Your neighbor just lost her job and you are worried if you might lose yours. Suddenly the prospect of not making your mortgage and your bills seems like a frightening reality.

Irrespective of where you live and work, these are difficult times of recession, and we are all affected. The unemployment rate is on an increase and even if you have a job things are tense and tight. One of the worst side effects of a recession is the financial and psychological damages it causes in the lives of families. Could working from home be the answer to your prayers? Working from home offers you many advantages in such times and even when the economy is booming.

Why Consider Working from Home?

• From a nanny to a freelance writer and internet business owner, PLR-Direct.com owner Courtney Raminez is the epitome of a mom who wants to stay at home and work.
• Sherryn McBride recognized the isolation that home based business owners feel and introduced Marketing Talk. This home based mobile marketing service has a lot of takers, making McBride’s story a success.
• Julie Aigner Clark is the brains behind the popular Baby Einstein videos and products, a business that began at home.

Here is a look at what working from home could mean to you:

• Financially Independent: When you are self employed and work from home you are independent of an employer and so the harder you work, the more you can earn. Unlike a 9 to 5 job where you have a specified income you can earn more by working from home simply by adding more working hours. On the other hand if you were to do the same at the office you wouldn’t get any additional remuneration.

You are in control of the money that flows in from your business and can hence accordingly increase or reduce your expenditure. This would ensure that you spend within your means. Professionals working from home also state that they are more in control of their finances simply because they know how much money they have to spend and save.

• In Control: Since you determine the amount of work you do and your own hours you are in control of the situation and feel more secure. You don’t have to worry about getting the pink slip. Also as you are the head of your business you know what to expect. For instance if the profits from your business or work are low one week you can analyze the situation and work on them. Now if you were at an office you would do your share of the work and never realize when the company was starting to go downhill.

Your working hours are your own and you can adjust them according to your family situation. While experts do recommend that you keep to a certain schedule you do have much more freedom that you would in an office. When you work from home you are better connected to your partner and your children. And in difficult financial times family bonding is a great source of support and inspiration.

• Scope to Expand: It is possible for you to have a home based business or job and also dabble in other work. For instance you may be a freelance journalist and also start a mail order business from home. You could also become an affiliate and earn income simply based on the great content your site offers and the traffic it directs to various other business sites.

Working from home is a great option and offers versatility and freedom like no other working situation does.

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To simplify matters the search engine also has what it calls a ‘snip’. This is essentially a horizontal heat map of how well a product is rated. This is great when you find two products that have equal ratings, then the color displayed on the ‘snip’ tells you where each product truly stands. The ‘snip’ uses shades of red, yellow and green to indicate product popularity. A product with plenty of positive reviews will show more of green on the ‘snip’. While one that isn’t so popular will show yellow or red.

Summize was acquired by twitter and experts expect big things to come out of this development. Statistics indicate that in March 2008 Summize processed 71,203 queries a week. In July 2008 the numbers rose to an astonishing 14.8 million.

What Summize does for you?

The internet offers a plethora of information, most of which internet users can’t access because of lack of time. This is where Summize comes in. The search engine helps you find information, trends and products that are important to you.

If you have always wanted a balanced and just review of products rather than have to read umpteen reviews to make up your mind then Summize is just right for you. Users love that Summize is unaffected by the marketing of a product and sticks to the value it offers its users. Summize can also be used to search twitter and also search for the newest trends in real time.

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Why Do People Blog?

There are many reasons why people take the time and effort to blog. The most obvious of them is to express on an issue that is important to them. Bloggers write about everything from their fashion troubles, dating tips to childhood memories. They also find that blogging is a great way to reminisce and store those memories in a rather eloquent and beautiful way.

Blogs are also used as a means to find like minded internet users and interact with them. So you have blogs on cooking, IT, gardening and virtually every possible interest in the world. Marketing gurus also found blogs to be the internet’s gift to them. Blogs are a wonderful way for a company to keep its employees as well as customers updated. It is a place to stimulate conversation on industry related issues and also throw open ideas that may be worth developing.

How Does Blogging Affect Your Life?

• The Right Connection: Blogs are a great way to connect with people. Parents find it an effective way to communicate with their teenagers. What they won’t hear, they may understand when they read, right? If you feel passionately about an issue then a blog may be your way of spreading your ideas and thoughts. Blogs are an excellent tool for non-government organizations and charity groups to consider using.
• Eternalize: What used to be stored in family albums can be done on the internet now. So don’t worry about your photographs fading or about forgetting family stories (we all have our unique ones), just blog about them and get friends and family reading.
• Emotional Release: Many bloggers admit that writing and posting a blog is almost cathartic and great way to deal with stress. For people who are unable to connect with others due to abuse issues, blogs are a safe way to put yourself out there and connect with people who understand and empathize. In fact talking about a difficult past or present is seen to be the first step towards healing and achieving better social connections.
• Advertise: If you have a small business or a home based one then blogging is a cheap and effective means of advertising. It provides your business a personal touch and has people returning to your blog over and again.

Whatever your reasons for blogging, it is bound to improve and change your life in myriad ways. Blog on!

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Corporate Communication

A large amount of corporate communication is done online. This has several advantages, the most important being that it facilitates quick communication and makes it easier to make and alter decisions. This is, as most business owners state, the secret to the success of any business.

For companies and businesses located across the world, the internet offers a terrific information platform for them to communicate and interact on. Conferences and meetings can be held online at a collective decision reached quickly.

Now, imagine having to coordinate with offices world wide without the services of the internet.

Employers can also use blogs to communicate with employees and keep them informed of key management and business decisions. They may also be used to improve employee morale and to receive feedback.

Marketing

It is almost impossible for any company to not consider an online presence for its business. Not only can businesses create and establish a brand identity but also conduct business online. You can reach a target audience with marketing techniques developed especially for them. Online marketing campaigns are less expensive as compared with conventional marketing and advertising. It is interesting to note that despite global recession online sales have not been as badly affected.

Corporate Internet Policy

Corporate internet usage is vital but there are is also scope for abuse. Research indicates that 70% of traffic to porn sites occurs during the working day i.e. 9 to 5. Not only may your employees be downloading content and images that may pose a threat to your computers and IT network but may also lead to harassment charges. It is important for any business to have a corporate internet policy laying down essential guidelines and rules.

Are your employees busy updating their profiles on social networks rather than working hard on their designated tasks? Social networks can be rather addictive and regularly accessing them through the day can dramatically affect employee performance. They may also intentionally or unintentionally post comments that hurt your business. Research shows that 30 to 40% of corporate internet usage is unrelated to the business. This could include downloading pictures, music and movies. This not just increases your internet bills but also reduces employee efficiency.

Corporate espionage is another issue that businesses need to worry about. It is easy to slip out confidential corporate information such as marketing strategies, product development details and details of clients and contracts. An unhappy employee may also give out similar information on social groups and forums and cause enormous damage.

IT systems may also be under threat when employees visit unsafe sites and their computers are infected by viruses. As most office computers are linked, it would take only a short period of time for the virus to cause havoc on all your systems. Electronic documents stored on these computers would be compromised and could also be destroyed.

While corporate internet usage has many advantages the manner in which the internet is accessed in offices needs to be monitored and assessed carefully.

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Finding a job can be quite a difficult task, and in an economic recession the situation is worse. Most businesses aren’t recruiting right now and an average job search can last more than the conventional three to six months period. Social networks offer internet users across the world to reach out and interact with each other. Most people use the networks to do more than just keep in touch with friends and family, they also interact with likeminded people who share similar professional interests. With the global recession affecting job markets all over the globe more and more people are looking at social networks to get jobs.

How Do Social Networks Help?

According to Jobvite Social Recruitment Survey, 80% of firms intend to use social networks actively for recruitment. While 76% of firms who participated in the survey placed enormous faith in employee referrals, there are many ways that social networks can be useful in finding jobs; here is a look at some of them.

