Most Used iPhone Apps

The device I carry most is my iPhone 4S. An iPhone has always been my preferred device even though I have tried time and time again to replace it with an Android. I don’t know what it is about Android but I just want to make one my default phone. However the Android software is just to slow for me and I can’t get things done as quickly as I can on my iPhone. People are going to complain about that statement who don’t understand what I could possibly do faster on an iPhone. Please save your breath for a later post I will write about iPhone vs Android usage. Anyhow, here are the iPhone apps I use most often.

Instagram – Free – Download it here.
If you are an iPhone user and you haven’t heard of Instagram I worry about you. Instagram is a photo sharing application with built-in filters that have made popular. It allows you to take over though in the square crop format and apply one of a series of filters that, within the application to give your photo and interesting look. In my opinion the square cropped look makes it easier to capture a well composed photo and all of the built-in filters draw out that creative I that all of us have. By far it is the most useful photography app for a few reasons.

The first reason is that it allows me to share my photos with all of my friends on the different social networks that I’m a part of. I love taking pictures of my son, my wife, random stuff or anything else that captures my eye. This app allows me to do so quickly and share those photos with my friends. Instagram has made this a very minimal process. It takes seconds to capture a photo, apply filter, save that photo and then upload it to my favorite social networks.

Instagram users can also comment on your photos which of course makes us all feel warm and fuzzy inside. If you have an iPhone, and you like taking pictures, I recommend you download this app. Make sure you find my profile and follow my photo stream, I typically follow everybody back eventually. I even here that they are developing a version for the Android phone soon.

Tweetbot – $2.99 – Download it here.
I have been using this twitter client since it first came out. Even though it lacked certain features that I wanted at the time it was a neat enough experience that kept me around. Now that it has all the features that I would’ve expected it to have from the beginning is my dedicated twitter client. I manage a few different twitter accounts for different projects that I work on as well as my own personal twitter account. Being able to switch between those accounts quickly is important to me. Even with the latest twitter redesign, the twitter app is not as friendly to use as Tweetbot.

Although this app is not free, if you want something that is truly customizable and will result in you spending less time inside the app, this is your app. Some of my favorite features include: Push notifications for pretty much anything that goes on inside of twitter. The user interface is easy to manage and I can always quickly find what I’m looking for.

I don’t typically spend a lot of time looking around twitter. When I’m on twitter I’m looking for something specifically, responding to somebodies comment, or following somebody that I met in person. This app allows me to do all of that quickly and with the push notifications I’m able to see who has followed me right away rather than having that stuff go to my e-mail box.

If you are looking for a nice looking twitter client with lots of features I think you should check out Tweetbot.

Camera GPS – $0.99 – Download it here.
If you are a photographer or just enjoy photography you don’t love this app. Camera GPS allows me to geo-tag photos at the location when I take them. Essentially the moment you take the picture it files a way that photo by location inside the app. There have been so many times that I have been somewhere and seen a photo spot that I want to return to later, however I always end up forgetting that spot and I never return to it.

With the camera GPS app I never forget a photo spot. The next time I’m near a location I can find that photo spot. I used to try and remember to keep a camera with me so that I could please take a couple of photos of a photo spot and then try and remember to make notes when I got back to my computer. I no longer have to do that. I launch the app which quickly launches the camera, I take a photo of the spot and GPS handles the rest.

When I am looking for spots to take clients, I often return to this app and look for spots that I think they would like. It assures that I never return to the same spot to often because I hate taking different clients to the same spots.

Rdio – Free – Download it here.
I used to love Napster back in the day when it was free and underground. I didn’t have to buy CDs anymore. It wasn’t so much the fact that the music I was getting was free as much as it was that I didn’t have to have a CD anymore. I thought CDs as clutter and something that depreciates the more I use it. Eventually a CD would be scratched so badly it wouldn’t play. If I wanted access to that music again I would have to go buy another CD. Then iTunes came along and I could buy digital versions of the music that I love. The only problem with that is that it was still expensive.

At first I didn’t like the idea of not actually owning my music. When we find music that we love we want to own a copy of it, I guess it makes us feel like we’re part of it. We really were not. Once I bought enough albums that I never ended up listening to, I think this happened after my iTunes library peaked 10,000 songs. I decided that it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to check out a streaming service. The first one that I tried was Spotify. It is a good service but it lacked some of the features that I had became used to with the typical music player whether it be the standard music app in the iPhone or even some of the third-party players that came along over the last few years. Rdio is where I landed.

Rdio has actually been around for a while but recently has added all of the features that I expect and I am really loving this service. It syncs my iTunes so all of my iTunes music is now available, something my iPhone didn’t have the capacity to handle. Plus any music that I want from here on out I don’t have to pay for, I simply pay the monthly fee for the service. It is true that I don’t actually own any of the music that I stream through the apps service however that doesn’t matter, it’s available when I want it and I can sync it to my phone just in case I don’t have an Internet connection. Nothing beats this.

Now I am saving a lot of money each month by spending $10 a month on a streaming service instead of $10 a couple of times a week on new albums that I want. If you find yourself buying albums that you don’t listen to as much as you thought you would, I highly recommend this app to you. They have a free trial so go get it.

ScoreMobile – Free – Download it here.
Those of you who know me well know that I’m not really that into watching sports. However the teams that I do care about I enjoy knowing the basics about. I watched very few San Francisco Giants games this year however I always knew won. It’s the middle of football season and I haven’t watched one complete game yet, but I always know when the 49ers are winning. If I know I’m in a be hanging out with friends that talk sports I launch this app and brush up on recent stats. I would probably watch sports more often if I had time but my priorities are elsewhere these days.

