re not spamming folks, we also suggest you avoid the following:

• Posting duplicate updates to an account: Posting the same update over and over throughout the day is considered spammy and a possible violation of our terms of service.
• Cross-posting duplicate updates to multiple accounts: If you post the same update to multiple accounts, you could violate our terms of service.
• Following churn: Following and unfollowing the same people repeatedly, as well as following and unfollowing those who don’t follow back, are both violations of our terms of service.

Tip: Think you’ve encountered a spammer? Let us know, and we’ll look into the account. You can alert us to spam profiles by sending a direct message to @spam! In addition, you can block the spammer by heading to their account page, and on the right side, clicking the block link (they won’t know you’ve blocked them).

Understand the real-time nature of Twitter

Messages on Twitter are short, quick and able to reach people wherever they happen to be. That combination makes it an instantaneous medium, which has a couple of implications for businesses:

• You can ask questions, float ideas and solicit feedback on Twitter—and expect pretty quick replies most of the time.
• If you’ve just launched a product, ask users what they think or search for real-time tweets from people talking about your product. You can also ask or search for feedback on new ad campaigns you’ve launched, stores you’ve opened or murky issues you have to handle.
• When people raise customer service issues on Twitter, they generally expect a quick reply—within a day, if not within a few hours, depending on the nature of your business. Keep an eye on your @mentions.

Measure the value of Twitter

Before you set up measurement tools, focus on the quality of your engagement, and use your gut to check how things are going. How’s the feedback and interaction with your followers? Are you responding to most or your @messages? Are most tweets about you positive? Or if they started out largely negative, are they coming around? Are more people beginning to engage with you and mention your company?

Next, think about quantifying your experience. Although it can be tricky to add up the value of relationships, Twitter does lend itself to measurement in a few ways—especially if you’ve already defined what you hope will be different for your company in three months, six months or a year if you succeed on Twitter. Tactics like these can then help you assess your progress in meeting that goal:

• Keep a tally of questions answered, customer problems resolved and positive exchanges held on Twitter. Do the percentages change over time?
• When you offer deals via Twitter, use a unique coupon code so that you can tell how many people take you up on that Twitter-based promotion. If you have an online presence, you can also set up a landing page for a promotion, to track not only click-throughs but further behavior and conversions.
• Use third-party tools to figure out how much traffic your websites are receiving from Twitter.
• Track click-throughs on any link you post in a tweet. Some URL shortening services let you track click-throughs.

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Of all the social networks out there, LinkedIn is used primarily by professionals for networking.  LinkedIn users post job postings, career change announcements, questions to professionals in certain industries, pitch ideas and much more.  The key is how to get connections to talk to and connect with?  Well, much in the same way Twitter is used to gain followers, there are some tips and secrets to get traction quickly.

To make it quick and easy, here’s how to add 500+ connections in 24 hours.

1. Setup a LinkedIn account (if you don’t have one)
2. Get your profile setup and add all your information until your profile is 100% complete
3. Join the TopLinked group – http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=42031
4. Get approved in TopLinked
5. Join the OpenNetworker group – http://www.OpenNetworker.com/a/?a=21398
6. Import the contacts provided
7. Send personal invitations to all
8. Reply to all the email thank you

That’s it.  Get 500+ connections from a wide array of people, industries, levels and interests.

Good luck in your network.

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Almost anybody can easily learn how to make money with Google Adsense. Before we enumerate the steps, let us understand how it works first. Every time a keyword is typed on Google, the search results page will also display paid advertisements by website owners through another Google program called AdWords.

This comes out as the “Sponsored Links.” Once you sign up for Adsense, the same advertisements are allowed to be placed on your website for free and you will receive a portion of the income each time a surfer will click on the link.

Now to make money, start off by filling up the Adsense application form and confirm the email automatically generated by Google. Afterwards, Google checks your website if it has potential to bring in traffic with which access to the account will be activated in one to three days.

If you don´t have a website, you can still set up a blogger account and created a blogger blog, fill it with some unique content post and then apply for Adsense through it.

Original content can be tracked by Google, and make sure that your website is worth catching attention. Put yourself in an unbiased shoe and ask yourself: if I did not make this website, will I even be browsing this page?

