Seven Creative April Newsletter (12th April 2010)

A note from the editor

The newsletter this month arrives from a long way away – a very long way away – the 1950s. Mrs C and I are currently sunning ourselves on the ancient isle of Vectis in preparation for what is shaping up to be a very busy few months!

Luckily here on the Isle of Wight, the Gin flows freely and the weather is glorious, allowing us to momentarily take our minds off the impending rush.

In the news at the moment; as YouTube recently reaches its 5th birthday, I take a moment to reflect on its success – it’s grown from a simple video sharing .com start-up business into one of the cornerstones of internet culture in just 5 years!

There are many reasons why YouTube continues to be so successful – obviously, there was a niche in the market for a good method for easily posting videos online and YouTube have also never lost sight of which side their bread is buttered. However, the number one reason for their success – and the lesson we can all learn from them – is that good content is king. That is to say, if you’re content is good, your website will attract visitors. If it’s bad, you won’t.

In this issue

Grown-up Instant Messenger
Building your personal brand
Virtual marketing department

Grown-up Instant Messenger

I love Skype. I’ve been using it in a business context since it was launched in 2003 and have become very reliant on it. In fact, if we had to stop using it, it would be painful!!!

On the face of it, Skype offer a similar service to MSN Messenger, however, there are some very useful features besides ‘instant chat’ that can be used for both business and pleasure and even save you money!

Skype charges a nominal fee for calling landlines and mobiles in the UK, however, if you need to phone abroad, it can also often be a very cheap alternative. If memory serves correctly, the connection between your computer and telephone exchange local to where you’re calling is free as it uses the internet. The only part you have to pay for is the connection between that local exchange and the phone you’re calling which is normally a lot cheaper than calling from your home phone where you pay for the whole thing. You can also SMS worldwide from your desktop, which can come in very handy sometimes!

Other free features include worldwide video conferencing or video chat – useful for keeping in touch with relatives abroad, and file sending – great for small documents like Word or Excel.

If you’re travelling abroad, why not save money by taking advantage of free internet access and use Skype to keep in touch and make and receive calls for a fraction of the price your mobile provider would charge? You can also get Skype on many of the newer mobiles and hand-held devices.

Skype is available to download for free from Skype.com and if you’d like to add me as a contact, start the application, click on ‘new’ then ‘new contact’ and do a search for ‘chris-day’

Building your personal brand

If you’ve ever ‘googled’ yourself it’s pretty likely that, like me, you’re no where to be found. Surely this doesn’t accurately reflect your lifetimes’ achievements so far? Why should a 14 year old with the same name as you, venting their unusual views on modern music, appear high in the rankings but you’re in the metaphorical desert of the search engine world? And anyway, does this even matter?

Spending years running your business, living and breathing your vocation will inevitably start to turn you into an expert in your field. Your personal business worth (in an hourly-rate sense) is based on other people’s perception of your knowledge, ability and experience. If you love what you do and you’re an expert in your field, surely your ‘hourly rate’ should reflect this and increase proportionally?

Differentiating yourself from the amateurs or those with less ability and experience is the thing that will allow you to command a higher hourly rate; however, this is sometimes very difficult to do!

Culturally, self-promotion is often something that is often looked down on. Derogative words and phrases like ‘big head’ or ‘bragger’ are used to deride those that talk proudly about their achievements. Victoria Wood summed it up well when she said ‘we don’t flaunt, we tut’; however, shouting about your achievements and what a great job you’ve done is perfectly acceptable when done by someone other than yourself such as a grateful client!

Letting people know how good you are at what you do is not bragging – rather it’s an important and vital exercise if you are going to move forward (and upwards) in your field. It will not only help you command a higher rate but also open new doors and opportunities for you. As such, it’s worth spending time investing in your personal brand by making a name for yourself. For example, speaking at colleges, universities or events may not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but, it will often lead on to work. Writing articles for websites and collecting testimonials for your website will also help promote you and your services. Why not write a press release when you’ve got an exciting bit of news? There’s a good chance you can get it into at least the local paper!

You’re only as good as people perceive you to be – you need to make sure their perception is correct.

Virtual marketing department

This week here at Seven Creative’s country retreat, we’re taking a well earned break from the rigours of work. Earlier in the newsletter we mentioned that we’re looking towards a very busy few months which, as I’m sure you’ll already know, is one of the nicer problems you can have in business!