• Many professionals who have been laid off have used social networks to help find contacts that can provide referrals for jobs in various businesses. Experts say that internal referrals are valued highly in most organizations and work wonders when you are looking for a job. If you are looking for a job then the first thing to do is get the message across to your contacts on the social network. The response you can expect can range from support to information on companies that may be recruiting.
• Social networks offer you a chance to stay in contact with the many people who you have worked with over the years. These contacts are more precious than your business rolodex as the social network helps you stay in contact with them on a regular basis. A large number of people who are looking for jobs may find their dream job quite within their reach, if only they would get talking on social networks.
• What better place to look for IT jobs but on the Internet and on social networks. Companies such as e-mail marketing firm Lyris Inc. have a strong presence on Facebook as also on twitter.
• Some social networks such as Twitter have applications that may be independent of the network and help users find jobs on the network.
• There are groups on social networks that encourage unemployed professionals on the network and help build contacts.

Why Businesses Prefer to Hire on Social Networks?

Many businesses like Lyris Inc. prefer to check the social network portfolio of prospective employees. This gives them an insight into what makes a person tick, the kind of personal and professional goals they hold and the kind of interaction they have on the network. Social networks are a great place to find just the right employees who are both motivated and enthusiastic about a job. Finding employees on a social network can range from including the required information on the company’s home page on the network to sending out messages such as tweets on Twitter.

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A search engine regularly crawls websites and indexes them. According to the search query the index is searched and according to relevancy the search results are processed and presented. There are also website specific search engines that help you search through the website for specific content.

For both internet users and businesses it is important to understand which are the top search engines. For people seeking information this would ensure that they use search engines that are particularly effective, while for businesses it is vital that they are able to gain good rankings on the search engine results of the most prominent search engines. Also it is important that web masters and internet marketers focus their attention on the top search engines when developing an internet marketing and SEO strategy.

Top Search Engines

Google is the most popular of all search engines. In the United States it has been the top search engine for the last four years in a row. According to Hitwise in May 2009 Google received 72.92% of searches, while Yahoo! Received 16.92% of search queries. In the same month Live Search, previously known as MSN Search, received 5.68% of search queries and Ask had a share of 3.95% of the total search queries.

Google

Google is the top search engine and with reason. It simplifies the search process tremendously and allows internet users to refine their search effectively. It allows users to search locally in their region, search specifically for images and also performs product searches. Google is easy for internet users to use and because of its innovative ideas on simplifying search options it seems to be especially popular with internet users.

Google also makes it easier for businesses to advertise on the search engine and provides plenty of resources and tips for them to use.

Yahoo!

After Google, Yahoo! was the second search engine to change to crawler based listings in 2004. It also offers directory listings that have been approved by human editors. The search engine allows internet users to perform searches as well as search through its Yellow Page listings. The search engine also has a specialized shopping search engine that seems to be especially popular with people searching the internet for products.

Like Google, Yahoo! also offers paid placement ads and businesses can also pay to be included in the Yahoo! directory, after their sites have been approved by the editors.

Live Search

Known as MSN Search earlier the search engine has its share of dedicated users. Live Search offers features such as additional search results on the same page, this reduces the time required to run additional searches. The users also have the choice to limit the amount of information shown for each listing.

Ask

Ask or Ask Jeeves is a search engine popular for the format in which it processes search queries. A user can run a search as a question they would usually ask another person, in this case good ol’ Jeeves. Initially the search engine depended on its editors who found the best sites for each query that was run on the search engine. Today, Ask also has a crawler based listing system. Ask has sponsored listings that businesses can consider to ensure inclusion in relevant search results.

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Small businesses are the most to profit from Web 2.0 sites. Social network sites such as Twitter bring businesses and customers closer than ever before. One of the key reasons why Twitter is great for small businesses is that they actually do care about their customers and what better way to let them know than through chirpy tweets. Twitter is a social network and micro blog that lets users post tweets in 140 characters or less. Thus, small businesses have to know what they want to say and when and how to use Twitter in effective and versatile ways to get through to their target audience.

Photo courtesy twitter

One of the biggest worries that small businesses have is that they don’t have time to spend on Twitter and can’t constantly tweeting. The important thing about Twitter is to understand how your Twitter account or accounts can be managed with minimum effort. Twitter tools make this task easier and simpler. Here is a list of the top five Twitter tools that small businesses should consider.

Top 5 Tools for Small Businesses

Search tools: Some tools are part of the Twitter site while others have been developed by third party developers who have recognized a need and accordingly created a service. Small businesses can simplify the task of looking for their target audience by either using http://twitter.com/search or a tool such as Twitter Hawk. The idea is that the tool locates tweets that include search terms provided by you. Thereafter you can accordingly follow up.

TweetLater: Most small business owners don’t have the time to tweet on an hourly basis and often they don’t have the time to send out notifications at the right time. Systemize your business’ tweets by using http://www.tweetlater.com a service allows you to create tweets and schedule a timeline for them. This essentially means that you can take some time in the week and create and schedule tweets and not worry about them for the next few days.

Twhirl or Tweet Deck: Opt for desktop based Twitter tools that allow you to organize your fans and followers and keep up with tweets on your own terms. Twhirl and Tweet Deck both offer Twitter users the convenience of being able to manage their Twitter account without actually being on the site.

Twitqpon: http://www.twitqpon.com is a Twitter tool that allows you to promote your business on Twitter by offering twitqpons to your followers and friends. This is also a great way to keep them interested in your business and your tweets.

My Tweeple: If you are worried about keeping a list of who you are friends with and who is following you, use http://www.mytweeple.com to keep a track of them. The tool also allows you to make changes to your list.

There are plenty of Twitter tools that can be used to make your business presence felt on Twitter. Check out the latest list of applications on http://twitdom.com. Twitter is found to be an effective mode of communication and advertising for both online and offline businesses.

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Far too often data centers are little more that cupboards stuffed with electronic equipment and wires that imitate a jungle, classic grounds for power outage, fire and loss of data. With rapid changes in technology and protocol, there is a lot you can do to ensure that your data center is well protected and provides the right environment for efficient service.

Fighting Fire

One of the important concerns should be the data center’s preparedness to fight fire. With large amounts of electronic equipment that draw enormous amounts of power and release heat, fire is a big risk and instead of negating it, it is smart to be well prepared for the worst situation. In case of a fire most of the data center would be affected rather quickly due to the manner in which it is designed. Thus, fire fighting equipment as well as the manner in which the data center is organized is important. Conventionally firefighters use water, foam, chemicals and axes to control a fire, none of which are good for a data center.

Experts recommend that waterless fire suspension equipment be used. This technology is developed keeping in mind fires in areas where electronic equipment is the primary concern. Waterless fire suspension is safe to use around electrical gadgets, eco-friendly and easy to clean up. It is also easy to install and less expensive than other firefighting equipment.

Keeping it Cool

It is crucial that a data center is cool and has a well thought out cooling system that caters to power outages, is eco-friendly and brings down the electricity bills. From using the chilly winter air to cool a data center to using power to make ice through the night and use the melting ice to cool data centers in the day, there are innovative and wonderful ways to keep data centers cool and environment friendly.

Location

It is important that a data center offers a discreet location and is well protected from outside attack. A data center, however big or small should have security protocol that keeps it protected. Also placing a data center close to an electrical substation helps bring down the utility bills.

Dual Network Providers

Dual network providers are recommended by experts to counter the risk of power outages. It is based on the simple principle that if two different kinds of hardware are used the chances are low that both will be down at the same time. This also provides the data center a certain amount of flexibility during a time of crisis. There are many variables that need to be studied before a data center opts for this strategy, the most important being the selection of reliable network providers.

Automated System Backups

The most trustworthy technique to keep data safe is also the most basic one, keeping system backups. If a data center offers automated system backups in case it is affected by virus, fire or power outage, the data is still safe.

Automated Failover to an Alternate Location

Some data centers offer automated failover to an alternate location. This essentially means that backup for the data center system are maintained in a remote location and in case of a failure of any kind the efficiency of the data center is still maintained.

