Google+ Shutting Down

I think a lot of folks saw this one coming. It had it's moments but I knew it was on its way out when Google made it so difficult (nearly impossible) to post to a business profile. Oh well, onward to bigger and better things. 

For more in-depth reading, check out Phil Rozek's post.

Google Search Console now with 16 months of data

Google Search Console now with 16 months of data, up from 90-days! 
https://www.seroundtable.com/video-01-12-2018-25070.html

Thanks to Barry Schwartz of SERoundtable.com for update.

Announcing Guetzli: A New Open Source JPEG Encoder

A lot has gone on since I last posted, but for all you graphic artists, web developers, and SEO's interested in optimizing the images on your website to increase Site Speed (one of Google's ranking factors), this new JPEG encoder is worth checking out. It's called Guetzli. And it's an Open Source JPEG Encoder. You can read the full article about it's release from Google's Research Blog.

Google Changes in 2015

As we close out 2015, I thought I'd mention a few of Google's changes that affected Local Search.
Note: the dates are when I noticed the change, not necessarily the exact date of the roll-out.    

Dec. 1   Google drops Change Location search filter from search results
http://searchengineland.com/google-drops-change-location-search-filter-from-search-results-237247

Nov. 19   G+ stripped out GMB local search.
No Reviews or About on new G+ verses Classic

Aug. 6   Google's Local Search roll out "local 7-pack" trimmed to "local 3-pack" view. More info on changed to Map pack
http://www.thesempost.com/google-local-shakeup-3-pack-only-7-pack-removed-addresses-phone-numbers-gone/

http://www.link-assistant.com/news/google-local-3-pack-update.html


Google Algorithm Change History
https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Hope you had a good 2015, and here's to an even better 2016!

Google Authorship

Here are some useful links regarding Google Authorship

Google Announces the End of Author Photos in Search: What You Should Know
http://moz.com/blog/bye-bye-author-pics

How Optimizing My Ugly Google+ Pic Increased Free Traffic 35%
http://moz.com/blog/google-author-photos

Should I use my company logo as my social media avatar?
http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/social-media/logo-as-google-plus-profile-picture

Google Has Gone 'Dark'

Google Just Ended A Bunch Of Free Data
and web marketing pros are flying blind. Read more 

Google Hummingbird update

Check out this article on Google's update called Hummingbird. This algorithm change, which was officially announced on September 26th, addresses conversational queries largely driven by mobile devices using voice search. Read the full article here:   
http://www.link-assistant.com/news/google-hummingbird-update.html

How to Tweet to Facebook / How to Facebook to Twitter

After some research, I found these links: 

How to Tweet to Facebook
https://t.co/uaWJT7GPqZ

How to have Facebook post to Twitter
http://www.facebook.com/twitter

Camera Gear - Timers & Grips

Remote Timers
Hahnel Giga T Pro II 2.4GHz Wireless Timer Remote

If you're looking for a good remote timer / trigger release to do time-lapse photography, or reduce camera shake, I got this as a Christmas gift, and love it! It's super dependable and replaced my spotty $30 eBay one.

Hahnel manufacturer site
Amazon product page

Battery Grips
In the past, I've paid $200+ for Nikon battery grips, which I love, but they seem to get pricier every day. Has anyone tried grips by VELLO like this one at B&H Photo?

YouTube - How to Create Custom Thumbnails + more

This video covers 4 New YouTube updates:
JamesWedmore.com

1. How to Create Custom Thumbnails
2. InVideo programming
3. Interactive Polls & Questions
4. New Analytics Feature: Estimated Minutes Watched

Google - more results per page

Google 10 > 100 results
If you need more than 10 results per page in a Google search, you can change Google's settings by going to Google.com/preferences, turning OFF "Google Instant predictions" then changing slider to 100 Results per page.

Brand colors

Need color inspiration for your logo? Check out this collection of major brand colors curated by Galen Gidman.

New Screen Sharing Co. - StartMeeting

FreeConferenceCall.com has launched a sister company, StartMeeting, to allow you to Share Better at a fraction of the cost! StartMeeting is a new audio and web conferencing service that incorporates state-of-the-art features including screen sharing; easy-to-use meeting recording; and a customizable online Meeting Wall.

