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Advice on Social Networking

Alan — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:39:16 +0000

Some useful advice for people in business who want to start social networking.

Example of a nice automated email from moo.com

Alan — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:26:25 +0000

This is a good example of an automated email.

Hello

I’m Little MOO – the bit of software that will be managing your order
with moo.com. It will shortly be sent to Big MOO, our print machine who
will print it for you in the next few days. I’ll let you know when it’s
done and on its way to you.

If you’ve imported your images to MOO from another site, please make
sure you don’t remove or change the photos you’ve chosen from that site
until this order has been printed, or some pictures may come out blank.
(If you’ve uploaded them directly to MOO, then there’s no need to
worry.)

You can track and manage your order from the accounts section at:
https://secure.moo.com/account

Estimated Arrival Date: Mon 13 Sep 2010

Remember, I’m just a bit of software. So, if you have any questions
regarding your order please first read our Frequently Asked Questions
at:
http://www.moo.com/help/

and if you’re still not sure, contact customer services (who are real
people) at:

https://secure.moo.com/service/

Thanks,
Little MOO, Print Robot

MOO
“We love to print”

- – - – - – - – - – - – -

Order details as follows:

Order Date Thu 2 Sep 2010

Order Content

Qty
Description
Price
Extended

1
50 Ready Made Business Cards
£10.99
£10.99

Original item(s) Total
£10.99

Net Amount
£10.99

Shipping
£2.50

VAT (17.5%)
£2.36

Order Total
£15.85

—————————–

Have you had any good automated emails recently?

IBM Hot Water Supercomputer

Alan — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:56:39 +0000

IBM has delivered a supercomputer cooled by hot water to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, which IBM says states “a new era in energy-aware computing.” The Aquasar cooling system uses water at temperatures of up to 140 degrees, and as a result consumes up to 40 percent less energy than a comparable air-cooled machine. Furthermore the system uses waste heat to provide heating to the university buildings, reducing Aquasar’s carbon footprint further.

IBM keep on delivering great green IT ideas.

Animatronics not lost to CGI

Alan — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:21:59 +0000

This video that was posted on YouTube recently proves that the Animatronics art form is not lost. I am astounded by the quality of some of these models.

I still remember the good old days of the Henson workshop. They seemed real enough to me a kid. Goes to show that you don’t always need to go with CGI.

Finding a quality domain name

Alan — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:02:49 +0000

It can be a difficult to choose a domain name, once you think you have got a good idea you usually find that someone has already got the name. I have found the following techniques and tools quite useful in finding a new domain which can save some time.

Start with a brainstorming session to get some ideas down. I like to use a digital mind mapping tool such as Xmind, Mind42, or Freemind. (Pen and Paper work just fine too)
Domains Bot (No better tool for trying out names in my opinion, fast and friendly, and also check out the extra tools section)
Create a shortlist of names that are available to buy
Register the domain

See this related article for a few other tips on choosing a good name.

So have you done that now?

What domain did you buy?

Microsoft attempt Street View

Alan — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:04:38 +0000

A friend of mine emailed this to me today and I thought I’d post it here to as it looks like a nice bit of technology. It will be interesting to see where they go with this.

Daily Tip on hold

Alan — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:29:00 +0000

Unfortunately with everything as it is right now I just don’t have the time to commit to writing up a daily tip, so I am going to try and do one at least once a week for now until I find the time to commit to this. If you have any requests for consulting or web design work please get in touch.

I would also like to know if you have any great tips of your own that help get you through the day.

Daily Tip: Google Trends

Alan — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:26:29 +0000

Google Trends provides insights into broad search patterns. Wheter or not you can use it to get any useful informtion depends on what subjects and comparisions you make. For example I recently put Iphone vs Andriod. Iphone is more popular at present, however you can see android gaining in popularity at the start of 2010. What does this means? I don’t know but it’s fun to look at.

Daily Tip: Picasa Face Recognition

Alan — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 22:27:41 +0000

Today’s tip is more of a recent discovery. I have over 10000 photos on my PC, many mixed in with personal and business. A nifty tool in Picasa 3 is the face recognition technology. After a little help from you the software picks out faces in all of your photos. All you need to do is start naming a few and the software does the rest for you, grouping them into an easy way of find photos of your loved ones. There were tons of people I didn’t even know. One funny thing it did was pick out a mannequin.

Find out more at Google.

Daily Tip: Use Gmail Filter for Persistent Spam

Alan — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:12:55 +0000

I have decided for no particular reason to start offering a piece of advice everyday on my blog. So here is the first tip.

If you are a gmail user like me you will no doubt be impressed by the spam filtering it has by default. However there is the odd occasion for one reason or another that no matter what you do you can’t get rid of a particular email. One such case I had recently was one from Chris Cardell. I made the mistake of signing up to his email marketing and then the flood of emails started coming, no matter what I tried it would not go to spam, his de-registration did not work either.

The Solution?

Open the email in your gmail
Press more actions
Choose to Filter Messages like these. You will notice a list of email from the offender
Press next step
Then simply set the option to Delete it.
Press create filter to save