External Monitoring

Even with all precautions a failure at the data center can occur.  External website monitoring by a service such as Web Service Guard is important to alert a data center conductivity problems.  Relaying the downtime information allows for the problem to be addressed quickly to shorten the span of the outage.

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Social networks are ranked high on internet users’ list of importance, in fact in certain age groups it is ahead of e-mail sites. They provide internet users a common platform to interact on and play a vital role in the lives of the users. From catching up with friends and family, to announcing a promotion or sharing pictures, social networks help do it all. In fact experts find that this process is especially useful for teenagers who are still undergoing the socialization process and need to understand how to interact with others.

So which are the top social networks? The numbers seem to keep on coming and the answers aren’t as straight forward as declaring one social network better than the other. Here is what the numbers say:

Social Network Numbers

According to a survey conducted by Nielsen Online in December 2008, MySpace ranked on top of the list with a traffic of 58,418,000 unique visitors who spent about 1 hour and 40 minutes on the social network. While the network showed maximum traffic it was also noted that it had dropped by 3% since the last year when it had a unique audience of 60,104,000.

On the other hand Facebook, the social network that ranked second had unique visitors of 55,217,000, who spent over 2 hours on the social network. Facebook recorded a 145% growth in unique visitors from December 2007, when its unique audience was 22,574,000. Also the time spent per person on the network has gone up by 85%.

Classmates Online, LinkedIn and Reunion.com came in next. What was clearly notable was the rapid increase in popularity of Twitter. The social network in December 2007 had a unique audience of 349,000, which rose to 2,665,000 in December 2008. This adds up to an astounding growth of 664%. The survey indicated that the fastest growing social networks were Twitter (664%), Tagged (421%) and Ning (303%)

The Numbers Keep Rolling In

Additional statistics from comScore, 2009 also indicate a similar trend. This data is based on a comparison between the traffic received by social networks in February 2008 and February 2009. According to this survey too, MySpace ranks first on the list of most popular social networks with a unique audience of 70,303,000. However, the numbers have grown only by 3% from February 2008 when the unique audience to the site was of 67,957,000. Facebook was second on the list with a growth of 77% in its unique audience (57,375,000). Classmates Online, MyLife.com and Buzznet came in next.

AOL Community showed maximum growth amongst the social networks, 9,513%. Its unique audience rose to 7,261,000. This was followed by Twitter, which showed a growth of 1,085% since the last year. It unique audience rose from 3,400,000 to 4,033,000 in February 2009.

Social networks provide users the opportunity to keep in touch with friends and family, and also to get involved in communities that help them share a common interest or passion. One of the top reasons why social networks are increasingly becoming the most popular sites that internet users visit is the fact that it allows them social contact with others even if they can’t meet up in the real world. Social networks are truly connecting people across countries.

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Who Gets to Untangle?

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Communication is the cornerstone for successful relationships, business or otherwise. The internet has changed the face of global communication and the manner in which people reach out to each other. While e-mails are excellent for quick communication of  a message there is still much to be said about having a verbal conversation with someone and ensuring that it is a ‘done deal’. Also in case of an e-mail you would be dependent on when the receiver will open his inbox and receive your message. While with a verbal conversation you are both available at the same time and hence the air is clearer for discussions and free of ambiguity.

What is VoIP?

VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol allows you to have a verbal conversation with a person without having to pick up your analog phone. VoIP has become rather popular because of many reasons; the most important is the reduced costs involved in VoIP.

While an analog phone service involves two service networks the VoIP is limited to one service network and this brings down the costs of the service drastically. VoIP uses a single network for both data and voice transfer and therefore the service provider has to maintain these applications together. This can be done with a smaller staff than if the service used two different networks for the purpose.

VoIP for Small and Medium Sized Businesses

VoIP offers small and medium businesses many advantages that make it the future of business communication. Here is a look at some of the factors that are convincing people to shift from an analog phone service to VoIP.

• VoIP is especially great for companies that have offices across the world or has a global clientele. This requires regular international calls and VoIP tremendously brings down the cost of such conversation.
• Since VoIP allows employees to communicate effectively even when they are on the move it adds to their productivity. This is especially great for businessmen and employees who travel often and need to be in touch with their home offices. VoIP facilitates great communication without the enormous bills.
• The mobility and flexibility that VoIP provides allows professionals world wide the opportunity to work from home or even as they move. In other words VoIP is helping change the conventional work schedule and yet not effecting productivity.
• With VoIP small and medium sized businesses can have a communication network at par with bigger corporations, without the large investment.
• VoIP throws open many business opportunities for small businesses and also allows them to refine their customer service.
• It is especially great for businesses that have a virtual presence. Home based businesses can greatly benefit from this service too.

VoIP offers many options to its users. From call recording and audio conferences to online reception desks, VoIP is truly changing the face of communication.

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How to Run a 24X7 Business

Just because your business runs 24 x 7 does not mean that you have to do the same. What you do need to do is make smart choices in maintaining your website. It is important that irrespective of the hour a customer visits your website he or she is met with the same service and opportunity to convert to a customer. The most important is that your site should be up and running. Here are the top things you need to consider when running an online business.

Are you truly open 24 x 7?

Though an online business means that you have the opportunity to do business at any time, is this actually true of your business? Often when an internet user may search for a certain product or information, he may end up on a site that is down and open an error message page. If this happens on your website too, then you are losing visitors even before they enter your website. The maintenance of an online business reflects how seriously its owners take it. And if your website is often down, it doesn’t inspire confidence in your potential customers.

Downtime Real Time Reporting

For a 24 x 7 business to run efficiently it needs a reliable and competent web host to ensure that it is up and running all the time. Sometimes glitches do occur in the system and your website may be down, but what is important is the reaction time you have to get things rectified. If your website is down and you have real time monitoring and reporting for your website, you would know right away when your website is down. This gives you time to quickly get the repair process going. On the other hand if you have called it a day or decide to go away for the weekend and don’t have real time monitoring, you may realize the error only when you access the site.

Web Service Guard is a service that offers real time monitoring and reporting of downtime episodes. It is not software that would interfere with the running or security of your site. A monitoring service is essential for any business which wants to run efficiently and 24 x 7.

Automated Systems

Whether it is the shopping cart, payment gateway, the customer support or content management, opt for automated systems that simplify your tasks. Use programs and systems that make it easier for you to run a 24 x 7 business efficiently. Automated reminders for customers and the business also help the business run smoothly.

Prompt and Courteous Customer Service

Treat your online business as you would any other. Ensure that the site is clean and offers great navigation and makes it easy for your target audience to find the information and products they are looking for. Do ensure your customer service is prompt and courteous. Bad product can be taken back but you can never take back bad customer service.

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It is important for any business, big or small, to maintain a close connection with its customers. A blog can help a business keep a finger on the pulse of its target audience and understand what makes them click. Blogs can, and are being used in versatile and creative ways. They are a business’ link to its employees, customers and target audience. Can such an opportunity and resource be left unused by any business?

Big Businesses that Blog

Some of the businesses that understand the power of a corporate blog and use it effectively include bigwigs such as Dell, Lenovo, BBC, South West Airlines, Marriott International, McDonald’s, HP, Boeing and General Motors. Blogs owned by these businesses use unique and creative ways to stay in touch with their customers and keep them informed. They also aim to elicit a response from their audience. In fact the General Motors blog uses content developed by internet users from sites such as YouTube and Flickr.

While in some cases such as Mariott International, the business owner or the employer is the blogger, in others such as Accenture or Adobe employees do the blogging. This brings in a unique perspective to the business blogs. Blogs are also syndicated and this makes it easier for the target audience to keep up with new posts on corporate blogs and keeps their interest whetted.

More than Just Business

A blog gives a business a voice to express its policies, its views and its opinions. It also gives it the power to offer key advice on an array of issues that may or may not be related to the products or services it sells. In cases where big businesses effectively use blogs they by pass the conventional public relations message and seem to come from the heart. This is perhaps why so many people around the world read corporate blogs every day.