StartMeeting is offering customers the audio and web service for significantly less than similar services. Prices for screen sharing start at $19.95 per month for a 50 participant capacity. This is compared to $39 for 15 participants at GoToMeeting and $49 for 25 participants at WebEx.

SuperMedia and Dex One agree to merge

Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, "Yellow Pages' Last Lifeline: Clinging to Each Other," describes the all-stock merger between the last two significant public players in the struggling local-directories business.

Story-centered design: how to make a screencast

How to make a screencast using tools like Camtasia and ScreenFlow.
Read full article at designstaff.org

Google Places becomes Google+ for Local Search

These Google algorithm changes really shake up the Local Search playing field:

Google Places Is Over, Company Makes Google+ The Center Of Gravity For Local Search

Using Google+ Pages for Business Marketing

Top Google Result Gets 36.4% of Clicks [Study]

Adobe Lightroom 4

Adobe Lightroom 4 now in stores!
Lightroom is a complete photo management and editing suite, and powerful organizational tool for your photographs. Check out the new features.

5 Ways to Print Directory contents

If you've ever wanted to print a list of the files in a folder or directory, here are some ways:

Directory Printer for Windows 7
Directory List & Print

Directory Printer for Windows XP
JDirPrint

Article with more ways...

Pogoplug - create your own cloud

Pogoplug is an inexpensive device that you can plug into your router, attach a bunch of external USB drives and create your own cloud. You can access your files remotely, FTP, and share photos in password protected folders. Check out Pogoplug for remote storage.

Adobe Creative Cloud & Luminosity video

This is a mixed post of two tweets:

Adobe Creative Cloud Offers Applications, Services, Community - read more.

Working With Luminosity Masks in Photoshop - check out tutorial video.

Google Boost > AdWords Express

When a Google rep contacted me back in November 2010 to introduce Boost, the product seemed positioned as AdWords for Google Places, or paid Places. Now they're re-positioning it as AdWords Express to simplify the AdWords process for small business owners. Read more...

ICANN going beyond existing 22 TLDs

LA Times article about ICANN going beyond existing 22 Top Level Domains (TLDs)
At $185,000, it’s pricey, but then all sorts of domains become possible.

Partition Tool

Back in the day, you may have used Partition Magic... or more recently, you may have bought Acronis Disk Director or... you can download Partition Tool for FREE!

Free PDF Creator - Primo PDF

An 'organizing maniac' told me about this Free PDF Creator that she's been using for a couple years - Primo PDF

Join.me - screen sharing utility

Ever need to share your screen with someone? Or, in the case of tech support, need to see the other person's screen to help them with a computer problem? Check out Join.me

Amazon S3 for hosting static websites

I hadn't considered Amazon for website hosting until a colleague mentioned they have redundant servers on both coasts and offer dedicated IPs. For more info, check out Press Release: Amazon S3 adds new features for hosting static websites.

Diagram Tool & Project Management Apps

Gliffy - online tool for creating network diagrams, site maps, wireframes of user interfaces (GUI), flow charts, org charts, and business processes.

While looking for an Open-Source substitute to Microsoft Visio to create such network diagrams, I came across this article 10 Free Project Management Applications.

Amazon Cloud Drive & Cloud Player

News Release
Amazon announced the launch of Amazon Cloud Drive, Amazon Cloud Player for Web and Amazon Cloud Player for Android. Together, these services enable customers to securely store music in the cloud and play it on any Android phone, Android tablet, Mac or PC, wherever they are. Customers can upload their music library to Amazon Cloud Drive and can save any new Amazon MP3 purchases directly to their Amazon Cloud Drive for free.

Google Advanced Search

Here are some Google Advanced Search Operators & Features

Features
http://www.google.com/help/features.html

Operators
http://www.google.com/advanced_search

Google Enterprise vs. Microsoft Exchange

Back in January, I posted about Hosted Exchange. Now considering Google Enterprise instead. All thoughts are welcome.

