Reusing Your Old Blog Posts

Posted on January 15, 2012 by spearitblog

The web these days tends to be all about fresh content and your older blog contributions have slipped down the search pages only to be seen if someone puts in exactly the right search terms. Granted a lot of it is so hopelessly out of date that it is more of an interesting historical reference. Even so there may be some gems that could be refreshed. This article suggests a few ways of doing this.

Start by rereading!
An obvious place to start! While there may be excitement at finding some brilliantly written content that can be quickly shared at the click of a button, be wary. Many a piece of information has been unintentionally shared. Check links in particular.

Social Media Sharing
It’s possible that some of your hard work has not yet reached Facebook, Twitter and other forums where it can be shared. Make your followers and others aware of it.

Link to Older Posts
You may find the older blog post suddenly fills you with inspiration to write a new piece. Aside from helping to generate new content the effect here is twofold. It allows you to remind readers that your expertise is not just newly discovered and it will show there may be other equally valuable content for them to read.

Rewrite
A lot of content tends to have value only at the the time it was written. Nevertheless the core of what you had to say may be useful in a different way and could be recycled by reworking or rewriting.

Update your own website
If you blog is not integrated into your site take a look at posts with a view to refreshing or updating your own current content.

Repost
While this might certainly be classified as duplicate content and should probably not be a defined strategy it will also alert your readers to it. There may also be a very valid reason to do so where you’ve moved posts around to different categories. You can change the status to scheduled and schedule the post to be published.

Above all view it as content that you can revisit, review and maybe reuse in some way.
It was hard enough to come up with it in the first place so make it work for you.

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Small Business Training – Using Knowledge

Posted on January 14, 2012 by spearitblog

Going into small companies I am disappointed to see how little training, especially IT training, some employees get. I am all for feeding someone for life, as the proverb says. It makes my life easier, it makes them feel more confident and the company doesn’t have to pay me to tell them something simple is the problem, once again.

Granted there are options out there for employees who are motivated enough; night classes, books, online courses and so on but not everyone is that motivated or ever will be.

I can understand this resistance to providing training in terms of cost. Even in larger companies the risk that people will jump ship after specialised training is always there. Yet what organisations can sometimes overlook is the potential within. There are likely to be people who already have knowledge and have already been trained. So why not use them? There are a number of ways this can work.

Peer Training

I am a fan of this and have seen it work very well even in the smallest of organisations. Peer training is one person delivering a short structured training session on some part of the technology the company uses. As it is informal, “students” are likely to be more relaxed and may learn more. A further benefit is that it does not require large amounts of downtime, a feature that can suit businesses and employees alike. Most commonly it’s just an impromptu training session around a computer.

Buddy Systems

Buddy systems have been around for a very long long time and work best with new employees. If done properly it also gives the “buddy” a sense of importance. But like all training there needs to be a structure to it, otherwise neither will benefit.

Short Presentations

Like the peer training these are informal sessions. The main difference is that they usually involve much larger groups. Presentations can run from 5-10 minutes to an hour. Apart from giving information it’s also a way to help people improve their presentation skills. They can be done with something like Powerpoint or a flipchart and pen.

Documentation

A time honoured tradition that many people ignore and which can end up never being written. Instructions on how something works is essential as it negates the excuse that “Mary is not here so we don’t know how to do it”. It doesn’t have to be long and complex. It can be a simple set of instructions like “How to Make a Good Cup of Coffee”. If it’s presented as the long-awaited “How-To” manual on the company it will never be written.

Wikis

The advantage of wikis is that you can get them to do what you want. They also help with the sharing of information. This can be a positive as it can, in theory, help foster a sense of collaboration. Their structure can also make the task of writing them easier as entries can be very short.

Putting all of this together is the next step. Without a desire to implement it, no training will ever happen. There is no denying that people do need training and using the knowledge inside the business can sometimes be of far greater benefit than sending people away for a day.

