[SoftRatty] tag: newsletter

Macs Virus Immunity is Reaching Its Expiration Date

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:40:35 +0000

I got an email today from some friends who run a Bay Area IT consultancy. They deal almost exclusively in the PC trade but are Mac savvy themselves, so I was startled a bit by the subject line for their monthly Good News / Bad News newsletter: Two Very Bad Mac OSX Viruses.

Of course, I knew from chatter over the summer and from more recent conversation that the days of Macs being impervious to viruses and malware are probably numbered and sure enough, even Apple Support now officially recommends users install antivirus protection on Mac systems:

Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.

The Apple knowledge base article goes on to recommend programs from Intego, Symantec/Norton and McAfee, all of which are commercially licensed products.

My consulting friends recommended iAntivirus, which is a free program, and said, “We have never used it but reviewers say it is good for being a free program. Download and use all free software with caution!”

Another free Mac virus checker (though the developer gratefully accepts all donations) is ClamXav, an updated version of which was released on Monday; the program gets 4.25 stars at Mac Update.

So, is that it? Are we all going to opt for the flu shot from now on? If you’ve installed antivirus software on your Mac, tell us how it’s going and what you like. If you haven’t, or don’t plan to, tell us why in comments.

HomeSavvi.com - Your Home For Home Remodeling

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:36:00 +0000

Some questions

How will the site advertise itself?

In their own words

“Your home for home remodeling.”

Why it might be a killer

It is a convenient service that is rendered at no cost at all.

What it does

To quote the team behind this initiative, HomeSavvi has the purpose of making home remodeling “simpler, from start to finish”. To these purposes, the website offers a 4-step approach to the task at hand. These are “Dream”, “Plan”, “Build” and “Enjoy” and they cover the whole process - from gathering ideas and looking at products as well as estimating a budget, to the final stages of any remodeling process such as decorating and so forth. HomeSavvi also makes it possible to connect with others in your local community in order to carry any remodeling project to completion.

The site also includes a wide collection of green remodeling ideas and a section that will let you get advice from professionals and experts. Furthermore, a set of recommended organizational tools is part of the premises, and these include both visualization and estimating tools alongside a kitchen budget sheet that can be downloaded from the site at no cost whatsoever.

If you need further resources, it is always possible to sign up for the existing free newsletter. Just provide your e-mail address when prompted to have it delivered to your inbox.

Link: http://www.homesavvi.com
Our Review: http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/homesavvi-com-your-home-for-home-remodeling

Palm EOL's the Treo 680 and Various Accessories

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:58:01 +0000

This month's Palm Channelsource newsletter for its reseller partners has a large list of Palm peripherals now classified as having reached end-of-life status. In addition, it also makes the Treo 680 EOL status official, which has been expected for some time.

A rather surprising product that has just met its demise is Palm's most recent GPS Navigator by Garmin kit. This was Palm's only branded GPS solution officially listed as compatible with the Centro and was Palm's response to TomTom's withdrawal from the PDA-based GPS software market.

Palm Announces Expanded Treo Pro Availability

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:19:01 +0000

Treo Pro, is listed as now being available through tech product distributor giants D&H, Ingram Micro, and Tech Data according to the company's latest Channelsource newsletter. The Pro's SRP is still indicated as the launch price of $549, so the price drop some had speculated was imminent (myself included) is not happening for the foreseeable future.

Palm has also just announced that the Treo Pro is now available in Latin America from carriers in seven countries.

mojoPortal 2.2.7.9 (Default branch)

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:30:29 +0000

mojoPortal is a cross-platform object oriented Web site framework. It supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, Firebird, SQLite and MS SQL for the backend. It includes a content management system, forums, blogs, photo galleries, newsletter, polls, surveys, an event calendar, an RSS feed aggregator, and a skinnable design.

License: Common Public License

Changes:
This release adds a new option for multi-site installations to use a single set of users and roles across sites. Automatic 301 redirects for renamed pages with new URLs, and a 301 Redirect Manager for manually managing redirects.

MapMyPage.com - Add Google Maps To Your Site

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:22:00 +0000

In their own words

“The fastest, easiest way to add Google Maps to any website.”

Why it might be a killer

A service like this ensures that giving context to web-based information is an effortless task.

Some questions

What is the degree of customization at play?

What it does

This suitably-named initiative self-describes itself as “the fastest, easiest way to add Google Maps to any website”. Basically, MapMyPage enables any blogger or webmaster to add maps to all the locations mentioned in the webpage by simply copying and pasting one line of JavaScript.

Such a service clearly benefits both parties: webmasters add a touch of finesse and interactivity to their sites, whereas visitors can have immediate access to information that formerly would have been either laborious to get or simply unavailable. For instance, they can easily view a travel destination on their screens or get the directions to any local business straightaway, and even save addresses to a GPS.

The site comes complete with a FAQ and a wealth of live examples in case you want to see how this system is implemented, but the approach in itself is quite simple and this service is very easy to put into practice. Consult www.mapmypage.com for additional information. Besides, you can sign up for the free monthly newsletter and have updates delivered straight to your inbox.