Here's a link comparing the two from Google's perspective:
Google apps

Mobile Powerhouse

ASUS G53JW-A1     video >>
Intel Core i7-740QM
15.6" 16:9 LED Backlit screen (1920x1080)
1.5GB nVidia Graphics Card GeForce GTX 460M
500GB Seagate Hybrid Hard Drive w/ 4GB SSD Memory 7200RPM
12GB DDR3 1333MHz
2X/4X Blu-Ray Reader + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
Backlit Keyboard
Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit

ASUS eStore

Google changes Local Search Algorithm

Google changes its Local Search algorithm to favor Places, i.e. business listings.

This is a big shift, especially for local businesses looking to rank well in geo-targeted search results.

Full article at searchengineland.com. The adventure continues...

Tablet Wars

Tech round-up of some tablet contenders. The Blackberry Playbook's screen is smaller than I'd like, but the camera, RAM, and Flash support make it real nice!
Full article at Engadget.

HTML5 Rocks!

Check out this HTML5 experiment by Chris Milk set to "We Used To Wait" by Arcade Fire. Use Google Chrome, and your real address for maximum impact!

The Wilderness Downtown

WinDirStat

WinDirStat - free, open source, disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Windows. It provides a visual snapshot of your local PC or network server's drives to quickly locate which files (and type of files) are taking up the most space.

Read more in Maximum PC article, "32 Totally Essential and Free Apps for Every PC"

Color Palette Generators

Here are some great resources for creating color palettes and finding color harmonies for design projects.

25 Popular Color Scheme and Palette Generators

Color Jack

Color Hunter

CSS Drive image palette

Color Scheme Designer 3

BONUS
Article on the Psychology of Color

Online font tester: Type Tester

Bookmarklets

Great article and resource on Bookmarklets at Maximum PC.

I really like the Bit.ly url shortener.

Google URL Shortener

1. Using Google's browser, Chrome, go to goo.gl URL Shortener

2. Install extension, which will new icon to Chrome for 1-click url shortening.

3. Go to any website w/ long url. Click on icon and Presto!
http://brendanbowie.blogspot.com/ becomes
http://goo.gl/X9N0

BONUS: To generate QR Code for camera phones, just add .qr
http://goo.gl/X9N0.qr

More on QR Codes

Google Cloud Print

Google Cloud Print - an interesting & ambitious goal "to build a printing experience that enables any app (web, desktop, or mobile) on any device to print to any printer anywhere in the world.

Trend Micro virus clean-up tools

Free virus clean-up tools by Trend Micro
HouseCall, CWShredder

Followed by System Information Collector (SIC) Tool

Thunderbird shortcut > Grouped by Sort

Email client shortcut for "Grouped by Sort"
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2299

Sure beats beats View > Sort By > Grouped by Sort

Chrome - Open Link in New Tab

In Firefox's preferences, you can "Open a new tab and switch to it immediately." Here's how to do it in Chrome. "How to open new tab in Chrome."

Specifically, I like the tip about dragging link to tabstrip.

Total PC Defender virus

Total PC Defender is a fake anti-malware application that infected a client's computer. To remove, just follow the instructions by Michael P. on this Yahoo! Answers article.

To get the "bug" out of memory, I used Eset NOD32 Antivirus. Then finished the job with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

Memory upgrade

If you ever wondering if your PC or laptop needs or can support more memory, check out Crucial System Scanner tool.

Skype - conversation recording

Need to record a conversation on Skype?
Pamela is the "ultimate Skype add-on tool" for recording conversations for re-listening and catching all the details.

Convert videos for iPod and iPhone

Here are a couple of FREE transcoding utilities I use to convert videos for iPod and iPhone:

For PC, MediaCoder
For Mac, HandBrake

Virus & Spyware Protection

Single PC solution
AVG Free

Network/Enterprise level
Trend Micro
AVG Business Edition

File Sharing Services - how to send big files

MailBigFile
DropSend - Pete rec'd
YouSendIt
Rackspace
Rapidshare (integrates w/ Outlook)

Hosted Exchange

If you need to host Microsoft Exchange off-site, here are some solutions that Tom at Capital Computers mentioned:

Intermedia

GoDaddy - best pricing for Hosted Exchange

How to Create Content That Ranks Well in Search Engines

Read this article on Copyblogger, "How to Create Content That Ranks Well in Search Engines"