The ScoreMobile app is probably one of the cleanest and nicest experiences available for the iPhone. Previous to using this app I used the Yahoo sports app which essentially did similar functionality however wasn’t as nice to look at and wasn’t quite as customizable as this app is. Luckily, I was able to review this app over at Dailyappshow.com (link). I can tell the developer of this app really has a passion for sports.

Though I have no desire to ever play in a fantasy league, this app would be one of the number one tools a person in a fantasy league should have on their phone. This app is equally amazing on the android, I have installed on my iPhone and my Android phones. Best of all, it’s free. So go get it.

Mini Motor Racing – $1.99 – Download it here.
Is not very often that I get addicted to a game. However when you mix racing with the ability to win fake cash see you can upgrade your fake cars, I’m hooked. This game reminds me of the old Nintendo game RC Pro Am. That was by far my favorite game I was a kid. Although this game is much more technical it still has a little bit of that RC Pro Am feel. I absolutely love this game.

The screenshot I have included is from an actual race I was racing. I managed to take the screenshot and still win the race, I’m awesome. Even if you’re not a huge fan of racing games this game is just fun. It’s one of those games that anybody can play even if you’re not good at games. If you’re impatient you can spend some money inside of the app to unlock upgrades so that you could start being off some from the beginning. The first time I played the game I thought that I was horrible at it because the cars didn’t handle at all. However once you purchase some of the upgrades, which you can get by winning races, the cars will handle much better and you’ll have a much better chance at dominating.

The game is easy to pick up and sat down whenever you have free time to play it. That’s what makes it fun for me. I don’t have a lot of time to spend on playing games when I do I want to play a game that I can jump right into, enjoy for a few minutes and return to later when I have time.

Bike Baron – $0.99 – Download it here.
Bike Baron is just plain awesome. I never would’ve thought that I would have to games that I’ve been playing simultaneously for a long period of time however both of the games that I’ve mentioned in this post are just a blast. Bike Baron reminds me of Excite Bike, which is an original Nintendo game. Notice a trend here? However, this game puts a new twist on motorcycle games.

In each level you have a set of obstacles that you need to make it over. There are also certain achievements that you must match throughout each level to get the optimal amount of stars available for that level. As the levels progress they get more and more ridiculous. The challenge to get through it is more puzzle like that it is a racing game. Although you are racing the clock in most cases, the obstacles just get better and more challenging with each level. I often tell myself I will play one level before bed and end up playing 10. Me being an over achiever always needs to have three stars on each level which sometimes means playing a level over and over again until I get them right. I can’t even count the amount of people that I have told about this game. However now all of my kids friends are awesome at it and brag to me about how they’ve beat all the levels. Check it out, it’s available for the iPhone and the iPad.

Most Used iPad Apps

Flipboard – Free – Download it here.
Flipboard is the best way to view all that different things that are going on online in one place. Before this app I would have to launch multiple apps to keep up-to-date with different things that are happening. Whether it’s a blog website that I read, my friends Facebook posts, Twitter posts, Instagram photos or anything else with an RSS feed for that matter, I can see it here.

That happened gets its name from the experience that provides. It almost feels like a magazine, and the way that it lays out recent news and updates it feels a lot like you’re reading your favorite publication. This app provides a really nice experience and it’s easy to set up. It’s a free download which makes it even better.

Now that it is available on the iPhone as well I am able to keep up to date with the content that I care about regardless of the device I’m carrying. If only they had it available on the Android. Of course the iPad provides the best experience because of the larger screen, plus it’s been available on the iPad for quite some time and only recently coming to the iPhone.

Reeder – $4.99 – Download it here.
I read a lot of blog websites. Probably too many considering the amount of spare time that I have. I like to keep up-to-date with different industries that I’m interested in and I generally learn about what’s going on out in the world from blogs. I’m not a big fan of newspapers and standard publications, I just love blogs. The Reeder app allows me to connect to my Google reader account which is a service that Google provides for free to aggregate all of the blogs you read in one place. By simply logging in to your Google reader account, the Reeder app organizes all of your RSS feeds into a nice format that is easy to read.

I get sidetracked easily. This app make sure that I’m not sidetracked by all of the things that might show up on a typical website. The content is what I’m interested in, and Reeder makes it easy for me to view that content without getting distracted. It has integrations with Readitlater and Instapaper which are two different services that I use to save articles that I want to read later. I don’t always have the time to read things right away but with this app I can save articles to read a later time. Readitlater is another app I spend a lot of time in however I only spend a lot of time in that app because of this app.

Evernote – Free – Download it here.
I am not as good notetaking as I should be. Even in high school and the time I wasted in college I loathed taking notes. I always wanted to find a way to do it quicker, I even had a Palm back in the day when it was extremely nerdy to have such a thing. Pretty sure I didn’t date much because of it. Regardless, all of my notes were typed out and available in a device that I can carry on me. It was a hassle to do much with those notes.

With Evernote I’m able to enter notes, audio and photos into one app and sync that anywhere. Through the power of the internets my thoughts are stored and sent to all of my devices. I do my best to organize my thoughts and keep track of things using this app. When I don’t have time to type it out, I record an audio message that I can listen to later. I can’t tell you the amount of times that this app is saved me because my client forgot their own information but I had saved in a note.

This app and the service is free and if you become a power user like I am, a small monthly fee will give you plenty of room to store more important information. I recommend this app to everybody even if you don’t have an iPhone or iPad, it’s available on your desktop computer. The ability to organize and keep track of things the way this app allows me to has changed the way that I manage my thoughts and things I would typically have to write down in a notebook.