After the events of the final few months of 2009, we resolved to put our money where our mouths are and prove we know what we’re taking about. Now in 2010 we’ve already beaten all previous years’ records – which is quite an achievement (even if I do say so myself!) – And we’ll be almost certainly continuing our record breaking year.

This is something we can do for you too.

Business is a fine balance between ‘working on’ and ‘working for’ your business. However, the majority of small to medium businesses spend the majority of their time working ‘for’ their businesses. One is a short-term activity and the other is a long-term investment.

The recession, for example, took many businesses by surprise and those without a strong enough business model have suffered!

If you’re interested in talking to us about how we can boost your business by providing a virtual marketing department, give us a call or drop us an email

In the next issue

Business promotion – blogging
Creative advertising revenues
Simple SEO

And finally…

As we reach the end of Easter and we resolve to make sure we’ve got Sky boxes in more than one room next year so that Day Jnr can watch Spongebob and Disney films far away from our ever hurting ears, I’m reminded of a quote I once heard on the subject of sharing:

“Hedgehogs. Why can’t they just share the hedge?” – Dan Antopolski

From all of us here at Seven Creative’s island getaway; we wish you a continuing happy and prosperous year.

Seven Creative March Newsletter (17 March 2010)

A note from the editor

Spring arrives

With the snow just about gone, Spring finally arrives a few weeks late and, in an amazing coincidence, so does the the Seven Creative Newsletter!

In the news today, the marketing geniuses, Dominos Pizza, strike again with an astonishingly simple affiliate marketing-type scheme to exploit the recent social networking explosion <takes a breath>. The new advertising tool allows social network users to display an advert for Dominos Pizza on their Facebook page (or blog) which, when clicked, tracks whether the ‘clicker’ goes on to buy a pizza. If so, the person who displayed the advert earns 0.5% of the order. Genius!

Dominos pizzas might not be everyone’s cup of tea – even described as decidedly greasy and mediocre by some (not me, of course) – but you have to hand it to them when it comes to marketing, they’re way ahead of the pack! The original ’delivered in 30 minutes or your pizza is free’ advertising campaign was revolutionary – it caused people to order a pizza delivery, willing it to arrive late – which is incredible, however; it helped to create one of the largest brands in the world and gave us one of the first examples of viral marketing. With the impending launch of their new revolutionary marketing campaign, they’re now set to become one of the first companies to truly make social-marketing work for them!

In this issue

Marketing avenues you may not have considered
Very cost-effective direct mailings
Wireless network security issues
Free business promotion

Marketing your business – avenues you may not have considered

YouTube

I did a little exercise recently examining exactly how Ebuyer conduct their marketing activity and it returned some very interesting results! Ebuyer have grown to become a big player in a very difficult and competitive Market through difficult economic times so must be doing something very right if they are still able to compete on a level playing field with the really big players!

When you’re thinking about your business and wondering what the best options are in terms of sales and marketing, a very good idea is to examine your competitors. You can quickly establish what they are doing that is different to you and how much of an impact it is having on their business. This can often be cheaper and quicker than trying new ideas your self but, more importantly, you may be surprised at what you find out!

One of the surprising marketing activities and revenue streams that Ebuyer use is an Ebay shop. This might at first sound counter-productive; however, there is a certain section of customers who are time-rich and money-poor who will shop around for the best price before buying. Ebay is a buyers’ market and many people who regularly use it believe that it will allow them to always get the best price. Ebuyer are able to access this potential customer base by association and therefore widen their potential customer base significantly.

One of the other surprises thrown up when examining Ebuyer’s wider marketing activity was their YouTube channel. You’d be forgiven for naturally assuming that a computer hardware retailer has no place on this video sharing website, however, they are in fact very active here.

Savvy internet users will use YouTube for product reviews and tutorials as the video element adds an extra dimension to the traditional instruction booklet or written review. When choosing, for example, your next mobile phone or notebook computer, you can see on your computer screen how it looks, feels and works. Once you’ve made your mind up, the next step is to find a supplier! The logical choice when watching a YouTube video provided by Ebuyer is to visit their shop. This again allows them access to another potential customer base.

In summary, the lesson learned is that when planning your marketing activity you need to be creative and open minded. Potential customers could be where you least expect them to be!

