Bitcasa is INFINITE storage! Imagine storing all your music, photos, movies, and documents and still having space for more. In fact, you can store as much data as you want, without ever running out of space!

The Bitcasa client is available for both Windows & Mac. Bitcasa is offering limited access to a closed group of people. Click on the link below, first few people will be given instant access, others will be on the waiting list.

Source: Get Free Unlimited Cloud Storage

Advanced Web Ranking offers you the following features in a well-integrated suite:

• Real time search engine rankings
• Google Analytics integration
• Link building and analytics
• Keyword research
• Automated reporting and updating

Getting started

The first thing you do after installing AWR is setting up your project. You set all your options here and configure all the features that you want to enable. For instance, you first select a search engine. Initially it shows you the three most popular ones – Google, Yahoo and Bing. You can however include more search engines from the provided options.

AWR then asks you to enter the keywords you want for your website. One useful feature is that you can color code keyword groups, so you can easily analyze how each of them is performing independently. Once this is done, you are asked to select that websites you want to track. You may enter any number of websites here, depending on the version you have bought.

Setting up a project under AWR is real quick and we like how well it works after you have entered all the required information.

The Interface:

Advanced Web Ranking has a really professional and easy to use interface.The AWR window is conveniently divided into different sections such as keyword rank, search engine rank, top sites, overview, keyword analysis, etc. you will find comprehensive reports under each section. When you set up the project, AWR automatically checks all the pages of the website for keywords and then generate real time reports for you.

We like the fact that AWR initially shows basic information, which is great if you just want to glance at it, while doing work. You can also choose to see a more detailed report by choosing advanced options such as “Extended view” for keyword groups.

Real time Data:

AWR constantly updates all reports so that you have the latest information at all times. Should you want a snapshot of the report at a particular point, you can save it and print it out.

Local search Data:

In addition to the major search engines, you can also configure local search with Advanced Web Ranking. For example, you can check Yahoo Local or Google Maps for listings. This feature is particularly useful for small businesses and enterprises who are involved in local businesses. You can do this by choosing a city from the Local Search Engines Tab.

You can Try the following versions  for free:

Advanced Web Ranking is available in four versions:

1. Standard
2. Professional
3. Enterprise
4. Server

The Server version is the most expensive and is the more feature rich SEO software suite of them all. We chose the Professional version, since it best suited our medium sized website needs. We have found our SEO team greatly relaxed and equipped with meaningful data in minimum possible time.

You should can download and try Advanced Web Ranking from the official website.

http://www.advancedwebranking.com/

Source: How To Track Your Website Rankings Effectively

Step 1. Go to your Google Plus Profile Page and scroll and find on the right side button labelled “Hangout”

Step 2: A new window will pop-up and you will “login” into “Hangout” interface. If you have a camera installed, it will display your video otherwise your profile picture will show. Even if participants do not have a camera, they can still join “Hangout” or video call.

Step 3: You will need to mention your friends/participants and invite them so that they can easily join you in the group call.

That’s it, I hope you will enjoy this exciting feature. If you wish you can connect with me on Google Plus, I often share exciting news and tips on Google Plus and Google Buzz. You welcome to connect with me

Connect With Me on Google Plus

Source: How To Make a Group Video Call Free – Use Google Plus Hangout

What Qualities to Look For in a Virtual Assistant?

Hiring the virtual assistants and training them to get the jobs done right is easier said than done. At the same time, it is undeniably cheaper to hire them to get the works done for your business.

It becomes quite a tricky task selecting the right people among the millions of home base business aspirants. Also, many among them are not serious about their jobs, and hiring such people is probably the fastest way to get into the bad books with your clients. Additionally, there are many applicants who are totally incompetent. Filtering the right people is definitely a challenge for businesses that are looking to outsource their business critical works to virtual assistants.

Professionalism: is probably the first attitude that you will need to look for in a person. You can get to know a lot about an individual’s professionalism just by looking at the way in which they respond to your emails. The things that you might want to look at would be the format in which they present their emails, and the promptness of their e-mail replies.

If a person has to work on your important business activities, he or she has to be very approachable and pleasant to interact with. This attitude in a virtual assistant is very important if you plan on long-term business goals with their participation. You cannot really work with people with mood swings, especially when you are unable to monitor them personally by their side.

The most important thing to look for in a remote worker is their willingness to learn new things. If not for this quality in individuals, training them can become are really tedious job. The best thing to do would be to check them with some small and jobs to start with, and then take it up from there. By doing this, you will be able to gauge the quality and timeliness of work they deliver.

Reporting Abilities:If you are thinking about outsourcing some of your responsibilities in order to make time for focusing on your core business tasks, you will primarily need to maintain your reports. Microsoft excel is a powerful tool with which you can maintain your reports in an ongoing basis. You will need to develop a tracking system to monitor the progress of your outsourced works.

Online Availability:The biggest drawback of hiring remote workers is their unavailability at times when you need them the most. They could be gone on a holiday, or they might be handing some emergency. You could be left high and dry when such situations occur. Therefore, you will need to make it a point that you interact with them effectively to understand the situations on their end as well.

If you want to know the Best Practices for Outsourcing work to Virtual Assistants, I would like to point one of my short books written solely from years of experience in outsourcing. It is a short book written for busy professionals with to-the-point information without trying to make it lengthy in order to sound more authentic. You can find more information on the following links.

Source: How to Outsource Work to Virtual Assistants or Freelancers ?

Source: How Great Leaders Inspire Action – Simon Sinek

Windows Phone 7 Operating System is as fresh as Apple’s IOS:

Although I do not want to debate right now that which Smartphone OS is better among the three? But I must state Windows Phone 7 user experience is very refreshing and new. I happened to use Iphone, when I first switched to smartphones and the experience was quite good. After that I moved to Samsung Galaxy S, famous Google’s Android driven phone, but the experience was not that great. Although the hardware and style of Samsung Galaxy S was superb, but I didn’t like the Android OS. I had switched from Iphone to expect something new/better, but Android just proved to be a rebranded Apple IOS, it was not new, it was not exciting, it followed the same concept of Apple. So the experience was boring. Additionally, Android is not as mature or perfect as Apple IOs so I felt pretty disappointed after my purchase of Samsung Galaxy S.

My quest for freshness and elegance in smartphones made HTC HD7 my next choice. And when I first laid my hands on it, I must say that it was WAAAOOOOO!

HTC HD7 offered the same level of excitement that I felt when I first used Iphone. Windows phone 7 is completely different in style and interface as compared to Iphone or Android, and this is its best feature. Since I was so accustomed to Apple IOS and Android (both are nearly same) I first felt a little uncomfortable with this new Operating System. But the elegance and beauty of Windows Phone is impeccable. I think anyone who has a taste for smartphones must give it a try.

If you want to see the specs of HTC HD7 you should visit HTC’s Official HD 7 Page. But believe me specs will only tell you half of the story, HTC Windows Phone 7 worth every penny spend on it. Checkout HTC HD7 Deals Also
Check Out Great Windows 7 Phone Deals – As low as 1 penny!

Source: HTC HD7 – Windows 7 Phone – Why I would recommend this smartphone?

Quite recently I read a post on the very blog and I think it is the Best SEO Advice any SEO can get in 2011. I have myself been a follower of the very same SEO methodology, but was not able to express it so well in words. I am copying the whole post here, in order to keep it for future reference and share it with my friends.

======

You can’t learn great SEO from an e-book. Or buying software tools.

Great SEO is built on an understanding.

Reducing SEO To Prescription

One of the problems with reductive, prescribed SEO approaches – i.e. step one: research keywords, step two: put keyword in title etc can be seen in the recent “Content Farm” update.

When Google decide sites are affecting their search quality, they look for a definable, repeated footprint made by the sites they deem to be undesirable. They then design algorithms that flag and punish the sites that use such a footprint.

This is why a lot of legitimate sites get taken out in updates. A collection of sites may not look, to a human, like problem sites, but the algo sees them as being the same thing, because their technical footprint is the same. For instance, a website with a high number of 250-word pages is an example of a footprint. Not necessarily an undesirable one, but a footprint nevertheless. Similar footprints exist amongst ecommerce sites heavy in sitewide templating but light on content unique to the page.

Copying successful sites is a great way to learn, but can also be a trap. If you share a similar footprint, having followed the same SEO prescription, you may go down with them if Google decides their approach is no longer flavor of the month.

The Myth Of White Hat

A lot of sites that get taken out are white hat i.e. sites that follow Google’s webmaster guidelines.

It’s a reasonably safe approach, but if you understand SEO, you’ll soon realize that following a white hat prescription offers no guarantees of ranking, nor does it offer any guarantees you won’t be taken out.

The primary reason there aren’t any guarantees comes down to numbers. Google knows that when it makes a change, many sites will lose. They also know that many sites will win i.e. replace the sites that lost. If your site drops out, Google aren’t bothered. There will be plenty of other sites to take your place. Google are only concerned that their users perceive the search results to be of sufficient quality.

The exception is if your site really is a one-of-a-kind. The kind of site that would embarrass Google if users couldn’t find it. BMW, for example, in response to the query “BMW”.

It’s not fair, but we understand that’s just how life is.

An Understanding

For those readers new to SEO, in order to really grasp SEO, you need to see things from the search engines point of view.

Firstly, understand the search engines business case. The search engine can only make money if advertisers pay for search traffic. If it were too easy for those sites who are likely to use PPC to rank highly in the natural results, then the search engines business model is undermined. Therefore, it is in the search engines interest to “encourage” purely commercial entities to use PPC, not SEO. One way they do this is to make the natural results volatile and unpredictable. There are exceptions, covered in my second point.

Secondly, search engines must provide sufficient information quality to their users. This is an SEO opportunity, because without webmasters producing free-to-crawl, quality content, there can be no search engine business model. The search engines must nurture this ecosystem.

If you provide genuine utility to end users, the search engines have a vested interest in your survival, perhaps not as an individual, but certainly as a group i.e. “quality web publishers”. Traffic is the lifeblood of the web, and if quality web publishers aren’t fed traffic, they die. The problem, for webmasters, is that the search engines don’t care about any one “quality publisher”, as there are plenty of quality publishers. The exception is if you’re the type of quality publisher who has a well recognized brand, and would therefore give the impression to users that Google was useless if you didn’t appear.

Thirdly, for all their cryptic black box genius, search engines aren’t all that sophisticated. Yes, the people who run them are brilliant. The problems they solve are very difficult. They have built what, only decades ago, would have been considered magic. But, at the end of the day, it’s just a bit of maths trying to figure out a set of signals. If you can work out what that set of signals are, the maths will – unblinkingly – reward you. It is often said that in the search engine wars, the black hats will be the last SEOs standing.

Fourthly, the search engines don’t really like you. They identified you as a business risk in their statement to investors. You can, potentially, make them look bad. You can undermine their business case. You may compete with their own channels for traffic. They tolerate you because they need publishers making their stuff easy to crawl, and not locking their content away behind paywalls. Just don’t expect a Christmas card.

SEO Strategy Built On Understanding

Develop strategies based on how a search engine sees the world.

For example, if you’re a known brand, your approach will be different to a little known, generic publisher. There isn’t really much risk you won’t appear, as you could embarrass Google if users can’t find you. This is the reason BMW were reinstated so quickly after falling foul of Google’s guidelines, but the same doesn’t necessarily apply to lesser known publishers.

If you like puzzles, then testing the algorithms can give you an unfair advantage. It’s a lot harder than it used to be, but where there is difficulty, there is a barrier to entry to those who come later. Avoid listening to SEO echo chambers where advice may be well-meaning, but isn’t based on rigorous testing.

If you’re a publisher, not much into SEO wizardry, and you create content that is very similar to content created by others, you should focus on differentiation. If there are 100′s of publishers just like you, then Google doesn’t care if you disappear. Google do need to find a way to reward quality, especially in niches that aren’t well covered. Be better than the rest, but if you’re not, slice your niche finer and finer, until you’re the top dog in your niche. You should focus on building brand, so you can own a search stream.

======= End of post – copied thankfully from Aron Wall’s SEOBook blog.============

Source: Best SEO Advice in 2011

Give priority to your Customers and Employees:

The first noticeable point is that his primary focus is his customers and employees and then comes the shareholders (it will be interesting to note that Yahoo is among the shareholders of Alibaba!). He emphasized in his interview that when hard times come it was the customers and employees who stood with him.

I think it can be one of the best lessons for any growing company i.e. to give priority to your customers and employees.

Let the brains run computers:

Another very important take way from Jack’s interview is: “I hate computers running brains. Brains should run computers.” I think for most of the technology focused companies this quote is a gemstone. Too much emphasis on technology often causes creativity to die.

Company Culture:

Jack’s vision of company culture is also very inspiring. He emphasizes the idea of “helping others.” Instead of creating a “leg pulling” competitive environment, a helping environment makes everybody win. When employees have a passion of helping others and solve each other’s problems; most of the organizational problems get solved easily. Also the environment built on “greed” is the main cause of economic imbalance in the world, according to Jack. A culture based on creating and giving value and helping others is thus the solution.

What makes a Great Company?

Jack also stated in this interview that:  “if you want to make a great company think what social problem you can solve.” Associating social problems with company growth is a remarkable idea of Jack and certainly leads to not only a great profitable company but a better society.

One of the most thought provoking idea that I got from this interview was that “people make money by selling small things.” Jack said that he has seen people making millions by selling shrimps but none making money by selling whales or sharks , certainly an interesting analogy to ponder.

Source: Best Business Model in 20 Minutes

What seems to be wanted is universal genius, and universal genius has always been in scarce supply!

What do you think, do we really need to breed a new race of “supermen”?

The experience of the human race indicates strongly that the only person in abundant supply is the universal incompetent.

So how you are going to fit in with the ideal world of “super – executives”, crafted by management books, and the bitter realites of incompetency? What is your mantra for optimizing organizational structure and operations for maximum efficiency?

My Opinion: Although I would love to have your words on this interesting topic, I would like to share with you my ideas and strategies that I have used in my work to overcome the incompetency of individual employees.

I think we cannot expect to get the executive performance we need by raising our standards for abilities, let alone by hoping for the universally gifted man. We will have to extend the range of human beings through the tools they have to work with rather than through a sudden quantum jump in human ability.

We will have to staff our organizations with people who at best excel in one of the required abilities. We will have to learn to build organizations in such a manner that any man who has strength in one important area is capable of putting it to work.

What I want to emphasize is that we should not be afraid of human weeknesses and should not search for “supermen”. We should modify our job descriptions and requirements such that they represent “chains” where small pieces unite to complete a product. Instead of overburdening men with varieties of work that require diverse skills we should build organizations that need men of specific skills for a specific jobs and create an enviornment where all these can work in harmony with each other. In this way, I think we can build a work envoirnment that focuses on strengths of individuals and connects them with their peers for a stronger and efficient organization.

So what will you do,  search for a Universal Genius or you have found a better solution?

Note: This post is based on excerpts (and my readings) from Peter Drucker’s “The Effective Executive.”

Source: In Search of Universal Genius – Are you looking for one?

Top Weak Areas of WordPress Blog to Secure:

Before you actually begin to hack proof your wordpress blog, you should be aware of the top mistakes by webmasters that provide easy access to hackers:

• Malwares On Your Local Machine:

It is not uncommon that most of the hacks are caused by viruses or malwares uploaded to one’s web server from his very own computer! Hence it is suggested that you keep your local machine clean from malwares and viruses.

• Check your .htaccess file:

.htaccess file can be used to redirect to malicious sites from your URL. If you are suspecting a hack or are suffering from one, checking your .htaccess file should be one of your top priority.

• Old WordPress Versions:

Among one of the top reasons of hacked blogs are the old wordpress installations that were not updated. So you should routinely update your wordpress installation.

• Weak Passwords:

Setting weak passwords for your Hosting Account and WordPress Admin can also become a serious threat for your site.

• File permissions on WebServer:

Another important point is to check for it is best, from a security perspective, to lock down your file permissions as much as possible.

To completely hack proof your wordpress installation is a lengthy and time taking process. However in this article I have provided quick tips that helped me restore my site from a hack. And also I have linked to authority resources to enhance your security. The quick tips in this article are enough to secure your site from random hack attempts. To increase you knowledge about security aspects of wordpress also read this article: http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress

Steps to secure you WordPress Site/Blog:

As you have a little background knowledge on top weak areas of wordpress, let’s focus on securing your wordpress blog. Thankfully, there are some security plugins available for wordpress, which you can install to immediately secure your wordpress site. If you search the wordpress “plug-ins directory” for “security”, you will find a number of free plugins. Below are some of my favorites, but if you find better ones do tell me and I will add them to the list.

• BulletProof Security – http://www.ait-pro.com/aitpro-blog/297/bulletproof-security-plugin-support/bulletproof-security-wordpress-plugin-support/
• Extra Security – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/extra-security/
• WordPress Ultimate Security
• Block Bad Queries (BBQ)

Note: Installing Security plugins is the least step you should do if you want to secure your blogs from “lazy hackers” who search for weak wordpress blogs.

If your WordPress Blog is Hacked:

This section is important if you are a victim of a hack. My first piece of advice is to relax and do not panic. 90% of the hacks are caused due to ignorance of webmasters and can be easily restored, if all of your data is not gone.

• First of all you should change your passwords. Remember to use strong passwords.
• Change your secret keys: If the hacker stole your password and is logged in to your blog, then even if you change your password they will remain logged in. How? Because their cookies are still valid. To disable them, you have to create a new set of secret keys. Visit the “WordPress key generator” to obtain a new random set of keys, and then overwrite the values in your wp-config.php file with the new ones.
• Check with your hosting provider: The hack may have affected more than just your site, especially if you are using shared hosting. It is worth checking with your hosting provider in case they are taking steps or need to. Your hosting provider might also be able to confirm if a hack is an actual hack or a loss of service, for example.
• If your files and database are still there, consider backing them up. It will serve two purposes, first you will be able to restore your data from it and second you can scan them later to understand the reason of hack!
• If you have a recent clean back up, restore you site from there. But before you do it consider deleting everything that is one your server, because these files can be infected.
• Even if you do not have a backup, then after making the backup of your current data delete everything and upload fresh files of the same version from wordpress site. It is important to upload fresh files and the version be same, does not matter if it is old version, because it can cause inconsistency if the version is different. Once you have uploaded clean files you can easily update to the latest version without any compatibility problems. You can find all wordpress versions from this page: http://wordpress.org/download/release-archive/
• After clean files and security plugins installed (those I mentioned above), you are pretty much safe. Now you should focus on getting your data back. Remember to scan old data for malicious code.

This article on wordpress site is also helpful in restoring your site: http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked

Source: How to Secure WordPress Site from Hacking ?