WordPress – Free – Download it here.
I’m sure you’ve heard of WordPress, it’s a software that most bloggers use to run their website. This website that you’re looking at right now is a WordPress website that I am hosting myself on my own server. Most of the time I write my blogs and articles inside of WordPress itself, however I found myself writing more and more from my iPad. The WordPress app allows me to do that. Of course it’s also available for the iPhone but it’s a little too hard to thumb out an entire article on such a small keyboard. Sometimes I even use my iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard which makes typing into the WordPress app even easier.

When you receive comments on blog posts I like to respond as quickly as possible. Of course you could do this through an e-mail or by logging into your WordPress website, but the app makes it much easier to respond. Sometimes I just want to upload a photo or share something quickly on my blog, it’s much easier to do that from the app then it is to take a picture with my phone, e-mail it to myself, and then blog about it from my computer later. The WordPress app just makes it faster.

Skitch – Free – Download it here.
Skitch is an app that was recently bought out by Evernote. Now that it is powered by Evernote it has became a powerful tool for making notes on photos. I may times have you wanted to take a picture of something with your mobile device, jot your thoughts on to that photo and then send it to someone? Of course this is something you could do relatively easily on your computer or if you have a printed out copy of that photo but not so easy to do all from within your device. There are apps you can purchase at a cost that include features that this app includes however its recent integrations with Evernote make it simply amazing.

In the past I would take a photo of something inside of the Evernote app and then make my comments below the photo. This is how I would remember things for later. Sometimes the photo is just better than describing it, but a photo alone is not enough. With Skitch you can take a photo and make your notes right on to that photo. Of course there are many other features inside of Skitch that make it totally amazing however that is what I typically use it for. They also have a desktop application that allows you to create screenshots and annotate pretty much anything on your computer. Because of this it is a powerful tool that I use almost every day. After I complete my photo and annotations, I can upload that to my Evernote account and share that image with anybody that I want.

Dropbox – Free – Download it here.
I have talked about Dropbox many times in the past, I have a couple of blogs on this website about it. Dropbox has became a powerful tool that I use every day for backing up files, syncing files, and sharing files. Whether it’s photos that I took that I want to make sure are backed up, HTML files for website, a database for a website, or documents that I want to make sure I have available at all times, Dropbox makes it all possible.

I decided a long time ago that I didn’t want to have to carry papers around with me. I could never find anything is only so many things that you can organize into one place. However with Dropbox, I can keep digital copies of premature everything with me at all times. Now if I meet with a client, and need to bust out a contract, I don’t have to be pretentious enough to have actually carried a hard copy on me. I can open it up in Dropbox, edit it in Pages and then send it by e-mail. It’s pretty much amazing.

Even documents that most people would file away, I simply scan and upload to my Dropbox. Dropbox then syncs those files to my other computer and then makes them available through their mobile apps so I can have access to them from anywhere. Dropbox gives you 2 GB of free storage and complete access to their apps. It is worth trying out. If you don’t have dropbox, use the link that I provided below to get a free account right now. You’re to love this service once you get used to using it. Imagine having access to all of your important documents, photos and files at any time without having to carry them around. Of course this app is available on pretty much all mobile platforms including iPhone and iPad. I use this app constantly.

Get a 2GB Free account from Dropbox: Click here.

There are many more apps that I use on almost a daily basis that I’ve been using for most of 2011. However there are too many from your list, I thought it would just be best for me to list some of the apps that I use most often and explain why I use them. I hope that this list helps you discover a couple of new apps for your iPhone or your iPad. I would love to hear about apps that you discovered and used the most in 2011, please leave that in the comment box below perhaps you can turn me on to a new app and a good reason to use it.

If you’re looking for new apps you can check out Dailyappshow.com which is a website that I run where we produce video app reviews of new and upcoming iPhone and iPad apps. I am also producing a new show that will be available in a few weeks showcasing the very best apps available for these devices. If you want to learn more about that show or anything else that I’m up to, follow me on twitter. See you in 2012.

I opened up Terminal on my Mac and navigated to the Apache Config folder. With in that folder is a securities file named modsec2. Within that file Flash was blocked. In WordPress and Joomla flash is used for the image uploading script.

Navigate to this file:
/usr/local/apache/conf/modsec2.user.conf”

I simply commented out the following by placing a # in front of it.
##SecRule REQUEST_URI “/usr/local/flash”

After you make that change, restart Apache and give it a try. There is one other fix that I used to have to add in older versions of Joomla. I thought I would mention it as another option if you still have the same errors.

In your .htaccess file that is located in the root directory of your website you can add the following.

<IfModule mod_security.c>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</IfModule>

Hope this helps!

The problem is that people are not very rational when using their online services such as Facebook. Why would someone say something like that out of nowhere, and why would you just click on it with out thinking first?

I put together a video showing the different ways that a profile can get hacked and how to prevent it but let me also explain it in text so the interwebs can pick it up in search.

#1 Clicking on links that direct to password phishing sites or other malicious sites.
To avoid accidentally giving away your Facebook credentials to a hacker simply pay attention to what you are clicking on and DO NOT enter your login information unless you are 100% certain that you are on Facebook.com. A Phishing site is a website that was setup to mimic the login page of another website in an attempt to trick people into entering their username and password.