Direct mailing

Direct mailings

Did you know it might be a lot easier and more cost effective to send a direct mailing than you would have imagined!

Over the past few years, Spam has turned from a tasty meat-based product to a four-letter-word as our dependency on email increases. Direct mail, on the other hand, is currently going through a resurgence!

From 40p per letter including printing, envelope and postage, direct mail can also be surprisingly cost-effective!

Here at Seven Creative, we’re offering a new service where we’ll take all the hard work out of a direct mailing campaign. Simply tell us which business sectors you’d like to target, what you’d like to promote or sell and we’ll do the rest.

We’ll provide you with a marketing list (including primary contact name), design a full colour and fully branded sales letter and post it out.

Prices are one-off £100 for sales letter design and 40p per letter including full colour printing, envelope and postage (no minimum).

Wireless network security

Government legislation that may be introduced within the next few months will place wireless network security responsibility with the person whose name is on the bill. If your network isn’t secure you may be liable for illegal downloads, which, in turn, may lead to broadband service loss, legal action or worse! Many wireless signals can be picked up easily from neighbours’ houses or by wireless devices nearby so it’s never been more important to make sure your wireless network is properly secured.

All modern routers allow you to create secure password protection in order to connect to the wireless network securely; however, many allow connection without a password as default. As a rule-of-thumb, you’ll need to connect to your router directly using an Ethernet cable to change the password and the control panel is usually accessed via a web browser.

For further information, PCWorld.com provides a good article on wireless network security including explanations of terms:

https://www.pcworld.com/article/130330/how_to_secure_your_wireless_network.html

if you’re still concerned you can get an on site visit from our resident computer hardware wizard, Kristof; give us a call to arrange.

Promote your business for free

Promote your business for free and drive extra traffic to your website

One of the best steps you can take from a search engine optimisation point is to create contextual inbound links to your site, or to put in another way, links to your site from within an article relevant to your website and using your keywords and phrases.

As a newsletter subscriber and customer or friend of Seven Creative you’re invited to write an article or business profile about your business and we’ll publish it on our blog site. This will help with your search engine indexing and bring extra visitors to your site

Email us for more information

In the next issue

Building your personal brand – how and why
Grown-up IM for business and pleasure – saving you money
Virtual marketing department – working for your business

…and finally

This brings us to the end of another newsletter and towards the start of Easter. This time of year is a time for friends and family and naturally reminds me of something I once heard on the subject of friendship:

“Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings” – anonymous

From all of us at here at Seven Creative, we wish you continuing success and a prosperous year.

Sagar McClintock – Company Profile

Sagar McClintock

Sagar McClintock are Corporate and Personal performance specialists. We work at the sharp end helping you achieve your personal and corporate goals. We help you develop the personal skills, attitudes and drive you and your company need to achieve your goals as the economy recovers, and the boom time returns.

We work mainly in the areas of: personal and team confidence and Motivation, selling and negotiation skills, personal and team goal setting and achievement and Marketing. (Although we are not limited to these areas and will include other areas as the client’s needs or remit require).

Having set up in the teeth of the biggest downturn since the 1930’s we understand the imperative of Survival and development in good times as well as bad. Our client list includes (among others); BT Local Business, Rotherham Chamber, Carcraft, Sheffield Chamber, the GK Group, and many SME’s.

Sagar McClintock’s aim is to help any organisation or person who wants to improve their performance. We have worked with: Directors, Entrepreneurs, SME’s, large companies, Teachers, Doctors, experienced sales professionals and teams, inexperienced sales professionals and teams.

If you would like Sagar McClintock to help you Please contact them through their website: www.sagarmcclintock.co.uk

A very simple guide to email on your portable devices (blackberry, iPhone, netbook etc.)