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Building & Testing Websites On A Local Machine

Posted on January 5, 2012 by spearitblog

While the world may be waiting for your latest and greatest website there’s nothing like testing it locally for smoothing out the wrinkles or just getting to know how the process works. In this article I’ll take a look at ways you may want to do this. In the main the article focuses on general web technology but it does include brief notes on an IIS installation.

IIS
IIS is the Microsoft webserver and allows you to run legacy .asp websites. IIS is included in the Windows installation but it is not installed by default. The latest version of IIS on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 is IIS 7 and is installed by choosing Programs from the Control Panel. Rather than reinvent the wheel I’ve provided a how to install IIS 7 link that outlines the steps involved.

XAMPP
Xampp is a self-contained development environment and includes the Apache Web server, a MySQL database and support for Perl and PHP scripting. The Apache webserver will not run legacy asp code or .Net applications without adding extra modules.

The easiest way to install it is to download the latest version and follow the instructions. If you are installing on Linux follow the extremely easy instructions on the XAMPP site. In my own experience it is on Windows where problems tend to surface.
I’ve an earlier post telling you how to do this.

Possible XAMPP problems

Port 80
If you have software like Skype installed it takes Port 80 if it is not already assigned. This means your Apache Web server will not start. The simplest fix is to shut down Skype or any other software, then start Apache. Alternatively you can just change the default port in Skype and restart Skype.

XAMPP Perl errors
If you have Perl installed independently and you are getting errors you will need to change the path at that top of your Perl file.

Change it from the default
#!/usr/bin/perl

to the path location of Perl inside XAMPP
#!c:xamppperlbinperl or #!c:/xampp/perl/bin/perl

This assumes you chose the default location. If not replace the path with your own in the line above.

Replication of your site
Make sure that you create your site exactly as you expect users to view it live. This means exact directory structures and the locations of files. This makes transfer of the site to a live server far less problematic as well as no unnecessary searches for missing files.

Browsers
While differences remain in how browsers display data it is essential that you install any browsers you expect users to have. Of the many available the top 5 should suffice for most development. This will be Internet Explorer(Multiple versions, which may even include a need for IE7), Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari and possibly Konqueror for Linux.

You should also consider how your site will look to users of mobile devices and use an emulator to evaluate this. The Opera Mobile Emulator should give you some scope to test this. There are other emulators available online that will allow you test individual device types.

Debugging
While you can use the likes of Firebug to help in overall testing there is no harm in forcing your dynamic web pages to display errors by adding code to each file to alert you to syntax errors.

PHP
Add this to each PHP file after the opening <?php tag.
ini_set(‘display_errors’, 1);
error_reporting(E_ALL);

In Perl we can trap errors by using the die() command.
Don’t forget to remove any debugging code before going live.
Above all be happy when you find a bug as it is one less that visitors will find.

Security
Paranoia is often the best tool when it come to web security. If your site will involve logins and storage of IDs and passwords security must be a core part of any development. A tool like Vega can analyse your code and help you identify possible problems such as potential risks to your database. You can also help by limiting what users can do apart from what you will allow them to do.

Creating a local version is a chance to break a site and also an opportunity to test new ideas and make sure that fewer bugs show up in a live site. It’s certainly a good opportunity to improve on coding skills and development practices that can often end up lost in the need to address real world problems that occur with web sites.

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2012 Guesses

Posted on January 2, 2012 by spearitblog

Crystal ball gazing is really for the foolish but we still can’t resist it. In that spirit I’m going to take a punt on what 2012 holds for us, safe in the knowledge that a record of any wild notions I had will always be around to taunt me.

Cloud Technology
This is an easy one but there are still many of us who just don’t trust what’s on offer. While online backup is in more common usage, the Amazon debacle of 2011 is a reminder that it has a way to go yet. Nevertheless I expect the cloud to make much greater progress in 2012 and to hopefully learn that technology for its own sake leads to no solutions. Cloud technology is just one of many tools that we use to serve us.