The Accenture blogs, the company has as many as eight, is a treat for internet users. Rather than focus on the services they provide and how they may change a business the blogs are written by some of the many bright minds that the company boasts of. From consulting, hiring, communication and business to finding a balance in your life, the blogs cover them all.

To blog well it is important to understand that your blog is a unique connection with your customers and opens a link that has great potential. It is important that a big business interests, informs, excites and most of all keep internet users coming back for more. Blog on!

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What are the reasons internet users decide to visit some sites over again and not even stay on some websites for more than a few seconds? This may seem like the million dollar question, but the answers are pretty simple. Here are the top three things that put off internet users.

• Slow download: In an age where a click brings forward virtually all the information in the world, it is not surprising that internet users are turned off if a website takes too long to open. The solution to this lies in great web service, broad bandwidth and light web pages.
• Error message: When internet users click on a link from a search engine or from a link on another website, an error message page can put them off the website completely. It is important that a website is up and running. And at times when it may be down real time website monitoring and reporting will help ensure that the error is rectified at the earliest.
• Bad navigation: Internet users are also put off by complicated and bad navigation. It makes it difficult to move through the website and find the resources that a person may want. It also undermines a visitor’s confidence in the website.

It is crucial for any website to be up and running for almost all the time. The internet offers businesses the opportunity to stay open 24X7 and it is important not to lose out on this unique opportunity. If your site is down, it is as good as shutting the doors of your business and placing an enormous ‘Closed’ sign on it. Why would visitors take an online business seriously if the owner doesn’t? Web Service Guard offers real time website monitoring and reporting. The service requires no changes to a website’s security or firewall and also provides insight into the experience of visitors to the website.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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Social networks have become the lifeline of communication for many a working person across the world. They are the platform that people share with friends and family to catch up on what is happening in each other’s life. People have little time to actualize socialize in the real world that makes social networks especially important.

Should social networks be banned at the workplace is a rather serious and volatile discussion. And it should be handled with consideration, care and forethought. It is easy for a business to ban social networks from the workplace but, should they do this without considering the advantages that the experience of being on the sites brings to the company.

To Ban or Not to Ban

The Barracuda Networks’ Web survey revealed the following as the top reasons given by employers for wanting to ban social networks at the workplace:

• Exposure of computers and network to virus and spyware on the internet.
• Drop in employee productivity.
• Affect on available bandwidth to the business.
• Liability exposure
• Leaking of crucial corporate information and data.

Interestingly a large number of businesses use social networks to recruit employees. Then it seems strange that they want to ban the same sites where they found their employees. Social networks offer an efficient and effective mode of communication that cannot be negated and simply banning the sites would be like throwing the baby away with the bath water.

According to an AT&T survey and other research studies access to social network sites at the workplace actually increases employee productivity and efficiency. Employees also stated that access to a wide and rich source of information on social networks often provided them solutions to problems and also inspired them creatively.

74% of European employers stated the following benefits to allowing access to social networks at the workplace:

• Access to information and solution to problems.
• A medium of sharing knowledge and information between employees, suppliers and customers.
• Basis for better team building and internal structure in the workplace.

An online Nielsen survey shows that 65% of respondents watched YouTube videos at worked. And what is startling is that a section of the younger working population said that they were willing to quit their jobs if they were not allowed to access Facebook at work.

What Next?

Clearly the use of social networks is important to employees and plays a crucial role in their lives and should not be banned at the workplace. What is important is to specify how such use may be permissible in the workplace. Employee-employer interactions are essential to clarify issues such as how much time may be spent online and that company information should not be revealed, knowingly or unknowingly.

Some experts suggest that having a company presence on social networks, in the form of a group, help bind employees and strengthen the corporate team. It is interesting to note that over 40,000 MySpace groups and 4,000 Facebook groups are either company or employee based.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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Most visitors to your business website click on a URL link either on a search engine result, on another site or on an ad and then are directed to your website. Now imagine their response if your website takes a while to open or worse still if they are met with an error page. Most internet users spare only a few seconds to decide if a website is worth staying on. If these crucial moments are spent looking at a blank page the chances are that you may lose out on potential customers.

The internet has been growing rapidly since its inception and in recent times its growth has been rather astonishing. In an internet convention this year it was revealed that the internet is growing by 40% every year. While according to Deloitte Telecommunication Predictions the traffic on the internet doubles every 12 to 15 months. One of the key reasons for a slow down in connectivity is the increased use of the internet worldwide and the manner in which it is being used. Today more and more user generated content is being uploaded and downloaded as are heavy audio and video files. To a large extent this too affects the speed of the internet.

Research shows that increased internet usage worldwide is dragging the speed of connectivity and unless infrastructural changes are made things may get worse.

How is your business affected?

Every time a visitor to your website finds that response is slow on your site they may opt to leave and visit a rival site. This means you are losing out on revenue and perhaps even on loyal customers. If you are wondering if the situation is hopeless since the use of the internet will continue to rise and you have no control over it, take heart. There are ways to ensure that your website offers excellent connectivity and speed.

Website Monitoring

The files for your website are stored on a server. The bandwidth available to you as well as server performance plays a large role in the manner in which you can conduct your business. What is most important is that down time for your website is minimized and in case of a problem it should to be rectified at the earliest. Hence, website monitoring is crucial to the success of your business. It is vital that you receive real time down time alerts and are also kept informed of the manner in which visitors experience your website.

Experts find that certain applications on a site require a faster performance to inspire confidence in the site. This would include shopping cart and payment gateway applications. Whenever a visitor shops on your site it is important that the shopping as well as payment is done efficiently, any stalling of these applications gets internet users worried. You can ensure that a certain percentage of your bandwidth is dedicated to these applications.

Web Service Guard service offers external website monitoring and offers real time alerts and reports uptime history and metrics. It provides you excellent inputs on how visitors experience your site and how it can be improved.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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Every time you surf the internet do you worry about your virus protection? Do you wonder why virus developers work so hard to make life miserable for so many internet and computer users worldwide? If your computer has been affected by a virus you know how frustrating and disheartening it can get. Viruses, worms and Trojan horses are every computer user and website owner’s worst nightmare. There have been many viruses to hit the internet but some have been worse than others. Here is a look at the worst viruses to hit the internet.

The First Virus

The Creeper is considered to be the first computer virus and while it did not cause much damage it finds mention on our list for being the first of its kind. The Creeper would leave a message, “I’m the creeper, catch me if you can!” The Reaper was the first anti-virus, a code written to detect and destroy the Creeper. While the earlier viruses deleted files and caused disruption in the hard drive, at least the damage was obvious. The viruses we see today are more harmful as they usually camouflage themselves on the computer and can hack into to crucial personal and financial information without you even realizing the damage being caused on your computer.

Boot sector viruses were especially dangerous as every time a floppy was inserted into the computer it was infected and then the virus spread to the next computer the floppy was used on. This made it easy to spread the virus. With the increase in popularity of the internet and its usage, it became easier to spread viruses.

Viruses and How they Spread

The Klez is a virus that has been around for years and has transformed into many forms. It spreads through e-mails and spoofs e-mail addresses. It uses a person’s address book to send out infected e-mails. To make matters worse developers pretended to offer a solution to control Klez and caused large spread havoc on computers.

The ExploreZip came as an attachment with a spammed mail and once the attachment was opened it used the address book to spam and spread to more people. This virus affected word documents as well as operating systems.

The Storm snuck into computer systems across the globe when people open a file of what they thought was video of Europe flooding in 2007. Later the same virus was used on greeting cards and on news stories.

Meet Melissa, the stripper who was inspiration for her namesake virus that overloaded servers and caused many a corporate IT system to slow down and caused loss of work hours and revenue. Melissa was recognized for its spamming and the fact that it went undetected for quite a while.

Nimda was released in the same week as the 9/11 attacks in the US. The virus had a wide mode of spreading and included e-mails, network shares, websites and even used Internet Information Server vulnerabilities.

Benjamin posed as music and video files and used the Kaaza file share folder to spread. It replicated itself and overloaded the hard drive.

Configure Virus

Towards the end of the 2008 the Conficker virus surfaced and by January 2009 it was estimated that it had affected 9 million computers across the world. Conficker C is also known as the Configure virus. The threat was that on April 1st, all computers affected by the Configure virus would come under the remote control of a master computer. Microsoft even announced a bounty of quarter of a million dollars on the writer of the virus. Online safety scan by Microsoft and regularly updates of patches are recommended against the virus. The impact of the virus is difficult to describe as in many cases users of infected computers may not even realize that the Configure virus has affected their computers.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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Is IE in Trouble?

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]]> http://www.webserviceguard.com/uncategorized/worst-viruses-to-hit-the-internet.php/feed 0 http://www.webserviceguard.com/techmishmash/is-ie-in-trouble.php http://www.webserviceguard.com/techmishmash/is-ie-in-trouble.php#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:23:51 +0000 cnugent http://www.webserviceguard.com/?p=930

It has been largely praised and criticized but Internet Explorer still remains the choice of browser for most internet users. There have been umpteen instances of bugs and vulnerabilities that have effected the IE and then patches been released to restrict further damage. However the problems with IE seem to continue. Anyone who has ever used IE would have at some time or the other encountered the many glitches the browser seems to support. While these problems have existed for a long time now, the reason why these bugs and vulnerabilities are being focused upon is that internet users have become aware of the many security risks they can pose.

IE Bugs and More

Virtually all versions of IE have some problem or the other and even with release of patches the problems don’t seem to end. Much of the situation has been caused due to design flaws, inadequate security checks and due to third parties.

Some of the bugs and vulnerabilities on the IE include the following:

• Flaws in the Internet Explorer’s cross domain security model allow information to be shared between windows of different domains when certain dialog boxes are opened. So for instance if you are shopping online on one domain or checking your online internet banking account and also have another window open for another domain crucial financial information and passwords can be swiped away from your computer by a remote computer and misused.

This security risk also poses the problem that your computer can be accessed and controlled by a remote computer.

• Another security risk that the IE poses is that the ‘showhelp ’ function allows plug ins without the necessary security protocol. This could allow a malicious attacker to enter codes on to your computer and access data on it and also invoke executables on your local system. IE did release a patch to stop the ‘showhelp’ from functioning, but many IE users may be unaware of this vulnerability or the need to download this patch.

For internet users who use both Firefox and Internet Explorer there is trouble too. If a malicious site registers a Firefox URL opened on the IE browser, the browser can become vulnerable to attack as the browser freely interacts with chosen internet resources. The IE and Firefox may function fine on their own, but together on the same system they can cause great security risks.

Protecting Your System

One of the best ways to protect yourself from malicious attackers and viruses is to beware of sites that may seem suspicious. Just scroll over a link and look at the status bar before you decide to click on a link. Ensure that your IE version is updated and whenever required patches downloaded

Most experts recommend that you keep regular back ups for your hard drive. You may be unaware of most vulnerabilities and bugs that your system may be exposed to until it is too late. Having a recent back up for all your information is the best way to keep it safe.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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MySQL

Oracle now owns Sun Microsystems and its enterprises such as MySQL, Java and Glassfish and many other assets. It is faced with an interesting challenge as the company that it has taken over poses the biggest challenge to its Oracle Database. According to Betanews MySQL announced its MySQL 5.4 which allows it to use “16-processor support for x86 servers with multiple cores per processor.” This news has two sides for new owners Oracle. This development also poses a problem for Oracle’s own proprieties. Of course Oracle does have the means to control MySQL with its InnoDB, the storage engine that is vital to making MySQL’s latest developments scalable.

Java

While Oracle is more than happy to get its hands on Sun’s precious jewels namely Java and Solaris, it is still not understood how it will handle the open source programming language. It is important to understand not just the technological impact but also the fiscal one on this enterprise and what it brings into Oracle. Java is believed to generate revenues of almost $300 million in 2009 and there is still a lot left to the fiscal year. Experts say that the revenues from Java increase by more than 25% every year. While this adds tremendously to Oracle’s assets it also brings in the question as to how it expects to handle the open source programming software. The work ethos and culture at Sun and at Oracle are virtually poles apart and unless Oracle is careful it risks losing some of the brightest minds in the business.

Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems will change the long drawn lines in this industry. In the coming months its actions will decide whether it will continue to garner the support of the MySQL and Java communities or lose it. How Oracle integrates the Sun staff with its own business or if it allows it to run somewhat independently will decide the fate of its new enterprises. For now customers, competitors and allies watch from the sidelines to see how this $7.4 billion take over will change the face of the industry.

The Big Picture

Oracle now has the assets and the resources to become a leader with an unshakable presence in the IT industry. How it uses and underutilizes its assets will determine the fate of Oracle as also its assets. Oracle can now provide everything for enterprise database, from versatile use of Java to open source, middleware and applications and processing as well as storage hardware.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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Is 99% Up Time Acceptable?

When your website is up for 99% of the time in a month it means that it is down for 7.2 hours every month. This in turn translates into over 86 hours of down time in the entire year.

Going a little further into the discussion even if the web host assures 99.9% up time, the down time amounts to 43.2 min a month and a 99.99% guarantee would bring down time to 4.32 min every month. A 99.999% up time brings down the down time to 25 sec a month. Unfortunately most web hosts can give you this sort of guarantee.

What the Numbers Add Up To

Eventually what is important is for you to realize is how much the down time is affecting your revenue. Unfortunately most online businesses are unable to calculate how down time affects their business. This is because there are numerous factors involved. For instance the transaction amount of customers who visit the website when it is down may be difficult to assess. And to make matters worse the potential customers who visited your website when it was down are most likely never to return to it again.

The down time that the web hosts consider to be unavoidable due to unforeseen circumstances and events can be reduced tremendously. If you are informed of down time in an efficient manner you would be able to take steps to rectify the situation and ensure that your site is up and running. Often website owners find that their website has been down all night and they realize the situation only in the morning. Worse still, if you decide to take a vacation and don’t check on your website it may be down for a much longer time. What you need is a system that informs you every time your website is down and also keeps a track of down time history.

Web Service Guard offers a service that monitors your website externally, and efficiently informs you of down time history. There are multiple benefits that Web Service Guard offers a website, firstly it helps you keep your website up and running effectively. Secondly it does not affect the firewall and security of your website and finally it gives you excellent inputs on customer experience on your website.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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For a long time now adult entertainment or porn sites have received one of the largest sections of internet traffic. In fact there were experts who believed that adult entertainment was a sure shot way of earning revenue on the internet. However, a recent survey indicates that in the 18-24 year group, the traffic to porn sites is slipping rapidly and growing on social networks. Hitwise, an internet statistics company reveals that in its research study that included 10 million internet users it found an interesting trend on what internet users were searching for and doing online. While earlier 20% of internet searches were for porn sites, this percentage has dropped to 10%. On the other hand, the traffic to social networks is on an increase and this continues steadily.

The research also shows that traffic to porn sites was 16.9% of total traffic generated in the US in 2005. This percentage has gone down to 11.9%. This is a 33% decline in traffic to adult entertainment sites. For the 18-24 age group, on the order of interest and importance social networks came first, search engines came second, followed by e-mail sites and porn rated fourth. For the above 25 years group porn or adult entertainment remained high on the list, coming in second after search engines.

This is a trend that is seen globally. A BBC report also indicated that more Britons are opting for social networks than for adult entertainment sites. A survey by comScore indicated Facebook to be the seventh most popular site in the world. These changes show more than just a change in the way traffic is received by websites it also indicates how the internet is being used to reach out to friends and family. Social media sites have provided internet users a platform to put forth their views and opinions and connect with friends and like minded people.