Many people have asked recently about using their email on their portable devices and it’s actually quite simple once you understand a few of the main principles

Here’s how seven Creative’s email system works

Firstly, a few definitions:

Local email client – this is an application on your home or office computer for reading and sending emails. Common local email clients are Outlook and Thunderbird
Remote web-server – this is your web-mail account and is accessed through your web browser. Your received emails are stored here until you collect them using a local email client or delete them by logging into the web-mail directly
SMTP – stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and is the system used when emails are SENT. It transfers the email from your out-box to the recipients in-box.
POP3 – stands for Post Office Protocol and is the system used by local email clients to retrieve emails from a remote web-server

If you’re using a local email client (see definitions), this is what happens when someone sends you an email:

This is what happens when someone sends you an email

Of course, you can log directly into your webmail account and reply to ‘Jim’ like this:

This is what happens when you reply to an email from your webmail account

The problems with this system

This system works perfectly well when sending emails between computers, however, emails are commonly sent with very large attachments.

for example, Seven Creative’s email system allows you to send up-to 80 MB attachments which is obviously far too big to receive on a mobile phone or similar portable device! Firstly, portable devices tend to use the mobile network’s system for connecting to the internet which is very slow and most people are charged by the MB for this internet connection so it could be very expensive. Secondly, mobiles and portable devices are not designed for large attachments and storage is limited.

Surely, a better idea for mobile email would be to just give you a preview of the important bits of the email such as who it’s from, the text and the name of any attachments?

This is where IMAP comes in handy

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol and is used for reading mail on portable devices.

IMAP allows you to just download the message headers i.e. the title and the text. This then gives you the option of either replying, ignoring or deleteing the message (and by ‘deleting the message’ it means removing it directly from the web server without having to ever download the actual message)

The size of the header information will normally be just a few bytes so is quick and cheap to download and doesn’t take up much storage space on your portable device.

The best thing about IMAP, however, is that it never actually deletes or removes anything from the webserver unless you tell it to. This means you’ll never end up with duplicate messages or some messages on one computer and others on another, for example, you can connect to your inbox, read an email, reply to the sender and then when you get home, your email is still there on the web-server for you to download as normal

IMAP runs in parallel to your POP3 address allowing you to read emails from multiple devices while keeping them always in one place

IMAP will also work with Microsoft Exchange server, however, it really does start getting complicated then… 🙁

Using IMAP to read your emails on a portable device

It’s a lot simpler than you think…

…to start using your portable device to check your emails.

Let us know if you’d like to give it a go and we can supply you with IMAP and SMTP settings

Get in touch with us here

What is a webloc file or the .webloc file extension?

A Webloc file shortcut to a webpage or URL and is usually created by Safari the Mac OS X by dragging a website icon to a location on a computer

Using windows

To find the URL, open this file with any text editor such as Notepad or Opera Browser and copy the URL to your browser address bar

Sales and marketing optimisation

Consider the alternatives

If you were in any doubt that offline advertising spend had fallen in 2009, this physical comparison between the Yellow Pages directories from 2009 and 2010 should convince you. The 2010/11 edition is literally 40% thinner than the 2009/10 edition.

According to IAB (2010), in the UK, the entire advertising sector contracted by 16.6% in the first half of 2009, however, the online advertising share grew by 4.6% to a record 23.5% share of the market.

Obviously, in the midst of a recession, you’d expect advertising spend to decline, however, it seems as if many companies are realising that the traditional forms of advertising and marketing may not be the best way to reach customers and deciding rather to look towards the internet.

Google dominates the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising world with a 65.4% market share (AFP, Feb 2010) and for most people, they’re the only place they’ll ever think of advertising online.

There is, however, another way!

The primary objective, when deciding your marketing approach, will be to give you the best return-on-investment (a.k.a. ROI) which, to put it another way, basically means get the most customers for the least spend.

Google advertising is great for some businesses, but for others, it’ll never work – potential customers simply don’t use the internet to find some kinds of suppliers. Even for the businesses where it potentially works well, so much money is sometimes wasted through poorly researched and implemented key-phrases and badly-planned campaigns that they never reach their potential. Besides this, as the main player in the PPC world, competition for key words and phrases can be fierce!

Social network advertising, on the other hand, has shown some fantastic results with campaigns we’ve run recently. One of the main problems with Google PPC is you are only able to target customers geographically. Social Network Marketing, on the other hand, allows you to also target customers demographically and psychographically! As a relatively new avenue, the current costs can be much lower than Google PPC and you have the option to also pay by impression if you’d prefer.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as another way to boost your organic search engine rakings. Whereas the results can sometimes be much less tangible than the PPC campaigns; a well optimised web site can give a much better ROI over time.

If you’re certain that traditional Search Engine PPC is the one for you, consider Bing, Microsoft’s search engine competitor to Google and Yahoo. Bing is currently gaining search engine market share from Google and Yahoo remains a force in the market.

Whichever you choose, as ever, the key to getting it right is good planning.

More information

With many years experience of online and offline advertising campaign planning, setup and management, Seven Creative are perfectly placed to help your business get the best ROI by optimising your sales and marketing activity

If you’d like Seven creative to help you with your marketing strategy, give us a call on 0114 383 0711 (international: +44 114 383 0711) or contact us through the website

Setting up a computer from new

Computer reset lever

I’ve just set up a new laptop for someone and thought to myself that it might be interesting to write a short list of the changes I make and the software I install during the process.

The problem with new computers these days is that they arrive pre-installed with all sorts of software you didn’t ask for and don’t need. Whilst this software more-than-likely subsidises the cost of the new computer, it’s something that I’m personally not a big fan of – it slows down your computer and there are often better free versions of this commercial software available.

The last 5 or 6 laptops I’ve bought have all been Toshiba because I like their reliability and I currently buy from Insight as their prices and service are very good (Prior to that it was eBuyer)

Insight laptops don’t tend to arrive with too much pre-installed software, unlike a certain other larger mail-order computer supplier I could mention, so it’s not too time consuming to sort out.

This particular laptop is a Toshiba running 32 bit Windows Vista Business

Firstly, I connect to wireless internet (if available). If you’re installing the operating system too, XP prior to Service Pack 2 doesn’t have wireless internet support as standard so the best thing to do is download XP Service Pack 3 network install version to a flash drive (or disk) and install before you’re able to connect wirelessly. Of course, you could connect with a cable if you preferred but I find them so 1990’s
Secondly, I download Google Chrome Browser and install. This browser is miles ahead of it’s nearest competitor and I don’t use anything else these days for day-to-day browsing. When installing, I set as default browser. I also install flash player browser plug-in at this time. This is something that is not essential but will probably need to be done at some time.
Thirdly, I Download Revo Uninstaller free version and install. This is a great utility for removing applications from your computer as it will also remove left-over registry entries and files
I download (but don’t install yet) Microsoft Security Essentials. Free software and currently, the best option for your virus and malware protection, IMO.
I remove McAfee anti-virus using Revo Uninstaller.
I install the Microsoft Security Essentials I downloaded earlier. Once installed, update and run the ‘quick scan’ finish installation.
Run Widows Update until all updates have been installed
Download and install Ccleaner. This free utility has some very useful little features that should come in handy, firstly;
Run Ccleaner and navigate to Tools/Start-up. Disable or delete any items you don’t want to start-up when the computer starts
Open Revo Uninstaller and uninstall and application I don’t want

This is the basic list above. Below are a few other optional steps:

Install Microsoft Office. Once installed, update.
Download and install Skype. Couldn’t do without this application!
Download and install AL Show free version. A great little media player
Download and install Bullzip PDF printer free version. Installs as a printer and allows you to create PDFs using the normal ‘print’ command

Hope this helps?

Seven Creative February Newsletter (12 February 2010)

A note from the editor

The year seems to be flying by – I have no idea where January went which is worrying as I’ve not touched anything stronger that Horlicks since New Years Eve! As I write this we’re already over a ninth of the way through the year with only 271 shopping days left until Christmas so it must be that it’s all-systems-go here at Seven Creative Acres – our diversification and sales push seems to be working a treat and we’re busier than we’ve ever been!

In the news at the moment, Toyota’s recall of the 2010 Prius along with 2 other hybrid models comes on top of 2.3 million cars already recalled has sent their share price plummeting. The prognosis, however, looks quite good. From all accounts, Toyota will survive this crisis and, no doubt, will emerge stronger than ever. They may have initially expanded too quickly, however, they were perfectly placed to weather this particular storm. What can we learn from this? Toyota concentrated on quality and reputation and built a brand towards which consumers feel loyalty and trust. The words ‘quality’ and ‘reputation’ sometimes seem anachronistic these days in a world of cut-throat business, however, they have served Toyota well and the company will undoubtedly remain as successful as they ever were.