Virtualisation
Having been exposed to a number of thin client devices in 2011 I believe that there is now scope for them to move into the business market and take advantage of virtualisation technology. Given the limited range of tasks that most business IT actually performs, returning to the good old days of mainframes - these days known as servers, and a modern version of the dumb terminal is likely to gather pace in 2012. Aside from the energy cost savings, improvements in reliability and minimising the nightmare of software upgrades, the idea of being forced to continually upgrade is not a model many of us would choose to follow in these difficult times.

Increased Social Media Usage
In simple terms this is really Twitter and Facebook. Sorting out my own Facebook page is a resolution for 2012. While both media have their downside in being very, very noisy and full of completely irrelevant rubbish, their success in bringing us instant news along with more interaction than we could ever imagine will bring them into our consciousness even more. The ability of businesses to create a presence and be exposed to potentially enormous audiences on both is enhanced by their simplicity of use.

Security
With Facebook’s somewhat nonchalant attitude to security fresh in our minds and the continuing rise in phishing and hacking attacks, I expect security to come to the attention of more businesses, particularly when it comes to data protection. We have long passed the point of just having the latest security software. This year there will be much more focus on making networks and websites more secure.

Mobile Devices
I don’t see a lot of difference in 2012 and while there will be higher sales than conventional IT devices, from a business point of view they will still be seen as either having a very specific purpose or being an ad hoc quick access point. Mobile devices offer us an enormous array of methods by which we can enhance our knowledge but questions over security and the integration of such devices in the workplace remain. Of interest this year will be how Windows Phone 7 gets along. Will it be a Vista(bad) or Windows 7(good) experience?

The Business World
Outside of technology the biggest issue will be economic. 2011 was a disaster on this front and the type of negative sentiment that it brought served to lower our morale even more. The key to everything this year is the EU/Eurozone crisis. As always the EU will stumble its way to a deal, bickering as it does. Whether the “markets” like it is another question but the EU are past masters at producing chaos out of order and solutions where none obviously exist.

I think it will be a fairly tough year but a solution of sorts will be found and some growth may occur for all of us in the 2nd half of the year. It may also be the year that we finally start turning our attention to those who helped cause all of this and start meting out some punishment.

Year of Small Business?
This is a hope more than a prediction as I do have a vested interest like all small businesses. I don’t believe for one minute that small businesses will necessarily fix anything but they are a source that can generate ideas, employment and most importantly belief. I would hope that 2012 will see more small businesses created, supported and most of all nurtured.

Happy 2012 to all!!

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Why Twitter for Business makes sense

Posted on July 6, 2011 by spearitblog

I’ve been on Twitter for a while now and it’s been very useful to me and my business. I’ve seen traffic to my website increase and I’ve had some increased enquiries about my services. So what benefit can it offer you?

Promoting your business
Twitter can be a great way to make your followers aware of your business and any special offers you may currently have.

It’s a networking opportunity
You can find Twitter followers in same geographical region and potential new clients or partners. You may also learn about events and activities taking place in your own locality.

Expert Advice
Even though there are many tweets and followers that you will have no interest in you may also find experts in your own business area. There is no reason why you can’t ask these experts or those in your own network questions to help you and your business.

A whole world of information
As has become clear in recent years Twitter has had an influence on how we follow news and get new information. Apart from fresh information you can share with followers it also helps you keep up to date with developments in your own business area.

All of this is fine but how do I do I go about it you may ask?
Once you set up a Twitter account you are ready to go.

Some key pointers to start off.

  • Add a picture or image to your account. It could be your logo or perhaps a photograph. Don’t leave it blank as users will be less interested in following the default image that Twitter uses.
  • You should also add your website link.

    • What Then?

    Find Followers
    Initially it’s a good idea to find users who are located near you, either in the same region or local area. This way you can create opportunities to engage and to build an online network.