The Facebook login page is easy to recreate and anybody with five minutes of web design experience can make a fake one. What typically happens is that you are redirected to this page that makes you think that you got logged out (this is not AOL, you don’t just get logged out of things for no reason anymore). Once you enter your information and click to login you are redirected to your Facebook page making you think that you successfully logged in. Since you were never logged out it in the first place you think that all is well. The problem is that the fake Facebook login website just added your email address and password to it’s database of other suckers. Who knows how they will end up using that data. They now can post anything to your Facebook that you can post. They have 100% access.

What you need to do now is change your password. Change it to something good. Your Cat’s name is not good enough. It needs to be something more secure. If your Cat’s name is the only thing you can remember than you can make that name more secure by changing out letters for other keyboard characters. For example: If your Cat’s name is Whiskers you can make your password Wh1sk3rs. Notice that I changed out the letter I for a 1 and the letter E for a 3. All you have to remember is that the vowels in Whiskers were exchanged for the numbers that they look like. Since a letter I looks like a 1 and a E looks like a 3, it should be easy to remember. Of course no password is secure if it’s user is clicking on links they shouldn’t be and accidentally typing in their password to Phishing sites.

#2 Giving Access to Applications on Facebook that are Malicious, Old or Outdated
Everything these days has Facebook access. We can post to Facebook from everything, even your refrigerator. Giving access to your Facebook profile for the most part is harmless. Most of these apps or websites just want to allow you to post to your wall from their service. However, if one of them becomes out dated and was accessed by a hacker, who knows what could happen. This is why I regularly go into my Apps page under Accounts in Facebook and delete old apps that I no longer need to have access to. It’s best to be safe and delete these. You will probably be surprised at what has access to your Facebook profile.

How To Avoid Clicking on Potentially Malicious Links Altogether!
How do you know if one of those links is bad or not? Simply Ask. If you get a Facebook message from someone that sounds Phishy to you, don’t click on the link. Send your friend a new message asking them if they meant to send you that link. If they did then you can click on it, if they didn’t know about that link being sent to you then you can ask them to change their password because their profile was probably hacked.

A moment of patience goes a long way. Take a deep breath and use your best judgement before clicking on something. If you see something on your wall that you didn’t put there, remove it. If you see something on somebody else’s wall that you know they didn’t put there, don’t click on it. Send them a message or a new wall post asking them to remove it and suggesting that they read this blog post.

Please be careful and only click on links that you are familiar with. Never enter your username and password into a website unless you are 100% sure that you are on the website you intended to be on.

If you have any tips on prevention, please share them with us in the comments.

1. Social Networks are for Sharing
Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are all about sharing content. Look at the updates from your friends through out the day. What are they sharing and where do the links land? When a funny video is shared the video resides on Youtube and is brought in as a link. When an inspirational blog post is shared it comes in to Facebook as a link. These social networks are sharing platforms. They were not designed to be the “homepage” for your business. Having a page on these social networks has its place in your push for brand awareness but it should not be your main focus.

Your businesses social network page should be an extension of your website. It should complement your website. These social network pages can only contain a small amount of data about your business. I know that it is tempting to make the change because it seems that more interaction happens on your social network page than your website but I encourage you to keep your website as your main focus.

2. Not Everybody is on Social Networks
I have seen some companies forward their website URL to their Facebook page. They gave up on having a website for their company and assume that since “everybody” is on Facebook that they would just use their Facebook page. This is a bad idea. Not only are you alienating those who do not have a Facebook account from finding out more information about your company, you are showing most of us that you are lazy. Posting updates to a wall on Facebook is quick and easy, however it is not a good representation of your business. I can think of very few businesses that have so little about them that they can fit it on the Info page on their Facebook page.

3. You Can’t Capture Useful Data
Social Networks have the good stuff, all of the data from users profiles that would help us market better. They leverage that data so they can sell ad placement. Facebook allows ads to be sold on their website through their system which if used correctly can be pretty powerful. However, we do not get any of that data. If somebody clicks on a link to my website and finds something interesting, I can make a connection with them through a contact form. A viewer can only find your Facebook page if they either already knew your companies name, one of their friends shared a link to your page or saw your ad and clicked on it. Once they get to your page there is no way for them to communicate with your business other than to post on your wall publicly. It takes going to your website to engage on a more private level.

4. You Can’t Sell on Most Social Networks
Facebook does not allow you to sell directly to other Facebook users. Most social networks have this rule because it is a pretty huge risk to let people sell on your website when you have no control over what and how it is being done. You can post links to products that can be sold but you would need a website for that. This goes right back to my 1st point: Social Networks Are For Sharing!

5. Social Networks Go Away
How useful do you think some of those Myspace profiles that companies poured time and resources into back in 2006 are? Of course not all resources last forever but I watched some businesses pour all of their efforts into their Myspace profile just to have to switch focus to Facebook and Twitter which people expect even more of a presence on. There is a happy medium between having a presence on social networks and remembering that there is a “rest of the world” out there. Social networks are made for sharing content. If a social network goes away, we will find a new one to share on. Sharing has been taking place since the beginning of time and that platform continues to change. Do not put all of your eggs in one basket.

6. People Don’t Ask Stupid Questions Publicly
As I mentioned in #3, there are few ways with social networks to communicate privately. On Facebook this is not possible and on Twitter it is only possible if both people are following each other. You want to be available at the moment your customer or prospective customer has a question or concern. Most people are just fine asking any question through an email or a contact form. That question goes to one person who can answer it. The question is not on public display for all to see and potentially mock. Yes, we are talking about the insecurity of people. If I am unsure about something and ask a question, I don’t want to find out that the answer I was looking for was painted on the wall in front of me for all eyes to see. Let me email you through a form on your website and receive my responses privately.