In this issue

Who owns the intellectual property rights to your website?
Ever accidently deleted an important file?
What is Conversion Rate Optimisation?
Which browser do you use?
Domain name maketh the site – when to use a hyphen
What is a .DOCX or .XLSX?
Promote your website for free

Intellectual property rights – a word of warning

When we produce any kind of design work for our customers, from websites to leaflets, we automatically transfer the intellectual property rights of the work to the customer upon final payment. This is something we believe to be fair, ethical and is clearly outlined in our terms and conditions. If one of our customers decides they’d like to take the artwork elsewhere in the future, they’re free to do so. This also applies to domain names, photography, logos etc.

You would be forgiven for assuming that this was just standard practice in our industry. However, we’ve recently taken on a new customer who has been very poorly treated by her previous design company:

When she decided she wanted to upgrade her website she approached us and we presented a proposal, which was accepted. She then approached her previous design company to inform them of this and to request administrative control of her domain name and her website files in order to allow us to move the hosting and upgrade her site. She was shocked with the response. The company abruptly informed her that the website, its content and all the imagery and design belonged to them and was further informed by them that if she used any elements of the site without their permission, she would face legal action.

Luckily, the domain had been registered in her name so we were able to transfer administrative control directly. If this had not been the case, this would have also been lost.

This, in our opinion, is totally unethical but just goes to show that unless you have these issues clearly outlined when you enter into a contract, you may have no rights to your website or artwork if things turn sour!

We would like to point out, however, that, in our opinion, commissioning a bespoke design (rather than the purchase of template artwork) would infer IP transfer at the point of completion. A commission, by its very nature, is a piece of work undertaken for you. Imagine having a portrait painted and then the artist telling you it always belongs to them! On a day in court, I think she would have won, but who wants the stress and expense in undertaking this?

Obviously, we’ll not be mentioning our new customers’ name, but the company who treated her so badly, on the other hand, were ‘webworksinternet.com’. If this is the type of service they provide to their customers, I’d avoid them like the plague.

Recovering deleted files

I have a little free application installed on my computer that I use surprisingly often to recover ‘permanently’ deleted files. The trouble with installing an application like this after you’ve deleted that important file is that there is a good chance you’ll overwrite it and therefore properly permanently delete it.

Recuva by Piriform is a compact and intuitive application that scans your hard drive for deleted files and allows you to restore the files it finds. The application is free and takes up no system resources until you actually need it. I’ve used it and would recommend it to anyone who might be in a position where they need to recover an important document that has been accidently deleted at some point.

Download it from the Piriform website: https://www.piriform.com/recuva/download/standard

Conversion rate optimisation

Conversion Rate Optimisation is probably not a phrase you’re currently familiar with. However, it is something you’ll undoubtedly come across at some point if you start optimising your website. Basically, the difference between a ‘sale’ and ‘no sale’ can be, for example, down to the colour or font of your ‘buy now’ button. Making small adjustments and monitoring how it influences your conversion rate allows you to optimise the look, feel, layout and content of your website which will ultimately mean your site provides you with a better ROI.

A design decision, even when based on years of experience, is sometimes still just a ‘best guess’ but conversion rate optimisation will help you to make decisions based on real usage data

Browser comparison

Sometimes is seems that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is never out of the news – security holes, urgent updates, compatibility issues and downing street petitions to phase out Internet Explorer 6 to name a few – and, more recently, even the German Government warned web users to use a different browser to protect security!

Internet Explorer is the most widely used browser, but is it the best? I stopped using it several months ago due to the unreliability and clunkiness of the browser. Obviously, due to the nature of my work I have to test websites on all the main browsers. However, internet explorer began to become more of a liability than something to actually facilitate my work.

When Chrome came along, I discovered a light-weight and fast browser, which speeds up my online experience and proves to be extremely reliable. Chrome is the free browser provided by Google and has already rocketed in popularity since its release in late 2008.

I personally find Mozilla Firefox to be slow, heavy and clunky – not a great deal different to IE. Safari, on the other hand, is less buggy, however, I’m used to the Miscrosoft shortcuts which don’t always tally up with the Apple browser.

If you’ve not tried Chrome, why not give it a go? It’s changed my online experience for the better and shown there is a better way to do it. I don’t think I’ll ever use IE as my primary browser again!

Choosing a domain name – when to hyphenate

As more and more of the best domains are registered it becomes harder to get the right one. Many people will initially consider compromise or shortening their business name, however, this may not always be the best solution.

Something which is not always considered is the humble hyphen. Did you know it can often help your visitors or potential customers find you as the hyphen often breaks up a string of letters into readable words. One of the most high-profile examples is the National Lottery. Their domain name ‘national-lottery’ is easier to read than with the hyphen than without: nationallottery.

Another issue to consider is from the search engines point of view. A search engine will match a search term against a domain name without prejudice, or to put it another way, if your domain name contains words that have been formed by putting other words next to each other, the search engine will match them.

One of the most infamous examples of this is the Mole Station Nursery. Originally, a perfectly innocent website for a genuine nursery based in New South Wales, they quickly became famous on the internet when someone pointed out their domain name implied something else: molestationnursery.com

This example is an extreme one. However, it shows that this nursery could have avoided any embarrassment with a humble hyphen or two to break up the words.

Just for a bit of fun, here are some other famous examples of domain names that could have benefited from a hyphen:

Experts Exchange – expertsexchange.com
Therapist Finder – therapistfinder.com
Powergen Italia – powergenitalia.com
Pen Island – penisland.net
Who Represents – whorepresents.com

What are DOCX / XLSX?

If you’ve ever come across a file with a .docx or .xlsx extension and not known what to do with it, read on.

Microsoft’s Office 2007 brought many changes including new file extensions for Excel 2007 and Word 2007 documents. Whereas Office 2003 documents are forwards compatible with Office 2007, the 2007 documents are not compatible with the 2003 version or prior versions and this is where the problem lies.

The cynical amongst us may speculate that this may have been done to encourage Office users to upgrade to the latest version, however, this isn’t actually necessary.

Not many people know this, but there is a compatibility patch you can apply to MS Word 2003 and Excel to allow you to open the 2007 version documents and use them as normal.

More information and download available from here: https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/ha101686761033.aspx

If you’re using Office 2007 and you’d like to save a document in the older format meaning it will be compatible with 1997, 2000 and 2003 versions of Office, simply click on the top-right windows button, select ‘save as’ from the drop down menu then select Word 97-2003 document.

Promote your business for free

Inbound website links are one of the most important elements when it comes to Search engine optimisation. Of the different types of inbound links you can have, direct, on-way contextual links are brilliant when it comes to helping your site index well with search engines and driving traffic to your site and we’re giving them away for free! If you’re a customer or friend of Seven Creative / Seven Website Design, simply write a title and paragraph about your business and send it to us and we’ll put you direct a link on the Seven Creative Blog. Simple as that! No strings, no cost. Give us a call if you want more information

…and finally

This brings us to the end of another newsletter. If you’re still with us; congrats. 1800 words is quite a pile to plough through! To reward you for your dedication, I’d like to leave you with a final thought:

“Whenever I see a man with a beard, moustache and glasses, I think, ‘There’s a man who has taken every precaution to avoid people doodling on photographs of him” – Carey Marx

Wishing you a continuing happy, successful and prosperous 2010 – Chris and the Seven Creative team

Protecting your online store

Owning an internet shop or accepting money for goods or services is common practice these days for many website owners; however, as we’re all aware, criminals are forever finding new ways to defraud business owners.
An example of a common scam is where a fraudster, posing as a customer, asks to have an item shipped abroad using their own preferred haulage or courier company. It usually goes something along the lines of this:

The fraudster sends the payment up-front to the vendor in the form of a cheque or by Credit Card for the cost of the goods AND the cost of the haulage
The vendor arranges and pays for the haulage using the fraudsters requested haulage company which turns out to be a fake company
It later transpires that the payment to the vendor was made using either a fake cheque or stolen credit card details

The signs of internet fraud

The problem with payments made using stolen credit cards or fake cheques is that it may take several days or even weeks before this is spotted by the bank and the vendor is often liable for the money.
In order to avoid falling for a scam, it’s useful to be aware of the common signs of fraudulent activity, such as:

Customer asks to pay using Western Union Money Transfer
Customer asks to use their own courier or haulier
Customer pays by cheque but demands the item be shipped immediately
Customer asks for item to be shipped to an address other than the credit card billing address
Customer attempts to place an order by email
A single order placed using multiple cards
Orders requested to be rushed or ‘shipped overnight’
International recipient addresses – these need to be checked very carefully
Unusually large orders
Orders from ‘high-risk’ countries
Telephone number disconnected or wrong

If you have any concerns, please contact you bank before accepting orders. You may also want to request a fax copy of the customers’ credit card together with another form of ID such as driving licence beforehand
For more information, Visa has a guide to protecting your online store:
https://www.visa.ca/en/merchant/fraud-prevention/fraud-warning-signs/protecting-your-online-store/
Of course, you’re always welcome to phone us if you have any concerns!

