November 16th, 2006
By Elinor Mills
Story last modified Thu Nov 16 07:27:42 PST 2006
Search engine rivals Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are teaming up to make it easier for Web site owners to make sure their sites get included in the Web indexes, the companies are expected to announce Thursday. The companies are adopting Google’s Sitemaps protocol, available since June 2005, which enables Web site owners to manually feed their pages to Google and to check whether their sites have been crawled. Web site owners have had to follow similar processes at each of the other major search engines separately.
Now Web site owners will be able to go to one place for alerting all three major search engines to their Web pages, something they have been requesting for some time, said Tim Mayer, director of product management at Yahoo Search.
“In the first joint and open initiative to improve the Web crawl process for search engines, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft today announced support for Sitemaps 0.90, a free and easy way for Webmasters to notify search engines about their Web sites and be indexed more comprehensively and efficiently, resulting in better representation in search indices,” a joint news release said. “For users, Sitemaps enables higher-quality, fresher search results.”
The effort was initially started by Google and Yahoo. “We thought it would be great for publishers and Webmasters to be able to submit their content in one format for all the different search engines,” Yahoo’s Mayer said. “We are proposing the format together and inviting other search engines to adopt it.”
The manual Web page submission process supplements traditional Web crawling and does not automatically guarantee that the pages will be included in a search engine’s index.
“Windows Live Search is happy to be working with Google and Yahoo on Sitemaps to not only help Webmasters, but also help consumers by delivering more relevant search results so they can find what they’re looking for faster,” said Ken Moss, general manager of Windows Live Search at Microsoft. “I am sure this will be the first of many industry initiatives you will see us working and collaborating on.”
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November 2nd, 2006
Google is announcing today a new Java Gmail client for mobile devices.
Gmail for Mobile Devices is a free application and will work on any J2ME phones in the U.S. Users can download the app by using their phone’s browser to navigate to gmail.com/app.
According to Google, the new app will work on about 300 different phones in the U.S. market. There are no ads. Attachments open as normal, provided you have the appropriate software.
Gmail for Mobile Devices is free, but you’ll have to pay your carrier for the data transfer.
Google has partnered with Sprint for the launch, and Gmail for Mobile Devices is available for download from the Sprint PCS VisionSM and Sprint Power VisionSM home pages.
I’ve been playing with the app for a few days now. Since I’m not a Blackberry user (I owned a Treo for a year), I can’t speak for how Gmail for Mobile Devices compares to the Blackberry e-mail experience. But I can say that this app is very easy to use. It’s been a productivity boon for me, especially since I’ve been attending the Streaming Media West conference and haven’t been able to check my e-mail on my laptop during sessions.
My favorite feature: Gmail for Mobile Devices preloads the first ten message in your inbox when you start the app. There’s no data transfer lag when you click on those messages.
Google also offers an XHTML version of Gmail for mobile browsers, but man, that’s a lot slower to use.
I only wonder why it took Google so long to launch this particular app. It seems like such a no-brainer.
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October 11th, 2006
by Christopher Erckert
Small Business Technology Advisor
I was just perusing the Long Island Business News this week and came across an ad for Sovereign Bank. Basically, if you sign up for free business checking you get:
- 300 free monthly transactions
- No minimum balance
- Free first order of checks
- Free BlackBerry 8700g
- Free Bluetooth headset.
The fine print: Free BlackBerry/Bluetooth offer requires new, one year voice and data plan from T-Mobile. Offer available available through 12/31/2006 at participating Sovereign Community Banking offices. It goes on to say that to get the phone for free you’ll have to send in some rebates. So don’t show up with empty pockets, as this is a case of delayed gratification.
Despite some rebate hoops to jump through, this is a good way to get some solid technology on the cheap. You may also want to add Wi-Fi hotspot service on top of your T-Mobile contract. That way you can take advantage of the Wi-Fi at any Starbucks. Between a Blackberry and Internet Access at every Starbucks your small business will be as well connected as any competitor, big or small.
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September 28th, 2006
Found this in the Sept 22nd issue of Long Island Business News: For all those small business owners who can’t afford an assistant to proof their work or simply can’t bring one along on business trips, this software is for you. NextUp’s TextAloud can convert text to speech, but unlike the those utilities built into your operating system, this software doesn’t sound like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
TextAloud reads text from email, web pages, reports and more, aloud on your PC. TextAloud can also save your daily reading to MP3 or Windows Media files ready for playback on your iPod, PocketPC, or even on your TV with Tivo’s Home Media Option.
It’s also a great piece of software for those who have to plow through lots of material. Once the documents are converted to mp3s you can get your reading done at the gym, in the car, even the shower.
At $29.95 it certainly is worth a try. TextAloud is compatible with all flavors of Windows and can purchased/downloaded right from their website.
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September 14th, 2006
by Christopher Erckert
Small Business Technology Advisor
As discussed in a earlier blog post the recent battery recalls affecting Apple and Dell laptops has finally rattled the airlines. Despite the fact that these exploding/melting laptops are hardly a threat to bringing down an airline of any size. Virgin Atlantic and Korean Air have instituted battery bans on their flights.