7. Not All Forms of Customer Engagement Should Be Public
As I mentioned in my last point, not all people like making their issues public. When I want an answer from the source I go to the website and email directly. Posting on a public forum or social network often does not get me the answer I wanted. It gets me answers from users. Sometimes this can be good but often you get bad information. The more you force users to engage with your business on social networks the more you will have to pay attention to those conversations. Wall and topic posts from your customers could also take off in a negative direction. A minor concern that should have been sent in an email could turn into a rant feed of other customers who were not yet ready to complain but now are since someone brought it up.

8. Support Should Be Scaleable
Use the social networks to encourage people to contact you through your website to handle support issues. I really like how some of the large companies out there are using social media to make a public display out of how they are helping customers, however this can backfire for you if you focus to much on helping customers through social networks and forget about those coming to your website for support. Helping each customer with their issues through a social network is not scaleable. Support through a social network takes place like a conversation. This takes much more time to help a person than if it was over an email. Over time, the support posts to your profile, wall or feed will disappear as more posts push it off of the first page and closer to not being found at all. Use the customer engagement you have on social networks to create great FAQ pages on your website. Do you want to continue to answer those common questions on your social network pages all of the time? If the answer already resided in a FAQ section on your site, you could respond to the social network posts with a link to an answer on your site.

9. Your Website is Searchable
When was the last time you did a Google search for something and it resulted in a post to a social network? As of the time I am writing this it is very rare to get a search result that links to a post on a social network profile. This usually only happens when the search is very specific and there are no websites that have written about the subject. Posts to social networks are typically pretty short. Facebook limits posts to 420 characters, Twitter limits are set at 140. If I was focusing all of my attention on my Facebook page, how could I write an article like this? It would have to be broken into chunks and I would have to be very short winded on topics that could require a lot of explaining.

I write articles like this for two reasons. The first is to share information and help people make more informed decisions when it comes to marketing. The second is to increase my own brand awareness. I don’t feel that I can provide much value in the different ways that I attempt to in 420 or 140 characters or less.

10. A Website Can Make or Break Your Business
I never hear anybody say that they decided to do business with someone else because that business has a Facebook page. However I do hear people say that they decided to do business with a company because their website was very professional. You can differentiate yourself from your competition with your website, however for the most part all Facebook and Twitter pages look the same. You are just like everybody else and there are many perfectly good reasons why you should try your best not to be.

If you were just like everybody else why would you care about marketing your business in the first place? There has to be a reason why you are better than your competition? What sets you apart from the other guy/gal in town who offers what you do? When you think of ways to get those points across to customers who may not know you from your competition do you think that a social network profile could accomplish this for you? You can engage your followers in a way that will help build faith in your company but that can only go so far. The above nine points that I made all provide reasons as to why you would want your main focus to be your website.

In Closing
I am not shunning the use of social networks. I have a profile on more social networks than I can even remember. My argument is that you focus your attention on your website and use social networks as a way to drive traffic to your website. Place all of your good content and nuggets of wisdom in your website where people can contact you. Encourage whoever is running your social network profiles to direct customers to your website for support where they can find FAQ’s, blog posts, articles, white papers, answers or direct contacts to the departments that can answer their questions effectively.

Social Networks can make for a great place to share stories and other information that is great, but not great enough to be a main focus on your website. Social networks have character limits because the content is meant to be kept short, just like the attention span of those browsing them. On Twitter, if you can’t say it in 140 characters or less, figure out how it can be turned into a blog post on your website. Use the social networks to share your catchy article title to drive traffic to that article on your website.

Thanks for taking the time to read this long article. As you can tell, I am pretty passionate about marketing and making the best use of your time and resources. If I can be of any help to you or your company, please feel free to contact me.

Start your own Google+ Brand page here.

Visit my Google+ Brand Page: Jerad Hill Photographer on Google+

Like I said before, Google+ business pages for Brands are just like a personal page. You can add a Google+ Brand Page as a friend to your circle just like you could a person and their posts will show up in the stream under that businesses name. As I write this there is no proof that there is any SEO advantages to posting to your page but I am sure that there will be. Google says that they do not use Facebook or Twitter posts in their ranking decision process but one has to assume that something in their algorithm is paying attention.

One of the most exciting features of having a Google+ page for your brand is the Direct Connect Feature. By placing the + in front of a brand’s name in Google search it will make it easy to drive traffic to your brand’s page. For example, if you do a Google Search for +Google, it will take you to Google’s + Page. Do a search for +Pepsi and it will take you to their Google+ Page. Pretty awesome. Facebook and Twitter do not have that kind of functionality unless you are already on their site.

Check out this short video of that feature in action.

In the future we will probably start seeing Google link up the Google+ Brand pages to your companies Place page, Ad Word account, Youtube and more. You can start to see the bigger picture start to unfold. This is something Google should have done long ago. I am glad to see it rolling out now.

Go grab your Google+ Brand page for your business today.

With my 12 years of web design experience and even more as an online shopper I thought I would throw down a few ideas that I believe will increase your sales if implemented correctly. Some of these suggestions are pretty simple to implement and for those of you who are serious there are a few more advanced suggestions as well.

Cross Selling
You know how Amazon suggests items that you may like based on what others have purchased? The feeling they invoke in us is pure selling awesomeness. Showing items that compliment each other is cross selling. For example, a camera selling on a website may have a few items listed below it such as camera straps, memory cards, cases… You get where I am going with this.

Depending on your website, this functionality may not be available to you but if it is or you can figure out how to make it happen you can turn one sale into two, there or more. A great open source platform that comes with cross selling built in is Magento Commerce. Something easier to get started with is Spotify.

Simplify Your Customers Experience
Can you remember the last time you were on a website that frustrated you? It is all to common, especially when you just want to buy something and get back to what you were doing. If you sell a product that can be found somewhere else then you can not afford to leave a snag for potential customers to trip up on.

Getting feedback can be difficult. I have never been a fan of asking customers to specific of questions about the process through my websites however there is nothing wrong with asking your best customers if they think there is anything that would make the process better. They have probably been through it multiple times and may have some insight. If you really want to make sure, have a couple of those family members of yours that never seem to be able to learn how to attach a photo to their email to buy from your site. If great aunt flow can make it through with out calling you five times then you are probably good to go

Create ways for your customers to get to your holiday specials. This could be as simple as adding a menu item, a banner image that links to your holiday specials or special landing pages that link to your social media sites.

Do all of these things. I am a huge fan of covering all of the bases and being everywhere.

Optimize for Search
I say optimize for search rather than search engine optimization because I don’t believe that you should position your website to appeal to a ranking that you may think is relevant to get more traffic. I have found that people search in a less logical fashion then you would assume. The only time they search in a specific manor is when they have the specific answers. This means that they already know what they are looking for they are just looking for the website with the best price. If you think like I do then you don’t want to be that website. The web is filled with to many websites that lack in so many areas because their owners are not making enough money to take their website serious. If you want to find the customers who went to Google because they did not yet know what they were looking for then you need to position your products and content to be found by those people.

Positioning your website and products to be found by the less informed takes a lot of work. You may be selling products produced by another company, which means that your content and resources are probably handed to you by the manufacture. I always tell my web clients that as an online consumer, I am not the type of person they should be targeting. I know how to find something, even if I don’t know what it is I am looking for. It is very rare that I spend more then a few moments looking for something that I didn’t even know existed. However, people who are “pretty good” at searching the web are not your target. Those people generally can find you if they wanted to as long as your website is in decent working order, is fairly modern and has decent content.

This is where I suggest that you optimize your website for those searching. A best practice that you will see on many blogs is to make sure that the text on your website is “keyword” rich. That is only a small step in the right direction. What you really need to focus on is making sure that your website’s text is search phrase rich.

A search phrase is what most of us do when we search. If I am looking for a camera I don’t google search the word camera. Most people will search based on what they are trying to accomplish. For example, if Jane was looking for the best camera for taking sports photos of her son playing soccer and you really want to sell a certain camera that is good at fast moving shots to soccer moms she would probably do a search in Google for “best camera for soccer photos” or something along those lines (keep in mind this is an example). That is a search phrase. Read through the content on your website and most importantly the product descriptions you have and see if you have any potential search phrases in there. Here is an example of how you could word your content: “The SL140XT is an affordable choice for the mom who wants the best camera for capturing her children’s soccer moments.”

Of course that example is very specific. I would suggest you try to be as broad as possible with out sounding like the manufacture wrote it. To make this process easier you could put together packages. If a mother wanted to buy a camera for the above mentioned purpose she would probably need a compact camera case, extra batter and possibly a zoom lens. Why not create a package that is for the “soccer mom.” If you can figure out how to create some specific niche packages you could take care of your Cross Selling and the same time.

Website Redesign
I am going to be honest. I judge a website by it’s cover and I know you do too. We all do, the same way we decide to walk into a store or not. When it comes to spending our money we want to make the best decision on who to spend it with as possible. At all costs want to avoid a negative experience or even worse, an embarrassing experience. A website is a lot like high school, the pretty ones get most of the attention. Of course there are the occasional loud websites that just seem to be popular for no apparent reason but the pretty sites have to work far less at it. If your website design is not on par with what people would expect from your industry then your website’s look could be costing you more money than it would take to redesign it. Of course it does not come down to the look of the website along, however this is one of those things that helps. A typical website redesign could cost you as much as a few thousand dollars but if the feeling people get from your website when they first click on it is less than desirable, you could be loosing much more then that.

People expect consistency, it helps us feel like we are on the right path. I get frustrated when I click on a link or an ad that looks and sounds like what I wanted only to land on a website that looks and feels nothing like what I expected. Create the experience you want your customers to have from the first link or ad they click on to the pages they land on after the checkout is finished. When it comes to selling online there is no such thing as to much testing.

Simplify and Reward
I think I have spoke enough on the topic of making the process simple. Once you have achieved this, make sure that you reward your customers for buying. I have seen websites give free shipping on the next order, a 20% discount if another order is placed with in the next 6 hours and coupon codes on the invoice with the shipped product. Make sure you give them something for next time. Make them remember your store, especially if you sell something that can be found somewhere else. You can not afford to be forgotten by your customers.

Online selling is much harder then it was 10 years ago, even 4 years ago for that matter. Don’t ever get comfortable. Keep trying to improve the process and make the experience better. Know what your customers are looking for and provide it. Know who your customers are and be the kind of seller they want to buy from. Just because your website does not have a physical face that people can see does not mean that you can not make it feel just as warm as dealing with a real person. Check out Zappos.Com’s iPad app. When you add an item to the cart a kitty jumps out with a thumbnail of the product in hand and drops it in the shopping cart. It is clunky looking but it makes me smile every time. What are you doing to make your customers smile while on your website.

This article quickly turned into an article on things you should do to your website anyway. I could go on in extreme length on examples of exceptional websites and practices that seem to be working for other people however I believe that you should figure out the kind of customer you are wanting to attract and build the shopping experience that person would expect to get.