Link: http://www.mapmypage.com
Our Review: http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/mapmypage-com-add-google-maps-to-your-site

Facebook Advertising Newsletter

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:15:55 +0000

Facebook Advertising Newsletter: Facebook is taking a step in the right direction and helping to educate their advertisers with monthly newsletters. Marketing professionals that are new to facebook need some hand holding as this eco-system for ad units and social ads is anything but traditional. This Facebook Adverting newsletter is a step in the right direction, yet there is so much more that facebook can do to educate their potential advertisers.

Here is how facebook can increase advertising revenue with some simple educational tools:
* Clearer case studies with solid metrics
* Best Practices & Tips
* Help advertisers understand which ad units might work best to meet their objectives and attain ROI
* Step by step video tutorials and PDF files
* Webinar on different advertising, marketing and branding options: Detailed walk thru; not a sales pitch
* Improve the reporting tool sets, this area of facebook needs a lot of work
*Facebook needs to test their newsletters before sending them out. Notice all the broken images in the facebook advertising newsletter screenshot below. This is how it looks in GMAIL.

The Wall Street Journal had a nice article last week that is worth a read: Facebook Tries to Woo Marketers

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Widgadget releases blogger specific widget

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:44:06 +0000

Widgadget, a project of an interactive marketing agency Iris Experience, has launched a widget which is specifically targeting bloggers. With the new widget bloggers will be able to promote their feeds along with Twitter and also display it to their blog in order to earn reader loyalty. Also readers can get their favorite blogger’s widget and put it on their social networks or blog. According to the press release:

Apart from attracting readers, bloggers look after reader loyalty. Nowadays, readers can subscribe to a newsletter and receive the latest contents directly in the inbox, or they can subscribe to the RSS feeds and receive the posts in a news reader, which help increase the reader loyalty.

A solution exists now to promote and spread posts in all the social networks exponentially and increase audience. This solution is the widget: a small application that enables to convert web content into an interactive application, easy to use and viral. Blog readers are informed in real time of any post published into a highly customized widget. This is how readers are converted into leaders, and it is a way to increase its audience exponentially.

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Related Articles at Startup Meme:

AOL’s new homepage gets social

Mpowerplayer launches widget for mobile games

ShareThis (to) Acquire madKast to Boost its Widget Making Technology

‘FunMobility’ lets bloggers sell mobile content with MoMoney widget

‘MyBlogLog’ adds ‘Disqus’ and ‘IntenseDebate’

Google’s widget to help customize 404 error pages

Expression Newsletter Article - A Step-by-Step Introduction to Styling, Templating, and Animating in Expression Blend

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:37:00 +0000

Just a note to say my first part of a six part Silverlight tutorial for Expression Newsletter has just been sent out, you can read the full tutorial here:

http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd279541.aspx

- hopefully after this tutorial you will be familiar with the basic concepts of styles, templates and storyboards within Blend and produce a styled control like this:

Next time, we'll add some advanced styling and animations, but this should be a gentle introduction to Blend for noob designers and developers interested in designing for Silveright, WPF and Surface!

Please let me know how you get on with the tutorial, this is how my colleague Sari approached the tutorial - showing how free you are to be creative in Blend!

Send Free Email Newsletters With YMLP

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:01:55 +0000

One of the best ways to interact and keep your website, blog, or customers coming back for more is through an email newsletter. If you have a loyal following, they are happy to hear from you. But, too often you have to pay for an email newsletter service because sending out an email to thousands of people from your regular email account will brand you as a spammer.

Your Mailing List Provider, or YMLP for short, is an email newsletter provider that offers a great, full-featured free account for sending email newsletters. There is nothing to install with YMLP. Just setup an account on their website and you are good to go.

With the free account you get:

up to 1,000 subscribers
the ability to send one newsletter per calendar day
the ability to send up to 1,000 emails per month
plain text or graphical (HTML) newsletters
mail merge
scheduling options
the ability to send attachments
embed images or have YMLP host the images
create contact lists
use their HTML WYSIWYG editor
import your contact list
track your readers

If you have already created your newsletter in another program and have access to the HTML code you can import it directly into the YMLP interface. Don’t know HTML? YMLP offers a WYSIWYG interface that works similar to any word processing program.

Add one contact at a time or paste contacts into a form or upload your contacts from an existing file on your computer (Excel, plain text, or CSV formats).

Once you have created your newsletter, it is always good to send yourself a test message to make sure it looks the way you want and all of the links work. YMLP offers a testing feature in the same window where you send your newsletter.

When you are ready to send your newsletter you can schedule it to send on a certain day and time or send it immediately. You can use the reporting option to find out how many people actually read your newsletter or click-through from your newsletter to your blog or website.

If you decide not to use the YMLP service for a while, your account is switched to “sleep mode” and your data is safely archived. When you reactivate your account you will be able to access your data, your archives and your settings.

Not only does YMLP give you the ability to send an email newsletter they also give you HTML coding that you can add to your site that will allow your visitors to subscribe to your newsletter.

I have used Your Mailing List Provider (YMLP) for many years and have always been happy with their service. Do you use them? Or do you use another free email newsletter service? If so, which one and why do you like it?

(By) Wendy Limauge authors several blogs including the The Computer Lady Online and Shopping Gems.

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Tags:email, mailing list, newsletter, WYSIWYG editor