Windows keyboard short-cuts everyone should know!

There are hundreds of short-cut keyboard combinations and when you start to learn them , they can really help you save a lot of time!

Many of them are also transferable meaning, for example, some that work with MS Word may also work with Photoshop.

CTRL+C and CTRL+V are very common and widely supported short-cuts for copy and paste, but most people know these already. below, however, are a lot short-cuts you probably didn’t know!

CTRL+TAB – Move forward through tabs.
CTRL+SHIFT+TAB – Move backward through tabs.
TAB – Move forward through options.
SHIFT+TAB – Move backward through options.
ALT+Underlined letter – Carry out the corresponding command or select
the corresponding option.
ENTER – Carry out the command for the active option or button.
SPACEBAR – Select or clear the check box if the active option is a check
box.
Arrow keys – Select a button if the active option is a group of option
buttons.
F1 – Display Help.
F4 – Display the items in the active list.
BACKSPACE – Open a folder one level up if a folder is selected in the
Save As or Open dialog box.
CTRL+C – Copy.
CTRL+X – Cut.
CTRL+V – Paste.
CTRL+Z – Undo.
CTRL+Y – Redo
DELETE – Delete.
SHIFT+DELETE – Delete selected item permanently without placing the item
in the Recycle Bin.
CTRL while dragging an item – Copy selected item.
CTRL+SHIFT while dragging an item – Create shortcut to selected item.
F2 – Rename selected item.
CTRL+RIGHT ARROW – Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next
word.
CTRL+LEFT ARROW – Move the insertion point to the beginning of the
previous word.
CTRL+DOWN ARROW – Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next
paragraph.
CTRL+UP ARROW – Move the insertion point to the beginning of the
previous paragraph.
CTRL+SHIFT with any of the arrow keys – Highlight a block of text.
SHIFT with any of the arrow keys – Select more than one item in a window
or on the desktop, or select text within a document.
CTRL+A – Select all.
F3 – Search for a file or folder.
ALT+ENTER – View properties for the selected item.
ALT+F4 – Close the active item, or quit the active program.
ALT+Enter – Displays the properties of the selected object.
ALT+SPACEBAR – Opens the shortcut menu for the active window.
CTRL+F4 – Close the active document in programs that allow you to have
multiple documents open simultaneously.
ALT+TAB – Switch between open items.
ALT+ESC – Cycle through items in the order they were opened.
F6 – Cycle through screen elements in a window or on the desktop.
F4 – Display the Address bar list in My Computer or Windows Explorer.
SHIFT+F10 – Display the shortcut menu for the selected item.
ALT+SPACEBAR – Display the System menu for the active window.
CTRL+ESC – Display the Start menu.
ALT+Underlined letter in a menu name – Display the corresponding menu.
Underlined letter in a command name on an open menu – Carry out the
corresponding command.
F10 – Activate the menu bar in the active program.
RIGHT ARROW – Open the next menu to the right, or open a submenu.
LEFT ARROW – Open the next menu to the left, or close a submenu.
F5 – Refresh the active window.
BACKSPACE – View the folder one level up in My Computer or Windows
Explorer.
ESC – Cancel the current task.
SHIFT when you insert a CD into the CD-ROM drive – Prevent the CD from
automatically playing.
Windows Key – Display or hide the Start menu. Windows Key +BREAK –
Display the System Properties dialog box.
Windows Key +D – Show the desktop.
Windows Key +M – Minimize all windows.
Windows Key +Shift+M – Restores minimized windows.
Windows Key +E – Open My Computer.
Windows Key +F – Search for a file or folder.
CTRL+ Windows Key +F – Search for computers.
Windows Key +F1 – Display Windows Help.
Windows Key + L – Lock your computer if you are connected to a network
domain, or switch users if you are not connected to a network domain.
Windows Key +R – Open the Run dialog box.
Windows Key +U – Open Utility Manager.