For Virgin Airline and Korean AirTravelers: Owners of Dell (Inspirons and Lattitudes) or Apple (iBooks, PowerBooks, MacBooks or MacBook Pros) must remove the battery from their laptops and place it in a separate compartment in their laptop bag or carry-on. You will still be allowed to use your laptop by plugging into seat side outlets, but you’re out of luck if your economy seat doesn’t come with one.
We advise you call your airline before you head out expecting to finish a presentation on the plane.
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September 13th, 2006
Businesses big and small have been using Google AdWords for search/keyword advertising for many years. Now Google and Intuit, maker of QuickBooks, the most common accounting program for small businesses have joined forces to get over 3.7 million QuickBooks users into the search advertising game. Basically if you buy/upgrade to the upcoming QuickBooks 2007, your business will have instant integration with many Google technologies.
For example, customers will be able to find the locations of businesses that use the new version of QuickBooks via Google Maps as well as enable QuickBooks customers to create keyword searches for their products, so that their advertisements pop up whenever someone searches for one of their products on Google.
Merchants should also be able to integrate information about their inventories with Google, allowing customers to see what they have in stock.
QuickBooks 2007 is expected to be released fall of this year.
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September 11th, 2006
Law Office of Perry Zivley, a husband and wife law firm in Houston, decided to launch themselves into the 21st century within 30 days. Best of all, the whole process is being documented for all the world to see.
Their marketing and technology consultant Jamie Parks has set up a blog to report on the progress, and has posted the first of what looks to be several video interviews on YouTube.
Hopefully in the next few posts, he will feature the highs and lows of getting the firm to the technical level they want to be. Right now the blog posts have focused on the firm’s requirements. We found the most interesting feature of the blog to be the the audio of one of their early technology strategy meetings.
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September 11th, 2006
Apple® today announced that its entire iMac® line now features the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor in every model, delivering up to 50 percent faster performance than the previous iMac. A new 24-inch iMac with a brilliant 24-inch widescreen display joins the 17- and 20-inch models, and iMac prices now start at just $999. Every new iMac includes a built-in iSight™ video camera for video conferencing out-of-the-box; Apple’s breakthrough Front Row media experience; and iLife® ‘06, the next generation of Apple’s award-winning suite of digital lifestyle applications.
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September 11th, 2006
Last Thursday, RIM, maker of the BlackBerry announced their latest phone, the BlackBerry Pearl. The significance of this release is the addition of a 1.3 mega pixel camera (new for blackberries), and maybe for the shallowest of reasons, it actually looks good. The biggest draw back we saw so far was the lack of a full qwerty key board. For those new to a BlackBerry it should be a similar experience to txting, but for those already accustomed to full sized BlackBerries or Palm Treo smart phones, it may just cramp your style. The phone launched with service from T-Mobile.
BlackBerries got their start in Large Enterprises, but now small businesses can get a full BlackBerry Solution, that they can pay for as a service, integrate with their existing Microsoft Exchange server, or add to one of our Data Center Express Solutions which includes Microsoft Exchange server.
A new version of the Palm Treo 700w was released, now dubbed the Treo 700wx. The release came on the heals of users experiencing navigation lags and the need to constantly reset the original 700w, which runs Microsoft Windows Mobile. The new Treo 700wx aims to correct this by including additional internal RAM (64MB vs the original 32MB). Users of the new 700wx have acknowledged that the additional RAM has remedied the problem. In short, if you’re going for a Palm Treo, go for the 700wx(Windows OS) or 700p(Palm OS) as it seems the original 700w was flawed by design. Right now only Sprint carries the new 700wx.
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September 4th, 2006
The Hybrid Solar Lighting (HSL) technology from Sunlight Direct, uses a solar concentrator to collect and distribute sunlight into the interior of a building via plastic optical fibers. The optical fiber runs through special hybrid lighting units that manage the mix of fiber lighting and standard florescent lighting depending on the solar concentrators ability to deliver certain light levels. To see the system in action click here.
The benefits are major decreases in lighting costs, and the associated environmental benefits of being less dependent on the grid. It also has all the benefits of sky lights with regard to human working conditions and yet none of the heating issues associated with them. Right now the major draw back is that the fiber used in these systems are made of plastic, not glass as in telecommunication applications. This was to make the technology affordable, but plastic fiber will only transmit the light far enough for it to be used on the top floor of a building. This still makes it viable for large single story commercial spaces. Staples is apparently beta testing the system in some of their stores.
We were at first conflicted about writing about a technology that will not be available until 2007, but we felt that the technology was in a late enough stage of development and with initial pricing starting at $10,000, still within a small business’ budget. To further offset costs all of Sunlight Direct’s Hybrid Solar Lighting units now qualify for a 30% federal tax credit for units installed in 2006 and 2007.
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