Web 2.0

The internet is the information highway of the world, and the Web 2.0 sites have changed the role of the internet users. The Web 2.0 is essentially a change in the manner in which developers are allowing internet users to play a more active role on the internet.

Whilst earlier they were passive recipients of information and could order goods and services online, now they play an active role in content development.

Communication is the cornerstone for any civilization and this generation has been blessed with online resources that allow them to communicate easily and quickly. The research discussed also brings to light the fact that social networks are now being ranked higher than web based e-mail services. Social networks make it easier and more informal to interact with friends and you don’t have to bother sending out an e-mail, unless necessary. They are now fulfilling the role of what a water cooler or a café does in real life, creating common space for friends and like minded people to share.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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]]> http://www.webserviceguard.com/uncategorized/why-are-social-networks-getting-more-traffic-than-porn-sites.php/feed 4 http://www.webserviceguard.com/main/how-to-make-your-website-truly-accessible-to-your-customers.php http://www.webserviceguard.com/main/how-to-make-your-website-truly-accessible-to-your-customers.php#comments Thu, 28 May 2009 20:14:10 +0000 cnugent http://www.webserviceguard.com/?p=822 For any website or online business it is crucial that it is completely accessible to its customers. It is important that your potential clients are able to find your website easily and enjoy being on your website. To truly enhance visitors’ experience on your website the following factors would help:

Up and Running: The most important, of course, is that your website should not be down and visitors shouldn’t be met with an error message. It is important that every visitor to your website has a fair opportunity of becoming a customer and this is possible only if your website is up and running.

Web Service Guard is a unique web service monitoring and reporting service that informs you in real time when your website is down. This allows you to quickly rectify the situation so that your website is accessible to your customers. The Web Service Guard also stores downtime history and metrics so that you can analyze the performance of your web server and web host.

Web Service Guard is not software that interferes with your website’s security but in fact provides inputs regarding the experience of your customers when they are on your website. A quick way to check your site now is the Uptime Check that is provided free of charge.

Test your site: I know that this may sound like common sense.  However, it is very common for there to be dead links or links that connect to the wrong page.  It can be extremely frustrating for a potential customer when they are on your site looking for more information or they are ready to buy and they go into a link abyss.  You can kiss a customer good bye when this happens.  So do yourself a favor and spend a few minutes and test each and every page, button and link.

Design and Navigation: The design of your website should be simple and uncluttered and should be easy to download. The webpage should open properly on all browsers. It is important that all links on the homepage and other pages should open onto correct pages. If a certain section is under construction it may be a wise idea to inform your audience of the same. This saves them the effort of opening an error page.

Visitors to your website should be able to find the information they seek easily and quickly. This makes it important that designers, web developers and content providers work together to find a logical sequence.

Link Validity: If a visitor to your website is being directed from an affiliate program or from an online advertisement it is vital that the landing page is appropriate. Internet users are often put off to find that the landing page either doesn’t offer the information they seek or provides information they have already received. Thus, the marketing of your website is not just about who you are linked to and vice versa or where your traffic is coming from but also which web pages the traffic is being diverted to.

Relevant Content: It is important that your content is relevant and interesting and not spam. A website is only as good as its content and it needs to be displayed in a simple and easy manner. It is crucial to use meta tags, titles and headings well and so as to keep your audience informed of the gist of the web page they are visiting.

Site Map: Your site map should be displayed clearly on your homepage and should make it easy for visitors to see at a glance what the site has to offer and should be linked to all pages effectively.

Lastly pick a reputable Hosting Provider. Sometimes you will see a 100% uptime guarantee.  Is this possible?  The answer is no.  There are failures that occur outside of the hosting provider’s network that they can not control.  Failures occur in servers, hard drives, databases, network card, etc.  The list is endless.  This is why it is important to have an external uptime monitoring service watching your site to catch your downtimes before they cause large revenue losses.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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Courtesy cnet.com

Concern for environmental issues has gained momentum in the last few decades primarily because the media has focused on these issues and brought them to light. The internet is a great resource for finding all kinds of ‘green’ information. It is a platform for end users to share their thoughts and ideas. It is also a great way for researchers, government and non-government agencies to put forth their research and expert advice.

What makes the internet especially important in the spreading of ‘green’ information is that there is something for everyone. A junior high student would find information that matches his level of understanding as would a college student. This makes this information truly usable and important.

There are also websites and organizations that call to action for support to the environment. There is so much one can do to make the earth greener and the internet plays a big step in this direction. Sites such as freecycle.org allow internet users to exchange things that they don’t want to need, free of cost. This is truly recycling, the internet way.

Is the Internet Green?

To the end user the internet is an information highway that can help them travel over physical and political boundaries alike. What internet users don’t realize is that the internet also requires a tremendous amount of power or electricity to keep it going. While the internet does save on a lot of energy and resources one would have otherwise spent in communicating, shopping or collecting information, it does have a rather large carbon footprint.

Researchers estimate that the internet uses approximately 868 billion kWh of electricity every year to power servers, routing networks, phone networks and associated phones. This requirement for power is constant. Developers, technicians and governments are working hard to keep the internet green and reduce the amount of power it uses and the gases that it indirectly releases into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrous dioxide are some of the green house gases released into the atmosphere.

How Can the Internet Go Green?

One of best ways to help the internet go green is for websites to select servers that are powered by alternate sources of energy such as solar power. Alternate sources of energy do not adding to the green house effect and help the internet and environment stay green. Servers and data centers need to be functional 24X7 and hence require power constantly. Opting for a green source of energy goes a long way in controlling the amount of harmful emission that the internet produces.

A solar powered web server and data center is a great option. If you are worried about the night time, when solar energy is unavailable then there is provision for batteries, back up generator and even the option of shifting to the conventional power grid.

It is important that web servers and websites owners alike recognize the need for a green internet and accordingly make vital changes. As an internet user you too can opt for sites that are powered by renewable energy and make your contribution towards the environment.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Photo courtesy of Lucas Allen

If you have an idea for a media tech start up and have the passion and the will to work hard to make it succeed, then there is no better time than now to consider starting your company. For any idea to take off and become a reality it requires seed money. Seed money, as the name suggests, is the amount of funds required to plant the seeds and nurture a start up. There are many companies and businesses that are willing to fund the next big business or technological idea. Here is a look at some of the most well known seed money programs for media tech start ups.

Seed Money Programs

Spark Capital is one of the few companies that recognized the potential of Twitter even when it was just a concept that excited its developers. It is known for the funding it provided to entrepreneurs such as Twitter and Novatel Wireless. Now Spark Capital has started the ‘Start@Spark’ program to provide seed money of up to $250,000 to entrepreneurs who wish to invest in ideas developed on the foundation of media, technology and entertainment. Spark Capital finds that even an amount less than $250,000 is sometimes adequate to get a media start up off the ground.

Sequoia Capital offers seed money of $100,000 to $500,000 to media tech start ups. Some of the entrepreneurs that have benefited from the company’s seed program include Fireeye, LogLogic and Meebo. The company also funds some of the small seed programs for Y Combinator of as little as $5,000 to $20,000.

Y Combinator is a socially conscious venture capitalist like TechStars. It offers not just seed money to the entrepreneurs it supports but also a host of services that provides them the technical support, business management skills and essential administrative and logistic procedures that are essential for any company. From an introduction to venture capitalists, lawyers, journalists and executives from successful technological companies to teaching how to clinch a deal, Y Combinator takes entrepreneurs through all the right moves to succeed in the business. At any given time Y Combinator works together with multiple seed programs and this gives it the advantage of having a rich and interesting group of ‘alumini’ that is ever willing to pitch and help new entrepreneurs with whatever they require.

TechStars has a seed funding program of $18,000 and also offers a summer program for entrepreneurs that provide the skills and resources to give them a good start with their start ups. every year the TechStars program chooses 10 entrepreneurs each from Boston and from Boulder.

Charles River Ventures has the QuickStart Seed Funding Program that provides worthy entrepreneurs $250,000 as seed money. The QuickStart program focuses on start ups that deal with technology, media, telecommunications, software and related services.