The content need not be literary awarding winning pieces but it should read well and simple to understand. Plus, it should provide some useful information for the searcher.

Once approved, you can now log in your account and carefully read the terms and Conditions. There are several ad layouts you can choose and just paste the ad code in your website´s page.

Properly evaluate which ads are relevant to your content and which ones have the strongest possibility of bringing revenue. Strategize the location of each ad. Having that fixed, also focus on your content and make it look professional.

Not all topics pay out equally as well. To make money in adsense, you need to develop content for high paying adsense keywords such as mortgage, loans, insurance etc.

Learn how to make money with google adsense. Check out the best tools and services that can help explode your adsense income.

Article Source: How To Make Money With Google Adsense – Earn Passive Income Online With Adsense

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Get ready.  Telemarketing calls to your mobile phones are on the way.  YOU CAN STOP THEM NOW.  Here’s how.

Register online at https://www.donotcall.gov/
REMEMBER: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public next month.
REMINDER….. all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls.

…. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222.
It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number.

HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS… It takes about 20 seconds.

Additionally, you can register a phone number on-line at the following site: https://www.donotcall.gov/

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Ok, twitter is going bonkers! Newscasters, grandmas, cops and corporations are all twitter-crazy.  Here’s the top 10 twitter apps to make your tweets more pleasureable.

1. Twitter Atlas

Fresh Logic Studios has built an addictive Flash mapping interface, aggregating worldwide “Tweets” (Twitter messages). The screen refreshes every six seconds or so with a different Twitterer’s status report; and profile details are displayed on top of their location on a map. A toolbox allows you to toggle between views – and the Microsoft Virtual Earth graphics are stunning. Each of the Twitterers has their own lollipop on the map to note where they are, plus there’s (limited) language support. But the Atlas isn’t just a visualisation device for status junkies. There’s also a practical side: users can get directions, search for local shops and services, find out what events are coming up in places around the world, and even see where the most expensive petrol stations are around.

What’s it missing? The ability to get only your Twitter group’s tweets shown on the map.

2. Squawk

Those enjoying a Second Life have a few options for social network integration. One of the most impressive is Squawk, which links up your gaming application with services including Twitter and Jaiku. There’s an introductory how-to video for installing the service (note: you’ll have to find it as an object in the SL ‘metaverse’ and then configure it). There’s also a good social network devoted to tracking Squawk’s progress, letting those not in Second Life peep in on the locations of top squawkers.

3. Twitticious

This little app from Alex Girard is about as stripped-down as you get – it doesn’t even have a GUI. But it’s a time-saver for those who’d like to link up their Del.icio.us bookmarks and their Twitter posts for later tagging and grouping. All the app does is take your tweets and route them to your Delicious account. With lots of Twitter networks set up specifically for this kind of link-sharing activity, this could be a golden life-hack. A word of warning though: there’s no turning off the service. Full marks go to Alex for making some amendments to the service, to allow your followers’ comments to also be added as links to your delicious account – as well as the Public Timeline’s, should you want that many links in your Delicious account!

4. Remember the Milk + Twitter

Alert and to-do service Remember the Milk has just combined its range of services with that of Twitter, meaning that if you include ‘rtm‘ as a friend in your Twitter network, your new task-oriented friend informs all of the web services that you’ve got synced up to Remember The Milk – and that can include iGoogle, Google Calendar and others. The smart bit is a series of commands that you can send to RTM via Twitter, using a few easy short codes. For instance, to get a list of these commands just type in ‘d rtm !tips‘ and you’ll get back a full command list. Once you get the hang of the commands, you’ll see how much time this can save, instead of flipping between devices or websites to update your lists.

5. Social Comic Book

It’s never going to win any prettiness awards, but the creative juices were flowing the day that Tim Wintle decided to mash up Flickr tags with Tweets. The idea is simple: enter your Twitter name, and the app creates a comic book of six panels – with your Tweets serving as the description in the panel and Flickr photos being pulled in that relate to your Tweets. Kind of like a visual Mad-Libs. Great idea – just a bit of a shame that some Tweets can’t find relevant Flickr photos to attach to them. Dust up the old design and it could be quite viral.