    Follow your Interests
    Search for new followers who are interested in the same things as you or are in the same business area.

    Influencers
    Influencers are accounts on Twitter who have a lot of followers and typically are worth listening to or following. These can include large enterprises, news organisations and organisations which are important to your line of business. They can also be individuals who are considered experts in their field.

    Retweet
    If one of your followers has something interesting to say, tell others. If you find a new piece of news you think is interesting why not tell them about that too?
    Twitter is about people and not just your business
    While you may be using Twitter for marketing your business Twitter is also about networking with people and having conversations. Your tweets should be a mix of marketing your services or products, things of interest and conversations.
    Using Twitter can be of benefit to a business and not just for promotional purposes. Engaging with your audience can help to make it a more rewarding and ultimately successful experience.

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    Why Blogging makes sense for your business

    Posted on July 4, 2011 by spearitblog

    Blogging has been with us for some 10 years or so. These days anyone can easily set up a blog and start writing. So what benefit can this be to you and your business?

    It’s fresh content
    Google loves content and especially fresh content. This will help your site’s rankings and search results.

    It’s another marketing tool
    Writing a blog gives you the opportunity to talk about your business and the products or services you offer.

    Show your expertise
    If you an expert in a particular area it allows you to share this expertise and knowledge with a wider audience.

    Offer an opinion
    Not all blogs postings will be purely about your business. You may have strong opinions on certain topics relating to your area of business that you wish to share. If there is an interest in your opinions there is the potential that they will be shared to other sites. Naturally this will lead to links back to your site and should help the visibility of you site and business.

    Link your blog to other social media
    Your blog postings can be easily shared on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social media. This gives you a potentially greater audience without having to do any further work.

    So how do I do it?
    There are three ways to do this. You can set up a blog on Blogger or WordPress, two of the largest blog hosting websites. Both have free options. You can also install WordPress on your own site and set it up yourself.

    What next?
    You need to start blogging. An initial post might just be an introduction to your business or to you. Try to make a list of areas you think you can talk about and see if they offer you any ideas. Also search for other blogs and see what they are talking about.

    How long should my posts be?
    This is a difficult question. It should be long enough to give some information but not too long so that your readers get bored. In general a post should be between 50-500 words. Over 500 words, even in a very interesting post, readers may move on to something else.

    How often should I blog?
    This is another $64,000 question. It can be anything from once a month to multiple posts a day. How often can you schedule time to write a blog posting? Many bloggers prefer once a week as it is easier to find time to write. Whatever you decide on you need to blog as this helps you to build an audience. As quickly as you gain readers it is hard to keep them if your blog is not updated regularly enough.

    What If I can’t write?
    You can invite others you know who write blogs to be guest writers on your blog. You can also consider using a blog writing service. There are many such services which will provide you with new articles and blog posts.
    Blogging can be personally very rewarding. It can also be a very good insight into you and your business for your readers.

    Blogging has the potential to reach a much larger online audience and that can only be good for your business.

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    Google+: Coming Sometime Soon …

    Posted on July 1, 2011 by spearitblog

    Much as I like the regular free invites I get to join groups and networks, my Google+ invite has not appeared as of yet. In an already crowded social space Google seems anxious to make up for the Google Buzz privacy fiasco and has limited the number of users so far. This makes sense especially to address the issues that will emerge from a smaller group of users before rolling it out to the rest of the world. It has been described as Google’s real response to Facebook and here’s a quick summary of what you can or will be able to do.

    Circles
    While you can, with great effort create friend lists in Facebook, Google will allow you to make your own self-contained groups from the start. The benefit here is that you can customise your messages to different groups of friends.

    Sparks
    This feature which harnesses Google’s search engine power and retrieves stories or content based on your interests for you to share.

    Huddle
    A type of group messaging for mobile devices.

    Hangouts
    This is the video chat feature that has been much-talked about.