Research indicates that in 2007 the 10.8% start ups received seed funding. This number increased to 11.5% in 2008. This is a clear indication that these are good times to start a company that combines technology with media and entertainment and is successful in seeing a need that requires to be addressed.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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The Internet is growing today at a much faster pace than ever before. In fact at the Internet Innovation Alliance this year it was found that while the national network growth is about 19%, internet growth is at about 40% annually and increasing. This can be attributed to the growing number of websites coming up and also the high quality videos being uploaded by internet users. According to the San Francisco Chronicle 20 homes will generate more Internet traffic next year than the total Internet traffic in 1995.

Global consumer Internet traffic is projected to quadruple by 2011, according the Cisco and the New York Times.

OCLC a non-profit research organization states that while in 1998 there were 2,851,000 websites in 2002 there were 9,040,000 websites on the internet. According to Netcraft in 2008 the number has exceeded 182 million. It is forecasted that this number will continue to rise rapidly.

What does this mean for online businesses? When customers visit your website they may encounter problems while they download files from it. There may be website downtime and ultimately this spells loss of revenue for your website and online business.

The five most important reasons for IT failure of an online business as stated by Steve Walterhouse, Vice President of Web Service Guard include operating system failure, software application failure, network failure, hardware server failure and misconfiguration.

The Nemertes Research Group states that a slowdown in the Internet speed and demands on bandwidth is caused due to increased internet traffic. Whether they are looking for news, friends or products and services, the Internet is fast becoming the top choice for people across the world. In such a situation if a customer visits your website and is unable to open it, it is as good as closing the doors of a brick and mortar store to good business.

Coping with Bandwidth Famine

It is important for the industry to formulate policies and execute them in order to cope with the certain bandwidth famine predicted in the near future. It is crucial to pay attention to this grave issue and respond to it before it poses serious problems.

Meanwhile the first signs of a strained bandwidth are seen in the glitches that come up when opening sites and the amount of time it takes to open them. It is crucial that you are informed when your website is unavailable to internet users and this is possible with reliable website monitoring.

It is essential that you are constantly informed of the state of your website. If your website is down due any number of reasons it is important to get it up and working at the earliest. Time is money, and truer words haven’t been said when it comes to an online business.

The Web Uptime Monitor Service offered by http://www.webserviceguard.com informs you, the business owner or your webmaster immediately of your website’s outage. It offers real time alerts and also has a central uptime reporting system and metrics. The Web Uptime Monitor Service also provides you a clear idea of how well your website and server are performing.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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Service was restored to twitter.com by 6:30pm US ET, for an outage duration of 20 minutes.

For more information, go to http://www.webserviceguard.com.

Twitter is a social network and micro blogging site that has received both bouquets and brickbats across the globe. What cannot be denied is the usefulness of Twitter in times of emergency, when people need to be informed and kept abreast of the latest developments. The biggest advantage that Twitter presents in a situation such as that caused by the swine flu is that short and precise messages can keep people informed and attuned to what health agencies and authorities have to say about the swine flu.

CDC and Red Cross on Twitter

The Red Cross and the Center for Disease Control are two agencies that have been using Twitter to send out reliable and trustworthy information to Twitter users who want to take precautions against the flu. It is easy for people to find themselves overwhelmed by what others around them are saying and receiving information from officials helps.

It is not just the common man on the ground that benefits from tweets from CDC and Red Cross but also health officials across the country. Twitter allows these health agencies to quickly and effectively spread the required message and ensures that the required actions can be taken. From advice on precautions that need to be taken when collecting, storing and testing specimens for the swine flu to caring for effected patients, CDC tweets cover them all.

The swine flu in the US has been seen to display milder symptoms that the flu is causing in Mexico. Some of the symptoms include runny nose, cough, fever, muscular ache, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The flu is found to affect individuals with a lowered immunity or under developed immune system such as infants, children, pregnant women and elderly people strongly as compared to people with a strong immune system. This makes tweets from CDC and Red Cross for parents especially valuable.

Criticism Against Twitter

There are those who believe that a platform such as Twitter creates grounds for panic to spread and find that the tweets amongst individuals may cause more fear than is apt for the situation. However, what these critics seem to miss is that in times such as these when the call for social distancing is vital Twitter allows people to stay in touch with each other. A certain amount of dread is expected, and this is largely pacified as Twitter gives its users access to information from health agencies and from the government. President Obama is active on Twitter and his presence on the social network is also comforting and reassuring for citizens of the US and for people across the world.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  For more information, go to www.webserviceguard.com.

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One of the biggest fears that most people have is that of being alone and isolated. In the last few decades lifestyles across the globe have changed so much that people are bound to their hectic work schedules and have little time to connect with others and even with their inner selves.

Web 2.0 is a term coined by Craig Cline and Dale Dougherty. It is used to refer to a new phase in the World Wide Web where software developers are making rapid changes so that the end users are able to play a more active role in content development on the internet. Web 2.0 sites facilitate effective communication and information sharing and provide internet users a common platform to interact on.

Web 2.0 has not just dramatically changed the face of the internet but also the way internet users are living. While it seems nearly impossible to stay in touch with friends and family in the real world, social media sites have reduced the physical and political barriers and facilitated effective communication. Unlike what some people misbelieve social networks are not restricted to teenagers. In fact the age profile of Web 2.0 users has changed and now includes a large section of the 25 to 44 year olds as also the 35 to 44 year old category.

There seems to be a buzz in the air, and not just the virtual world, but also the real one. People are communicating and reaching out like never before. This seems rather momentous as there seems to be a tide of change coming over the way people think and believe in issues. What is more is that internet users are open to contradictory opinions and willing to share their ideas.

So how does the Web 2.0 affect your life?

It helps you stay in touch with your friends and family and even helps locate long lost buddies. It also gives you an extension of your community in the real world. You can join communities where you share a common interest such as a hobby like gardening or reading.

Social media sites are fast becoming the voice of the most trusted opinions and recommendations. From what your baby’s first food should be to the kind of refrigerator you should buy, Web 2.0 is the place to find all the answers. It has also become a great resource in times of emergencies. Timely interventions have been possible in cases where Web 2.0 user was in danger. In emergencies too, social networks have been known to play a great role. The fact that one can receive notifications on cellular phones even when one is on the move and not online, also contributes to the tremendous impact that Web 2.0 has on your life.

Web 2.0 can be effectively used to communicate within a business or company and also with clients and customers. Social network accounts are becoming the face of businesses that customers relate to and trust. You could even join a professional group on a social network and enhance your knowledge and skills in the field. With global recession and people losing jobs it is interesting how other internet users are stepping in to share business contacts and provide much needed advice and support.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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• Public Outages – News and information related to outages of non-customer sites.
• Gallery – Interesting images related to the web hosting / data center / Internet realm.

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Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

What would your reaction be if, when typing “abc.com” into your browser location, you received a 404-Page not found error?  You may wonder what was wrong with your website.  You may call your web hosting provider or create a support ticket.  You may take drastic action such as switch to another web hosting provider.

The real question is, “How long could my website be down before I would consider it a critical business event?”  The answer to this question varies widely among those surveyed.  The more a business owner has at stake, the more they are interested in assurance that their website is functioning properly from their customers’ point of view.

The web uptime monitor service that www.webserviceguard.com offers allows the business owner, or webmaster, to practice what is called the ‘management by exception’ technique.  ‘Management by Exception’ is defined as a management technique in which the manager only intervenes when employees, or services, fail to meet their performance standards.

Management by exception is growing in popularity among managers, and it is no question why. This form of management is a style where managers do as little as possible, instead they delegate it to people below them, or outsource it to vendors, and only step in when they have to. So, it is the idea of minimizing responsibility.

Now I can see why you might be thinking, “What kind of business owner would let their managers manage this way?” and that is a great question. It seems sort of contradictory to say the manager does not do anything until a problem occurs, because isn’t their job to manage? Yes, that is true, and yet this style of management has proven to be extremely successful for some organizations.

