The Bernard Factor Your Net on blogs

Choose your hosting wisely

Jeff R — Wed, 28 May 2008 04:43:15 +0000

If you are like millions of bloggers on the net you probably have your blog on either a free service or have your own domain on a hosted account. Either which way you want to make sure that your provider can support you and your customers and minimize any downtime. If you are with a unreliable host and your site is constantly unavailable it will cost you more than customers. There are many things that you can look for when deciding on a hosting account some of which include customer testimonials, industry awards, and live support. While you are on their site call their 1-800 number and see who picks up and what the wait time is. This can be a huge factor when you are starting your account and need some help.
At sites like webhostrating.com they offer some great articles on cPanel Tutorials that can help even the most novice blogger understand some of the technical jargon. You will find in depth articles on how to identify good hosting plans and what questions to ask when looking for a new hosting site. Their cPanel Tutorials are just one of many valuable features that you will find as they are adding content weekly to help those of us who love to blog and create but are a little shy on the tech side.

Cool graphics design

Jeff R — Mon, 26 May 2008 14:03:49 +0000

If you are fan of photoshop to help you with your business graphics then you may want to try AdesClrPicker software. Featured by AdesBlog.com this great little tool that allows designers to capture colors much quicker than photoshop. This is key when you are trying to match colors for your brand, or creating a new online campaign where you are trying to match up different colors. Here are some of the features in the latest release:
New version v2.0 released.

* Improved Interface
* Hue, Saturation, Brightness sliders for modifying the colors in Color Library
* Now it picks colors in HTML, RGB, Delphi, C++, VB codes
* Support for ACT and ACO formats for exporting colors to Adobe Photoshop
* Automatically add colors from Floating Menu to Color Library
Here is a screen shot of how just easy it is:

Know your customers

Jeff R — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:13:51 +0000

In my line of work we receive reports weekly that show us how our business unit is doing compared to others across the region and nation as well as how we are doing against the competition. Being able to understand the large amount of data and make it usable in our day to day interactions is the key to successful market share growth. My job as a manager is to be able to look at the data and then dive into the finer points to identify trends and then create strategy and tactics to either continue the positive trend or correct one that is headed in the wrong direction.
The other key success factor to understanding business data is having the right information at the right time so that your sales and marketing people can make informed decisions today. You can have the most extensive data set with all the information you would ever need to take over the market, but if it is not readily available in a ready to use format the information is useless. As a manager one of my roles is to take the business reports and boil them down to a few key areas so that my team can make better judgments when they are in front of their customers. I have seem people suffer from what I call “paralyzes by analyzes” This is where you look at the data for so long that you never act or create any tactics on how to implement the information you have to improve your business.

There are many analytical tools that you can use such as Microsoft Objects, Crystal reports that allow you to build queries on your data sets to help provide better projections of future outcomes. The business experts at Business Objects Consultancy Services can provide you with the resources to understand those in depth data reports and provide clear direction to your finance or marketing folks to identify trends that will impact their business.

Own your own business and get linked

Jeff R — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:23:50 +0000

Owning your own business can be a the most rewarding experience and also the most difficult time you will have. Many businesses today thrive on the franchise model where a successful business replicates itself for others. This helps to eliminate a lot of the start up headaches and the business plan is already set for you. Franchise businesses will help in training, marketing, and hiring. This is great for the first time business owner to get into an industry without all the required background. It will still take a lot of hard work and hours to be successful business. Business Franchise Opportunities can be found here with some great ideas on different businesses available. So whether you are looking to start your own software store, home cleaning service, or pet walking service look to this directory to help you find the companies that will help you achieve your goals. You can help list your franchise at Machinimatrix.com and get your business kicked into high gear.

Student Loans on the net

Jeff R — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:11:48 +0000

My wife and I were talking about our kids college fund the other day and trying to figure out how to put three kids through college over the next 15 years. While our first kid will not enter college until 9 more years we are looking at some financial options to help us soften the financial impact. There are a lot more options now with state specific savings plans that allow you to stay out of debt and helped to set aside money tax free for college.