Another comic strip attempt is Tweetweet. Not quite as inventive as Social Comic Book, but still worth a look if you’ve got ten minutes to kill between meetings.

6. Twapper

Twapper hooks into your 30Boxes online calendar account and allows you to post tweets directly into your calendar from your mobile phone or online. It also allows you to see the Twitter activity of your network from within the 30Boxes environment. Another great feature is the ability to ‘roll your own groups’ of Twitterers. Whilst it helps to have a 30Boxes account to get the most from the integration, there are some features available to anyone.

7. Twit Bin

Why go to Twitter when Twitter can come to you? Twitbin’s a Firefox extension that nestles all your friends’ tweets into a sidebar. It’s configurable too, and the tiny ad at the bottom of the sidebar is something I can live with. BTW, it works just as well in Flock.

8. TwittyTunes

If you want to share what you’re listening to with the ease of Twitter, this is the browser plugin for you. It’s a sibling of the popular FoxyTunes extension, and supports dozens of players. So if you’re signed in to your Last.fm player, Twitty Tunes will let your Twitter friends know what you’re listening to. There’s even a social network devoted to the most recent TwittyTunes shout-outs, called Foxy Tunes Twitter DJ.

9. Twitterment

This one appeals to the statisticians and the buzz crawlers. This charts the ‘zeitgeist’ of what’s being Tweeted about across the globe. You can even see comparisons of one key phrase versus another, and what day of the week key terms pop up most frequently. For instance, here’s one that compares beer and sex. Not surprisingly, beer starts getting popular around Friday.

10. Flotzam

Flotzam started life as Flitterbook, a showcase mash-up of Flickr, Facebook and Twitter data – developed by Karsten Januszewski and Tim Aidlin for MIX07. It’s available only to PC users as a downloadable .exe or as a screensaver, but it’s well worth having a nose around. For Mac OS X users, check out some of the dashboard widgets collected in the Twitter Fan Wiki.

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From USA Today – PandaCloud Offers Free Antivirus software.

Panda Security CEO Juan Santana says he has come up with a Web-based silver bullet that will slay computer viruses like Conficker and Koobface before they take root on your PC.

“The threat climate demands a new protection model,” Santana says.

The next few weeks will dictate how well his assertions hold up, as reviewers and consumers test drive the new Panda Cloud Antivirus service.

In an attempt to shake up the lucrative antivirus subscription market, Panda is tapping into two hot tech trends: Web-based “cloud” computing and free technology giveaways. Microsoft later this year will offer free basic antivirus protection, code-named Morro. And McAfee and AVG recently launched free protection tools to supplement their paid antivirus suites.

Traditional antivirus protection from companies such as Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro come in hefty, power-sapping programs that reside on your PC’s hard drive to filter out known malicious programs. Because cybercriminals have become adept at tweaking their attacks to sneak through, the software companies must update protection “signatures” on each PC at least once a day.

Panda Wednesday becomes the first consumer antivirus supplier to centralize this filtering and updating routine — by moving it into a data center sitting in the Internet cloud. To tap into this free service, you download a small pop-up dashboard from www.cloudantivirus.com.

The dashboard connects your PC to Panda’s data center, which monitors suspicious coding that comes into contact with your PC. Panda can now amass intelligence about hackers’ techniques, equipping it to more swiftly predict the bad guys’ next moves, Panda senior researcher Pedro Bustamante says.

While the data center keeps track of anything that looks remotely suspicious, it will take action only if an unauthorized program begins to execute on your PC. “A virus is basically harmless until it’s loaded into memory and executed,” says Martin McKeay, author of the Network Security Blog/Podcast, who was briefed on Panda’s new service.

McKeay says Panda’s approach frees up processing power and storage space on the PC. And it makes efficient use of the data center.

“There is a nice symmetry to the cloud service,” says Jonathan Penn, Forrester tech security analyst, who was also briefed. “Users get more up-to-date analysis, and Panda turns every customer into a sensor that feeds back data which they then can interpret to better identify emerging attacks.”

The power of free

Panda plans to offer this service free to consumers indefinitely, Santana says. He figures Panda has a head start over larger rivals. Still, the service must build a track record. McKeay wonders if Panda’s cloud protection will work well for PC users with slower Internet connections and if Panda is truly prepared to expand rapidly, if need be. “I’m slightly skeptical of the implementation,” McKeay says.

Meanwhile, one of Panda’s chief rivals — McAfee — on Tuesday launched a Cybercrime Response Unit website as a giveaway of its own. The site contains guidance for consumers and small-business owners who believe they might be a victim of a cybercrime. It includes a free infection-scanning tool and toll-free phone help.

“We’re trying to give you some insight as to whether you’re at a high or low risk for being the victim of a cybercrime,” says Pamela Warren, McAfee’s cybercrime strategist. “It’s also to help inform consumers and small-business owners about how they can avoid becoming victims.”

Amsterdam-based antivirus supplier AVG last week began making its LinkScanner tool, which checks Web links for infections, free as a stand-alone product. AVG, in fact, has built its reputation on its free antivirus suite, which it began giving away as a marketing strategy to get people to buy its heftier paid version. By giving away free security tools to millions, AVG has been able to sell enough paid subscriptions to grow its revenue 75% annually in each of the past four years, CEO J.R. Smith says.

“Our product strategy is to create goodwill, get the brand out there and market virally,” Smith says. “Our success is driven by the power of free.”

Forrester’s Penn says consumers have been adopting the free tools “as a supplement, not a substitute” to the security services they pay for.

Panda CEO Santana hopes to leverage this trend. He figures gaining loyalty from free users of Panda’s cloud protection service will help win new sales to businesses. “Let’s have the world test this, so we can steal market share from the traditional players,” Santana says.

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Once you start having three or four PC in your network, there comes a time when connecting and getting files off a machine a chore. It doesn’t have to be that way. I discovered this program about 6 years ago and still use today.

It’s called RADMIN. And it’s super-fast, secure and streamlined way to connect to remote PCs…whether they be in the office down the hall or across the world.

The software has to be installed on both machines. One acts as a server and other as a client. RADMIN works in several modes: Desktop control (with mouse and keyboard), Desktop view and FTP.

The uses are endless. For example, I work on my dad’s computer from over 275 miles away. We can move files via FTP quickly between computers. We can login to a server and administer easily.

Fast and Reliable Remote Control Software for Secure Remote Access to PC from Anywhere.

Windows Vista Compatible (32-bit and 64-bit) Radmin (Remote Administrator) is the world famous, award winning secure remote control software and remote access software which enables you to work on a remote computer in real time as if you were using its own keyboard and mouse

With RADMIN you can:

• Access and control your home and office computer remotely from anywhere
• Perform remote systems administration
• Provide Help Desk (remote support) functions for remote users
• Work from home remotely
• Manage remote computers in small, medium, and large networks
• Organize online presentations and conferences
• Share your remote desktop
• Teach and monitor students’ activities remotely

Key Features

• Remote control
• Remote viewing
• File Transferring
• Intel® AMT support
• Works over Internet and LAN
• Text & Voice chat
• Remote Desktop sharing
• Easy-to-use
• FREE Support!

If you have issues connecting Vista and XP boxes (which is sometimes difficult) you should consider RADMIN. The price for the product is $39.95 and you can buy here or learn more at their website.

Oh yeah, the RADMIN is 128 bit secure and is used by Coke, IBM, Fedex and tons of other big companies. Overall, RADMIN makes your networks connections simple and faster than other remote software.

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Yep, when you bought your PC it was fast, right? Well it did come with all kinds of unneeded software, trialware, adware and demoware that should be removed if your not using them.

But I digress…

Ok, in this article, I’ll tell you the top 5 tips that have had my PCs running fast for the past 10 years or so.

1. Remove unneeded software (Start/Control Panel/Add-Remove Programs)
2. Clean your web browser cache, temporary files, history (Open browser/Tools/Options/Clear Data)
3. Run Supercleaner – this will automate many of the “cleaning processes” and save you tons of time. Great product. Available here.
4. Run RegCleaner – this will remove registry entries that are unused. BE CAREFUL. READ DIRECTIONS. Improper use can leave your computer unstable or non-operational.
5. Install an antivirus program. Paid, I’d recommend McAfee VirusScan. For Free, get Avast or AVG. Both are great programs.

Make it a habit to clean and update your computer and it’ll run fast for years.

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