So, why does this management style work for some? It is based around the concept or policy that states that the most effective use of your managers is not as a babysitter, but rather management should devote its time to investigating only those situations in which actual results differ significantly from planned results.

Website monitoring allows the manager to focus on business issues, and notifies them only when corrective action is necessary.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Of those questioned, 46 per cent admit that they are unsure whether or not they have a system in place to manage peaks of online traffic, while 53 per cent say if their website went down for one day, they would lose more than £10,000 in lost revenue, CBR Online reports.

And 65 per cent of marketing professionals state that they rarely or never spend time with the IT department in order to prepare for potential peaks in website traffic, the vendor’s research discovers.

Commenting on the findings, Graham Moore, e-retail specialist at Zeus Technology, says: “Consumers won’t think twice about abandoning their purchase if they experience downtime or a slowdown in service, so addressing this issue is critical in coming months.”

The chief executive officer of the vendor Paul Brennan recently warned that the infrastructure a website relies on must be scalable so that it can flexibly deal with fluctuating requirements.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

So this leads us to the followings question:  What variables must be considered when choosing a data center?  To answer this, we must look at the single points of failure a hosting provider is susceptible to.

Let’s review what components a data centers relies on to provide service.
1.    Storage / Hard drive
2.    Network adapter
3.    Database
4.    Server
5.    Network line / network usage limit
6.    Power line / power usage limit
7.    Building infrastructure
8.    Third party uptime monitoring service

What disaster recovery plans does your prospective data center provider have in place to overcome
a failure in each of these components?

More importantly, when was the last time the hosting provider tested their disaster recovery plans for each of the above mentioned components, and what was the recovery time for each?

Ideally, they would have a hot failover location ready and waiting to perform a hot failover of any subset of data/service should any component at the primary location fail.

In the real world many times this is cost prohibitive since the cost of a full hot failover location can only be justified for the most critical applications, such as military operations, power grid operations, banking, stock market operations, etc.

However, how close your prospective data center provider comes to a full hot failover location can mean the difference between your website being down for 1 hour and your website being down for 4 to 7 days.  In this day and age most companies rely on their websites for marketing and revenue generation.  It is obviously important to look at components that your provider offers so that your online revenue stream is not affected.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

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Service was restored to CitySearch.com this morning @ 7:58am US ET for an outage length of over 8 hours.

CitySearch.com’s visitors must have been wondering about CitySearch.com’s business status during this outage.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Service was restored to Samsclub.com the same day @ 4:20am US ET for an outage length of about 1 hour 44 minutes.

Website downtime can’t be helping Samsclub.com’s online revenues.

Should they employ a third party website monitoring service?

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Service was restored to Snap.com the same day @ 9:05pm US ET for an outage length of over 8 hours.

Whatever their strategy is, it can’t be helped by such an extended service disruption.

Why wouldn’t they use a third party website monitoring service?

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

The resounding answer that I received to my question of how long is too long is – Minutes – not hours, not days – is too long for these customers to be down. These customers now all use Web Service Guard.  They understand the huge revenue impact and importance of knowing when your website is down before your customers do.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

1. Download & install google analytics (yes, it’s FREE) – you’ll need this to analyze trends in web traffic.

• Google Analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics/

2. Make use of other Google webmaster tools (also FREE).

• Google Webmaster tools: http://www.google.com/webmasters/

3. Use free Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools and references to optimize your site for search engines.

• Key Word Suggestion Tool: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
• Firefox Browser (many free SEO plugins available for this browser): http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/firefox/
• SEO for Firefox: http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html
• Rank Checker: http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/
• Meta Tag Analyzer: http://www.scrubtheweb.com/cgi-bin/webtools/meta-check.cgi
• How to use Meta Tags: http://searchenginewatch.com/2167931

4. Join as many social networking sites as possible (Facebook, Digg, Twitter, StumbelUpon, Mixx, Delicious, Blinkbits, Newsvine, Reddit, etc.).

• When you post a blog article on your website, register that post on each of the social sites (don’t forget to create a link in the post back to your site – sounds redundant, but when you register the post on the social media site, your link back to your own site helps with Search Engine Optimization).
• To get traffic up, you should be posting about 1 article/post per day – doesn’t have to be a deep article, sometimes 3 or 4 lines is enough (it’s the link you need registered on the social media sites that is just as important as the content).

5. Submit your site to the search engines (if you have not already done so).

• Google Submit: http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/index.html
• Yahoo Submit: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
• MSN Submit: http://search.live.com/docs/submit.aspx

6. Login to your Google Analytics account and watch your traffic go up.

If your business is publishing printed media with revenues obtained from advertising, your subscriber count is important to your advertisers – the more subscribers you have, the more exposure for your advertisers and the more money you can charge for ads. When you get web traffic and can chart and show advertisers your web traffic, it becomes like an increased subscription base because online ads are being exposed via your website to a higher population of readers. Often an "impression" is referred to for online ads – it means a unique time that an ad appeared in someone’s browser.

This helpful information is provided by http://www.WebServiceGuard.com, the uptime monitoring company.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Service was restored to people.com on Monday February 16 @ 12:52am US ET for an outage length of 1 hour 20 minutes.

Why wouldn’t they use a web uptime monitor service?

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

The web uptime monitor service that www.webserviceguard.com offers allows the business owner, or webmaster, to practice what is called the ‘management by exception’ technique.  ‘Management by Exception’ is defined as a management technique in which the manager only intervenes when employees, or services, fail to meet their performance standards.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

Borders.com returned to service Wednesday Feb. 4 at 10:28pm EST after a 15 minute outage.  The error code returned by Borders.com servers during the outage was, “503 – Service Unavailable.”

According to W3.org, the standards organization that governs the current HTTP standards, error 503 states,  “The server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The implication is that this is a temporary condition which will be alleviated after some delay.  The existence of the 503 status code does not imply that a server must use it when becoming overloaded. Some servers may wish to simply refuse the connection.”

Borders.com has incurred 133 minutes of downtime in the last 60 days, giving it a 99.85% rating for 60-day uptime.

Webserviceguard.com currently considers a 99.85% rating a ‘D’ grade for 60-day uptime.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.

LinkedIn may be profitable and growing fast, but something seems to be going very wrong with the business social networking service today. The service has been going up and down all day over here in Europe, and has now been displaying an ‘Oops’ page for the past 55 minutes (4:30 PM CET).

Update: it’s back up, downtime lasted exactly one hour.

Update 2: and it’s back down again (4:45 PM CET), they’re having serious technical issues over there.

Update 3: it’s bouncing up and down. Seems to be stable now (4:52 PM CET).

As we’ve learned from people e-mailing us about us (and comments on this post and on Twitter), LinkedIn seems to have been dealing with various technical problems for weeks now. We’re getting LinkedIn’s side of the story and will update this post asap.

It’s a very unusual thing to happen with LinkedIn, which has always had quite a reliable web service, and there’s no official update to be found on the LinkedIn Blog (which is still up). Meanwhile, Twitter users are spreading the word about its current downtime fast.

Update 4: The problem was too many backed up messages, specifically LinkedIn’s Message Queuing. Explanation is up on the LinkedIn Blog.

Many of you trying to use LinkedIn between 2:18am and 4:08am US Pacific time this morning, and all of you trying to use LinkedIn between 6:10am and 7:43am, were unable to get in. This is not what we want for our users, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused. Rest assured, all of your postings and messages were sent out.

What caused the outage? LinkedIn uses a technology called “Message Queuing” within our site to allow our various services (for example, Network Update Service, inMails) to communicate with each other asynchronously, so that a sudden surge of usage on one part of the site will not affect performance on another. Starting early this morning, we ran into some issues with our Message Queuing services, which caused the message queues to back up.

Web Service Guard, the premier website monitoring company, offers uptime and performance monitoring for websites and servers.  Check our Website Monitoring site for more information.