    Certainly the Circles feature and the types of users getting invites will help set the tone for it. Conversations that are restricted to a common group are easier to manage, find and follow and therefore may be more productive. This has an immediate attraction for those in business spheres. Facebook despite its huge numbers makes it far more difficult to achieve this. Facebook was about building friends, personal networks and lots of open conversations. While it can be made more focussed through the use of Facebook pages, Google+ appears to be addressing some of that chaos from the start. No doubt we can expect Facebook to respond quickly.

    You can register your interest by going here and adding your email details. It may take some time for them to get back to you!

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    Twitter and Me

    Posted on June 29, 2011 by spearitblog

    My own journey to Twitter has come via online forums where I cut my teeth with the keyboard warriors of the internet. One thing it teaches you is that some things are best ignored or at the very least not worth responding to. In some ways Twitter is a manifestation of this type of engagement. Online forums subscribe to massive cross-linking to other sites in order to either inform an opinion or rebut it. The ability of Twitter to respond in real-time is another variation of this.

    I was also not surprised to see that Twitter has a very tiny number of active users. Even in that number very few are likely to tweet. This has been my own experience as well in the dozen years or so I’ve been online. Many of us are silent watchers, partly from lack of understanding but more especially out of fear. Despite the fake anonymity that our favourite username gives us, many online denizens tend to be fearful of how they will be seen and a perceived harsh word or insult will send us scurrying off.

    I’ve recently become part of a LinkedIn group for Irish SMEs(#SMEcommunity). One point of discussion that came up was Twitter and how we use Twitter. For me it is a way to engage and learn more. What I find most interesting is how different people go about it. Some blatantly pitch amazing ideas and products. Others want to chat and some just want to execute their social media marketing plan. What it has established for me is that I need a clear purpose on Twitter. That purpose is to raise my own profile, find people who are interested in the same things and share information I think will be useful to others.

    So what else have I learnt from it?

  • In all of the SPAM , dross and self-indulgent banality it is an attempt by people to interact and there are people you can interact with.
  • The basic ethics are fine. Go with the principle of following those who follow you but it doesn’t mean being friends with everyone in the playground.
  • Getting upset about numbers is pointless. There are so many Twitter automation tools that you could be followed and unfollowed half a dozen times a day.
  • What do you want be on Twitter? Whether it’s sales pitches, retweeting or just to chat work out who you you are.
  • Be active. I personally don’t see following people as a good definition of an active user. You really need to be doing something. Retweeting is a good way to build your confidence. You can also thank people for following you.
  • Give it time. You can go down the route of buying followers if that’s what you want but building followers for most of us takes a lot of time. This means allocating Twitter some time out of your day.
  • Have a plan. If you are using Twitter for business you need to figure out where it fits into your own marketing.
  • Try to be natural; a very challenging feat on the internet. By this I mean don’t use Twitter just as a sales pitch. Find other things of interest to share, through retweets, your own sources or thoughts or even by asking questions of those who tweet. You can also just mention others, which is a good way to give them a little more exposure.
  • Find a few tools to help you keep track of it all. I like HootSuite, Tweetdeck, Twitter Counter and Tweepi amongst the huge numbers of such tools that are out there.

    • Most important of all you do need to be doing something regularly. Twitter can be enjoyable but it is important to work out how you want to engage with it.

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    Disable the Microsoft Access Security Warning

    Posted on June 28, 2011 by spearitblog

    I was recently asked how to turn off the “annoying” (my quotes) Microsoft Access security message which warns about disabled content. This video details how to do it. It comes with a health warning and it is something you should avoid doing in any live database.The feature is designed to protect you against malicious code. While it may be fine to use it for testing on your own machine, enabling the option in the real world is not wise.

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    Publishing A Blog Entry from Word 2007: YouTube Video

    Posted on June 23, 2011 by spearit

    I’ve just updated the blog post from 2010 on blogging from Word 2007 from Word 2007. It now comes complete with a YouTube video link. The video demonstrates how to do it.

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