When I came out of school I used a student loan consolidation program to help extend the time in which I had to pay off my student debt. I found that early on being able to learn debt management helped me to stay focused and avoid any credit problems. We used a variety of financial vehicles to help manage our debt such as equity lines of credit and low interest bearing credit cards to help pay down higher interest loans and use more of the principal to pay down the cards and loans quicker. The key as that as our payments went down we continued to make the standard payement and this helped to `build up equity and we actually got letters from our banks offering 0% interest loans for a specified time if we transferred some of our other debt to them. This was a huge savings of approx. $1500 over the life of the loan to other investment vehicles that in turn we were able to earn a higher interest rate for our investment.

My parents made just enough money to keep us out of the financial aid realm so there were some nice debts when come out of my four year education. So as I got into the work force and applied my education I was able to use various forms of debt management to pay off my student loans while helping to build up my credit score. This has proven to be a great assest as our credit score is great and we have never been late or behind on any payments owed to creditors.

Is your identity safe

Jeff R — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:06:10 +0000

The internet has become the largest virtual market on the planet and there are millions of transactions that take place everyday. In those interactions you exchange information about yourself and sometimes your credit that is supposed to be secure. While most sites offer a secure setting for your to pay and shop online there have been more Phishing sites that mimic the actual merchant and are used solely for the purpose of collecting personal and financial information to be sold to the highest bidder. Identity theft happens about every three seconds and affects about every 1 in 5 Americans. To help protect your identity there is now lifelock which not only promises to help secure your identity but backs it with a million dollar guarantee. You may have seen the commercial where the actual owner proudly displays his social security number for all to see to show just how confident he is in his companies ability to protect his identity from being stolen.

Using PPC management

Jeff R — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:01:37 +0000

In the world of online advertising Pay Per Click is the vehicle of choice for many companies. With the growing number of companies that offer PPC advertising it can be difficult and time consuming for any business or agency to keep track. Many businesses are using Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and now Microsoft Ad Center to do their online PPC campaigns. With the market becoming more competitive and the value of a click varies from keyword to keyword it is essential that companies and agencies who implement their strategies be fully aware of what each service brings. Successful campaign management is a key offering that a vendor can bring to their clients to provide timely reports and metrics.

Acquisio Search PPC management software was designed for agencies to help their customers manage their multiple channels of online PPC campaigns. It provides a seamless front-end system that allows you to see all of your various PPC companies such as Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft Ad center without having to log into those accounts. You can see reports and snapshots at an instant to monitor your success. It provides agencies to manage their keyword bids on a more effective basis and monitor their success across platforms. With Acquisio Search application you as the agency can completely brand the front end so that you can present it to your customers and allow them direct access to see on demand reports as well. A great tool in todays high paced world to have the most current data to make critical and successful marketing decisions.

Are you Maxxed Out

Jeff R — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:16:40 +0000

The world of online blogging can be grueling at times. Trying to come up with unique content and finding articles and new items that would of interest to your readers can be a tiring process. For all you late night bloggers and surfers out there why not try the new Maxxed Energy pop. Instead of energy drink they have placed their energy formula in a lollipop. That is right and this not meant for little kids!! It does actually come in a little can to really set itself apart to show that it is like those other energy drinks but only with a twist. So get to blogging and grab a pop to keep you energized.

Plus they are running a daily contest to win cool prizes like the Xbox 360, HDTV, $250 game stop gift card and much more. Enter today for your chance to win.

Signs of the election

Jeff R — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:56:30 +0000

In Pennsylvania next week the democratic nominee will become very clear. Hillary will have to win this state by a larger margin than in previous states in order make a statement that she is still a contender in this race. You will no doubt see numerous political Signs that are meant to help create top of mind awareness for voters with catchy slogans and buzz words. Many of those signs will created on the demand and handed out over the course of the week as various issues come up in the debates. This is all possible to digital on demand printing. So if you have your favorite candidate get out there and vote and make your voice heard.

If you are looking to create signs in a flash then you can go online and upload you own images and have these banners printed within a matter of hours at buildasign.com. They specialize in signs for companies, realty groups, and schools.

Using Amazon with Worpress

Jeff R — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:58:54 +0000

We have just implemented a great tool that is designed for WordPress blogs that allow you to easily incorporate Amazon items into your blog. If you have an associates ID, it will automatically add that too the item to help you get credit for the sale. The plug in is easy to install, and creates a nice, easy to use option right within the post area. Here is the link to the download and the instructions on how to use within your blog. Amazon WP

Here is a sample of what you can include: