Enjoy!

Here is the link again: Spring 2012 – The State of the Web

A little while ago I created a Facebook Group dedicated to music. I sent invitations to a few friends I know have similar tastes, and we started to share music: YouTube videos, SoundCloud tracks… There are only about 30 people in this group, but every day someone shares music with other members; whether it’s completely new or a classic. That’s a personal use of Facebook Groups, which works because people are already on Facebook.

Facebook Pages vs. Facebook Groups

A Facebook Page is supposed to be public, so anyone can see it and ‘Like’ it. However a Facebook Group can be private; it shouldn’t bother anyone. With a Facebook Group you could for example share things you want to share with your employees only, or with your existing customers only… There are plenty of reasons why you could create a Facebook Group for business.

For example you could create a Facebook Group to answer questions people often ask to your customer support team. You could also organize a group class – to train your existing customers – without having to make everything public, so you don’t necessarily reveal all the details of your product or service. This of course depends on your business, and on what you sell, but if you’re creative you should find interesting uses.

Why Doing it on Facebook?

Then why using Facebook and not your own site or blog ? Well, everyone is on Facebook already, so it means people don’t have to sign up (they’re already members) but simply join the group or respond to an invitation. They don’t have to remember their details… Everything is there, on Facebook. Chances are they’re already logged in and they can access your Facebook Group from their own Profile in just a few clicks.

That’s what I call taking advantage of an highly powerful yet underused platform like Facebook… Facebook is far to be perfect but you can’t say it’s a bad service. It’s fairly easy to use, and reliable. With Facebook Groups you can create polls, share photos and videos, create documents and events that you can easily share with other members of the group… There is a whole range of tools that you can use.

And the best part is that… It’s FREE! So if you want to do business on Facebook, you should not only create a Facebook Page, you should also maybe create a Facebook Group, for your employees, or your existing customers, or people who have very interested in your products and services and want to learn more about them… There are plenty of possibilities that can all help you establish a stronger online presence.

For example if you want to take a sceenshot, you have the option to hit the ‘Print Screen’ key, paste it in Paint (or equivalent for Mac), then save the file, upload it (if necessary) and share it with whoever you need to share it with. Easy, but a little time-consuming… Time you could save by using a screenshot solution like Jing (PC & Mac) or Skitch (Mac & Android), which both allow you to take screenshots, add notes and host your screenshots online in just a few seconds…

If you want to check a bunch of websites at the same time, to see how they look, or if something is wrong with them, you can use a script like URL Opener, which allows you to open multiple URLs at the same time, without having to open new tabs or new windows yourself. All you need to do is paste the list of URLs you want to open in URL Opener, click ‘Submit’, then ‘Open All’ and the script will open them all for you.

Now let’s say you want to check the PageRank (PR) of several sites. Instead of manually checking every site, you could use a tool like MassPageRank, which allows you to check the PR of multiple sites at the same time. Just like with URL Opener, all you need to do is to paste the list of sites you want to check, and click ‘Submit’. The script will check the PRs for you, in just a few seconds.

There are also plenty of tricks with simple applications like Notepad. For example let’s say you have a list of domain names but only want the names, and not the extensions, which means you would have to remove all the .com’s, .org’s, net’s… You could either do it manually for every domain name, or you could paste the list in Notepad, go to ‘Edit’, click ‘Replace’ and replace ‘.com’ by nothing. By nothing I mean nothing… not even a blank space. Then you can repeat the process for .org’s, .net’s…

If you want to remove blank spaces from a text list, but the ‘Replace’ function in Notepad doesn’t really help, you can use a site called Text Fixer. It comes with plenty of useful tools including a tool to remove extra whitespace and tabs. All you need to do is to paste your text in the field, click ‘Replace Whitespaces’, and the script provides you with the same text list, but without the extra whitespace or tabs. Text Fixer offers plenty of other useful productivity tools so make sure you check it out.

The idea behind this post is not to provide you with a list of tools that you can use to increase your productivity, but to show you that there are plenty of free tools out there for pretty much any boring, tedious task that you need to perform… as long as they are relatively simple of course. However if you know some other very useful tools and want to share them with us, feel free to leave a comment below.

GoDaddy was, until recently, pro-SOPA but quickly pulled support after receiving hundreds of boycott threats. Most Internet companies including Google, Facebook and Yahoo! are against the bill which is considered by Google’s Eric Schmidt as ‘Censorship’ and ‘Draconian’. In short, the bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice and the copyright holders to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. For the Stanford Law Review, the bill is ‘Unconstitutional’ and ‘Would break the Internet’.

GoDaddy being one of the companies that helped craft the bill’s current wording, many have threatened to move their domain names off GoDaddy, including big names like I Can Has Cheeseburger’s Ben Huh who has over 1,000 registered on GoDaddy. Many others have threatened to transfer their domain names on December 29th, 2011. GoDaddy pulled support for SOPA but still supports the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which is a related bill, and also publicly announced that they will consider supporting future versions of SOPA… which is why the boycott call stands.

More recently it has been reported that GoDaddy has become slow in transferring domain names to other registrars, and has even been accused by NameCheap of hindering the domain transfer process, by returning incomplete WhoIs information, which is against ICANN rules. Several reports claim that about 70,000 domain names have been transferred from GoDaddy to other domain name registrars since last week, and this only the beginning…

I personally am against SOPA as I consider this bill as being a step towards a censored Internet, which is clearly not what I want for our and future generations. This bill will also have a negative impact on thousands Internet businesses, and not just the big ones (which will be able to afford lawyers) but small ones as well which might not make it through. If the bill passes, even social network users could be held liable if any copyrighted material is distributed on their pages, by themselves or a third party.

Whether you think I’m right or wrong, feel free to leave a comment below! If you want to learn more about SOPA and the GoDaddy boycott, I suggest that you read the following articles:

Suggested Readings:

- Don’t Break The Internet (Stanford Law Review)
- How SOPA Would Affect You (CNet)
- GoDaddy Sucks (Colin Klinkert)

How to Changes Nameservers

Step 1 – First, you need to figure out what the nameservers of your hosting are. For example if your hosting provider is BlueHost your nameservers will look like this: ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com. Sometimes the nameservers are listed on your hosting panel (like cPanel) but if not, you should be able to find them in the documentation provided by your hosting provider. If not, you may contact them to ask them where you should point your domain name to.

Step 2 – Once you know what nameservers you should use, you must log into your domain registrar account, find the domain management section, and change the nameservers to the nameservers of your hosting. For example if you purchased your domain name on GoDaddy, you must go to: Domains > Domain Management. Select your domain, scroll down the page and click the ‘Set Nameservers’ link.

Replace the nameservers with the nameservers of your hosting and click ‘OK’. That’s it! Of course the interface will look different if you have a different domain registrar but you get the idea. I find the GoDaddy relatively easy to use, and I know that NameCheap is user-friendly as well.

How to Changes Nameservers

While your changes will appear within minutes, please be aware that it can take up to 24-48 hours for new records to propagate. However from experience it generally takes between less than a few minutes to 2-3 hours. I hope this helps! Remember, if you can’t find what nameservers you should use, or where you can change them, get in touch with you domain registrar, or hosting provider to ask them for more information.

Best Firefox Add-ons For Internet Professionals

MeasureIt – MeasureIt is a very convenient add-on that allows you to draw a ruler across any page to check the width, height and alignment of elements in pixels. With this Firefox add-on you can for example quickly check the width or height of a banner advertisement.

FoxClocks – FoxClocks allows users to easily keep an eye on the time around the world. With FoxClocks you can choose locations and place clocks in your add-on bar, so you know the time in all those locations. If you have staff all around the world, this add-on is a must have!

Alexa Sparky – With Alexa Sparky you can integrate Alexa data in your Web browser, so you can for example easily see the six-month traffic trend and traffic rank of any site in your add-on bar. This is a quick and easy way to monitor the traffic of your competitors.

Awesome Screenshot – With Awesome Screenshots you can easily capture a page or portion of a page, annotate it with circles, rectangles, arrows and text, blur sensitive information, and most importantly upload it and share it in just a few clicks. Awesome Screenshots is a great alternative to Jing and Skitch.

FlagFox – FlagFox is an add-on that displays a country flag depicting the location of the current site’s server and provides you with a multitude of tools such as safety checks, ‘WhoIs’, translation, similar sites, validation, URL shortening, and more…

FireFTP – FireFTP is an FTP/SFTP client for Firefox which provides you with an easy and intuitive access to FTP/SFTP servers. This Firefox add-on is very useful if you often have to upload or download elements. With FireFTP you can now do this from your Web browser.

SEO Toolbar – If you’re into SEO (short for Search Engine Optimization), then you should install SEO Toolbar, so you have access to a range of very useful tools. With this Firefox add-on you can for example see the PageRank or number of links indexed in Yahoo! (among many other indicators) of any page.

FireBug – FireBug is a Firefox add-on for Web developers which puts a wealth of Web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and also monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any page… A must have for Web developers.

If you have more add-ons in mind, feel free to leave a comment below!

Submit 1 Article to 15 Sites Every Day, Free

The link building service I want to tell you about allows users to submit 1 article (with 1 link in it) to 15 article sites every day, free. That’s 15 new backlinks (to any of your pages) every day, free of charge. The site is called BacklinksKingdom, and comes with a built-in article spinning tool for you to spin your articles so different versions are submitted to the 15 sites (for better results).

You don’t have to sign up to or log into any of the article sites. BacklinksKingdom takes care of the submission for you. All you need to do is enter a URL, keyword and title, paste your article in, spin it (for better results), enter a few tags, choose a category and… That’s it! Now I’m used to the submission process it never takes me more than 2 minutes (with a pre-spun article) to submit an article.

Once your article submission is fully completed you will have access to a link report so you can see how your backlinks look like. You can sign up free and give the site a try, or you can upgrade right away and get instant access to the upgraded features and benefits. With the 1st membership level (Knight) you can submit up to 3 articles (with 2 links in each of them) to 50 article sites every day, which means that you can build up to 300 backlinks every day.

Up to 1,500 Backlinks Every Day

With the 2nd membership (King, which is the top membership level) you can submit up to 5 articles (with 3 links in each of them) to 100 article sites every day, which means that you can build up to 1,500 backlinks every day. All article sites are on unique C-Class IP addresses, so you are sure all the backlinks you get for an article you submitted come from different places.

With both upgraded membership levels you get access to full link reports as well as RSS Feeds so you can submit your RSS Feeds to ping services and get your backlinks indexed faster. You also get access to a few other upgraded features and benefits including the possibility to use the submit URLs more often.

As previously  mentioned BacklinksKingdom is very easy to use. However make sure you watch the training videos and read the user guide located inside the members area before trying to submit an article. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.

>>> Click Here to Join Now <<<
& Build 15 Backlinks Every day, FREE!

Having an online staff  has its advantages and its disadvantages… but you can minimize the disadvantages by using a set of tools that help you maximize both your work and the work of your team. Here are a few online staff management tools that should help you increase both your and your online staff’s productivity.

Online Staff Management

#1 Time Doctor (Free Trial) - Time Doctor is a task and time management software designed to help you and your staff work more efficiently. With Time Doctor you can track exact hours worked, monitor distractions and increase your and your team’s productivity. It is perfect for small businesses and contractors who do most of their work on a computer. Time Doctor is available on both PC and Mac.

#2 Dropbox (Free & Paid) – Dropbox is a web-based file hosting service that uses the cloud to enable you to save and share files with other people across the Web. I find sharing medium to large sized files via Dropbox a lot more convenient than via email. If you want to share a file with someone, all you need to do is to drop it in the Dropbox folder you share with this person. When the upload is complete, the person you share the folder with will be able to access it, and use it.

#4 Gmail (Free) – Gmail is one of the best email service providers out there, not only because it is fast and reliable, but also because it provides you with useful work tools such as Google Documents and Google Calendar. With Google Documents you can easily share work documents (text documents spreadsheets, presentations…) with your online staff. With Google Calendar you can share schedules and events so you can easily keep track of what’s important for you and your staff.

#5 Skype & GTalk (Free) – If you want to have the choice to either chat with or call someone, I suggest that you use Skype. With Skype you can also share your screen with other people, which is great if you want to show your online staff on the other side of the world how to do something. If you just want to chat, I suggest GTalk. I use the desktop version rather than the Gmail version as I think it is more stable.

Online Staff Management

Alternatively you may use an all-in-one solution like Basecamp (Free Trial). With this kind of project management software you can do pretty much everything that is described above, as well as a few other things such as milestone management. You can try Basecamp free for one month, and then from $49 / month. If you don’t think you can afford Basecamp yet, then you should stick to the online staff management tools mentioned in this blog post. By the way if you have any more online staff management tools to suggest, feel free to leave a comment below!

MySQL Upgrade

I had no idea how to upgrade from MySQL 4.1 to MySQL 5.0 so I contacted my hosting provider (GoDaddy) to ask them how I could do this and if they could do it for me. Here is the response I received:

Thank you for contacting Online Support. Based on the information provided, you would like to upgrade your database to MySQL 5.0. Unfortunately, it cannot be upgraded directly. We ask that you backup your database, create a database, and import the data into your new MySQL database. Keep in mind that this would not be a Restore in the Hosting Control Center as the purpose of the Restore feature is simply for restoring backups of a database that has never been deleted. This would be the least risky way to upgrade and move your data to a new database.

Fair enough. What needs to be done is not a MySQL upgrade but a database transfer (from MySQL 4.1 to MySQL 5.0 or higher). The process is actually pretty simple…

MySQL Upgrade

Here what I did:

1. I logged into my GoDaddy account, went to the MySQL section and logged into phpMyAdmin.
2. I exported my database file (.sql) – I saved it on my desktop.
3. I then created a new database (MySQL 5.0) – This took a few minutes.
4. Finally, I imported the database file into the new database.

Here is how it looks in phpMyAdmin:

To export your database file, log into your old database (MySQL 4.1), click ‘Export’ and save the database file somewhere on your computer. Then log into your new database (MySQL 5.0 or higher), click ‘Import’ and upload the database file you just saved on your computer. Then wait until the upload is fully completed.

Make sure you keep the existing database as it is until the transfer is completed. You don’t want to delete your old database (MySQL 4.1) until the new one (MySQL 5.0 or higher) has successfully imported the database file.

The next step is to update your wp-config file (with the new database details) and go back to your WordPress Admin Interface. After logging in, you will see a message asking you to update your database. Click the ‘Update WordPress Database’ button and… that’s it!

If you don’t know on what version of MySQL your WordPress database is, download and install a plugin called WordPress Requirements Check and check if your server has the correct version of MySQL. I hope this helps! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them below!

Further Readings:

Are You Ready for WordPress 3.2?