Resources:
Spotify – Online Selling Platform with a free trial
Magento Commerce – Opensource eCommerce platform. Not easy to setup but it’s amazingly powerful.
OSCommerce – Opensource eCommerce platform. Not nearly as robust with features as Magento but easier to setup.

The process is simple. Drop a black layer down in the timeline and drop your audio track under that. Stretch the black layer out to the full width of the project or the audio track. Hit the spacebar to play. While the music is playing hit Command and the B key to create breaks with the blade tool. You can do this in real time. I like to time it to the beat to make it interesting but you could do this however you wish. Then all you have to do is drag your images or clips over the black clip you want to replace and then choose replace from beginning. You have to do this for each clip, which is the time consuming part, but it does give you a lot of customization albeit forced customization. If you are dropping in video tracks and it seems to have placed the track incorrectly you can use the slip tool to slip the portion of the clip that was brought in to an earlier or later portion of the clip.

To be honest I find this a much easier task in Adobe Premier Pro, but we are using Final Cut Pro X.

Hope this helps you edit your videos and slideshows to the beat of music. Make sure to share this video with your friends.

I am going to embark on a new challenge of publicly sharing my experiences with the businesses and products I come in contact with most often. My goal is to post a new review every day. This could range from writing a review for a local business to reviewing a product I love on Amazon.

Reviews play a big part in how we make decisions these days. How many times have you looked at products online and ordered the one with the most positive reviews? How many times have you clicked on the link with the highest number of ratings? I do it myself. I don’t want to make a poor decision so I look to see what others who came before me have said. Everywhere we go these days we can see what others have experienced. The world is getting smaller.

Most of my reviews will be written on Yelp or on a businesses Google Place Page, however it will also be fun to try different forms of reviewing. I may decide to shoot a short video review of a product and upload it to its Amazon.com page. Just sitting here thinking about it I already have a list of places and things I could review. To make this fair I will just be reviewing businesses and products I come into contact with during the next 30 days. This is not to say that I won’t possibly write reviews for other places and things I have experienced in the past but at least one review per day will be from an experience that day or the day before it.

I am excited to do this excuse I am excited to share my thoughts about the people, places and things that impact my life on a daily basis. These are people who deserve reviews. I encourage you to setup a Yelp account and write some reviews about businesses that you could not live with out. Your review could help the next person decide to visit and perhaps your influence could turn them into a new customer. How cool would that be? We all give inadvertent referrals all of the time. A written review online can help people make decisions every day. I believe that most people are like me, they just want to make a good informed decision.

Along with writing reviews, I am going to make sure that I checkin to those businesses with Yelp and perhaps Foursquare. I want my Yelp reviews to be backed up with proof of visitation. You can visit my Yelp profile at http://jeradhill.yelp.com. My hope is that the reviews I write will result in well deserved referrals. Most of the local businesses I frequent probably have no idea what Yelp or foursquare are. Perhaps I will have to enlighten them after I write the review. As a website designer I am always encouraging my clients to find creative ways to get their customers to write reviews. It is time I led by example and started writing reviews. The best way to get reviews is to start writing them about others.

Show the businesses you frequent that you care by posting a review on one of their profiles online.

Since I make a good habit of blogging about things I could not easily find I thought it would be a good idea to demo this concept here and give the answer away in exchange for a “Like.”

Step 2: Log into your WordPress Admin. Under the Plugins section click on “Add New”. Up at the top under the title “Plugins” click on “Upload.” Choose the zip file you just created in Step 1b. Click Upload.

Step 2a: Your host is probably “localhost” your username is the FTP username for your host account, the password is the password for that host account. This may be different from your WordPress login.

Step 3: Plugin is installed. You can view the documentation that came along with the plugin which will explain how to use it.

This plugin will allow you to hide specific content just as I did and will allow the reader on your blog to make that content viewable once they click on the “Like” button. Pretty cool!

If many of you find the install to be confusing I will record a video tutorial in the future to show how to install a plugin. Yes it will require the click of a “Like” button in order to view it.

Many of the fitness blogs I read were talking about how unhealthy it is to sit at a desk all day long. Since I started designing websites full time back in 2005 I have spent the larger portion of my day in a chair behind my desk. Since having my first child I have been able to make it to the gym much less. My wife is a stay at home Mom and my son is there with her, so I want to be home with them when I am not working. In the past I would justify sitting all day by spending a good 2 hours 5-6 days per week at the gym. 2011 has not been a kind year to me as far as time spent at the gym goes. This is what prompted me to move to a standing desk. Now that I have been at it for 30 days I thought it would be good to report my findings.

Click the photos to view them larger. Sorry for the horrible iPhone photos. I did not think to take nice photos when beginning this journey.

I have found many good things and bad things about being behind a Standing Desk, however some of those things may just be specific to me. I will first outline how each week went and then recap my findings below. If you have spent any time behind a standing desk I would love to hear about how it went for you in the comments section below.

The First Week:
The first few days of standing my legs got tired. I noticed that my body was burning more calories per day as I found myself more hungry around each meal. During the first standing week I sat on a stool about 20% of my work day. During this week I was very busy and moved around a lot which made it easier for me to be standing.

The Second Week:
During this week I was very busy with app reviews for Dailyappshow.com. This meant that there was a lot of round tripping between my desk and the app recording station. I sit on a stool while I record the app video demos which are about 3-5 minutes in length each. At my standing desk I probably sat on the stool about 15% of the time and stood the rest. I also started noticing that my ability to focus on a project for long periods of time was a bit more difficult but I figured it was due to how busy I was with the app demo videos.

The Third Week:
This was another busy week with app demo videos. I also had several meetings outside of my office and a few meetings at my office so I had some mixed sit down time while driving and being in those meetings. I don’t recall using my stool at my standing desk at all this week. I also added in a 2×3 foot Anti-Fatigue mat (Amazon Link). It took me a few days to get used to the mat because of it’s texture, however I did notice an increase in overal comfort. This mat was easier on my knees through out the day. I also noticed that I would lean on my desk a lot to take pressure off of my legs. I started thinking about how my back had not hurt at all during this process of standing for 8 hours a day, sometimes longer. My productivity was still a bit distracted as I was very busy working on small projects. It was hard for me to attempt to start a larger project. At this point I was not sure why. I also had a wedding this week, a very long 12 hour day of shooting. I felt that my legs were good to go and not even tired at the end of the 12 hour day. My body and mind were tired but my legs were good.

The Fourth Week:
I finished up last week strong. I actually had some items sitting on my stool and did not use it once. I was standing for 100% of the day while at my desk. The only times I sat was at home and in my car. I made it to the gym once this weekend and being that it had been a month since my last gym visit I was surprised at how much leg stamina I had while doing normal workouts I typically needed weeks to get into after lapses this long in gym visits. I noticed that my leg strength was improved. Standing at any time was no big deal. I never looked around for somewhere to sit, I was fine standing, unless everybody else was sitting.

Thoughts on a Standing Desk for fitness and general well being:
I believe what I had read. Standing as opposed to sitting all day is much better for health. You don’t burn but a few calories sitting down but when you stand you burn around 800+ more calories per day. This is a huge increase in activity during those times I was not making it to the gym at all. If you do not have any issues with your legs then I suggest a standing desk over a sitting desk. Don’t worry if you have to use a stool and start off standing in moderation. I attempted to go from all day sitting to all day standing from the start. I decided to take sitting breaks rather than breaks to stand up from my sitting position. Overall I did feel healthier. I am not sure if I lost any weight. I have always fluctuated in weight depending on how active I am, how I am eating and the stress levels I am currently undertaking. It is hard to determine if anything works for weight loss because all of the stars must be aligned for me to really make change happen.

When at home I got much more enjoyment out of sitting because I had spent my entire day standing. I could really relax at home when sitting on my couch or laying in bed.

Thoughts on a Standing Desk for productivity:
I mentioned how things went from week to week so you could see how my productivity was. Notice how I was really good with short term tasks and I didn’t really complete any long term tasks in one day. I truly feel that the standing desk gave me Task ADD. I was unable to just knock out an entire website project in one day like I used to be able to. I had to break it up into chunks or I wouldn’t get it done. In my current office I do not have enough room for a sitting and standing desk so I actually removed the sitting desks to place standing desks for myself and Ben who works with me part time.

I had this realization that my productivity style has completely changed today and Ben confirmed that he feels the same way however he didn’t really notice it until I brought it up. It is really hard to say if this is the same for everybody but I feel that it makes sense. When sitting you are not worrying about much. You don’t have to balance yourself, you don’t feel like moving around and you don’t get as restless. Standing in one place makes me feel like I have to move around more. I am even changing windows on my computer much more often. I have one display but I use Mission Control or what used to be called Spaces on my Mac to have the applications I am using open across multiple screens. I feel like I have ADD there as well. I switch through screens more often and have to see what is going on in each app rather than focusing on one for any particular length of time. It is quite possible that standing has just brought out the fact that I have some form of adult ADD but I think it is just a restlessness that is brought on by standing in the same spot for long lengths of time.

Most people who have standing jobs are moving about. When I used to work in retail at any given time I was behind the cash wrap, in the stock room or out on the floor. When I had my own store I was packaging shipments, working on motors, talking to people, placing orders and doing all sorts of other activities that all took place in different spaces. At my current office, my computer is at my standing desk and that is where I would spend most of my day. To be honest the only reason I feel I have written as much as I have right now is due to the fact that I am sitting on the stool instead of standing.

Angles: I also noticed that the angles of using a keyboard and trackpad from a standing position is much harder on my hands. It is much more of a bind on my wrists then before. This may also play into the lack of ability to work through longer tasks such as writing code. At a sitting desk I used to write code for hours on end with out stopping for more than a drink of something. At a standing desk I find myself switching to something else so I can stop typing and most of the time I do it subconsciously.

Standing Desk vs. Sitting Desk:
I believe that everybody should at least try standing. I would not suggest that you make the switch until you have tried it for at least a week and can see how it effects your productivity and of course your body. We all want to be healthier but we also need to finish work and get paid. I moved out my sitting desk when I started this so I have adapted to my standing workspace. I really wish that I had the room for both. I believe that for longer web projects that I would be better served by sitting a comfortable position while I write code. I plan to look for a good bar height chair so I can recreate my sitting desk environment for when I need to concentrait on projects for a long period of time. I will however continue to use my standing desk because I know that it is better for my body.

If you are in a job where you are behind a computer all day with out moving, a standing desk may be kind of hard for you. It will be much easier if you can have tasks separated by space or location as opposed to one space such as your desk. I found myself most productive when I was able to move to different locations and handle a task away from my standing desk. When I came back to my standing desk I was always more productive for the first hour.

We were created with the ability to move about which is why I am left wondering if we are designed to stand in one place. If standing was so productive why would sitting ever have came into the picture?

Let me know if you have tried a standing desk or considered it. What are/were your thoughts and concerns? I would love to hear more about what others have experienced so I can determine if I am just crazy or if there really is something to this.