Archive for category Business Intelligence
Quick Tip: Fluid Width Images
Posted by Damon in Business Intelligence, General Knowledge, Solutions on June 13, 2011
Today I’m sharing a quick tip: fluid width images.
I’ve been working on a mobile website which requires me to make the site practical and functional across a myriad of devices and their corresponding screen sizes. Usually, this isn’t much of a problem if it’s just text and background colors, because you can just leave the “width” attribute off of your element to have the text & colors fill the screen.
Rising Mobile Technology in 2011
Posted by Tommy in Business Intelligence on January 27, 2011
With the New Year off and running, the outlook of the web market is beginning to shape itself. More and more companies are creating mobile web sites and the need for a mobile site is becoming required. This is due to the number of smartphones in the market, a number that will continue to rise this year and is projected to overtake feature phone sales by the third quarter of 2011. During the president’s State of the Union address, president Obama spoke of the mobile market’s growth and stated:
“This isn’t about faster Internet or fewer dropped calls. It’s about connecting every part of America to the digital age.”
Quick Fire Tips for Effective Email Marketing
Posted by Damon in Business Intelligence, General Knowledge, Services on August 16, 2010
For some, email marketing is a golden opportunity to reach numerous customers, increase brand recognition and cross-sell many different things. However, for others, email marketing is a bear; they get less than desirable results and have no idea how to improve their reach. My aim is to expose some simple guidelines to improve your email marketing campaigns. Even though some may seem obvious, many of these tips are often overlooked, resulting in email newsletters that simply don’t get the job done.
The 3 Essential Functions of Social Media
Posted by Stephanie in Business Intelligence on July 27, 2010
A friend asked me the other day why companies get involved in social media. After posing her question, she proceeded to answer it herself. “So they can do more advertising and stuff, right?” Wrong. There may be some companies out there that just use social media to further flood the market with their current ad campaign, but there is so much more to social media. And the companies that are truly successful at social media understand that it is so much more.
1. Monitor
One of the most basic functions of social media is to help businesses monitor their name, brand, and products as they’re discussed in the online world. This is a crucial point that many businesses overlook. There will always be conversations online and in real life about people, places and things and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. But a business can monitor and listen to those conversations and in some cases join in on the conversation. This is particularly important when it comes to negative comments about a company’s product or service. Often a scorned customer can be appeased with a simple acknowledgment of the problem and an apology. People want to be heard and they want people to care about what they have to say. If they don’t feel like they’re being taken seriously, a problem that often times could be quickly and easily resolved, gets blown entirely out of proportion. Look at the apple iphone fiasco. The antenna issue could be easily resolved with bumpers to fix the reception. Had apple immediately acknowledged the reception issue, apologized and said “We’re looking into it,” maybe they wouldn’t be facing a class-action lawsuit. Instead, Steve Jobs chose to deny, deny, deny and they’re in much hotter water because of it.
Improve your Ecommerce Presence
Posted by Damon in Business Intelligence, Solutions on July 23, 2010
The world of Ecommerce is at a unique point in its young life. With the increased focus on web standards and usability, web users are constantly on the lookout for something cutting edge and easy to use. That being said, creating an online shopping presence is becoming an increasingly important avenue for selling your goods. However, without a specific, granular approach to your
Ecommerce store, it’s likely that it will produce less than desirable sales, be difficult to maintain and ultimately ineffective for users to perform even basic actions.
There are some fairly fool proof ways to combat common mistakes, however. By following some pretty simple rules within your Ecommerce store, we can improve sales, generate leads and referrals and subsequently increase conversions. Let’s get started!
Read the rest of this entry »
QR Codes Unleashed
Posted by Andrew Newby in Business Intelligence, General Knowledge, Solutions on July 22, 2010
As mobile application acceptance and influence grows, finding better ways to connect information will evolve. That means not only sharing but also accessing information and application interaction on a device level – bridging the divide between print, mobility and infosharing. One of these methods is the QR Code (Quick Response Code). A QR Code is a 2D bar code configured in a matrix; information is stored horizontally as well as vertically. This differs from a traditional bar code which only contains information horizontally. A QR Code uses blocks (called modules) instead of variable width lines. The benefit of this is the ability to store a lot more information. Here is an example.
A QR Code of the url www.trustyourtechnologist.com
The basic function of the code is to be scanned (laser based 2D bar code scanner – or more likely, a phone’s camera). On a phone the image is analyzed by a QR Code reading application such as QRdvark and the content, link, and info is then available on the device.
HTML5 Apps On The Rise
Posted by Tommy in Business Intelligence on July 16, 2010
In the article “Understanding the Future of the Web & Your Business,” HTML5 features were discussed and the question was asked: Is your business on the forefront of this new technology? But what businesses are using this technology and is this technology worth jumping into so early in its development?
Yahoo! Mail on iPod Touch
Early this month, Yahoo launched a new mail HTML5 App. Smartphone users can start previewing and using the new site by going to m.yahoo.com/mail. The new site utilizes the power of HTML5, looks great and is lightning fast. Yahoo was able to create something better then a native application by developing it in HTML5. Last week, YouTube released its new mobile HTML5 App to overwhelmingly positive critical response. People are saying that the mobile site “put the YouTube App to Shame” and “the video quality beats native Apps hands down.” Mobile sites have great advantage over native applications because they allow the developer to update their App in real time, adding new features and new advertisements to generate more revenue.
The Debate Over Net Neutrality and the Free Exchange of Information
Posted by Robert in Business Intelligence on July 14, 2010
Recently Comcast Corp. won a case against the FCC barring the FCC from enforcing “net neutrality” regulations. This has set off debate in the political realm of free market vs. regulation as well as on the internet between ISPs (internet service providers) and content providers such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon. The FCC defines net neutrality as:
- Equal access to the lawful Internet content of your choice.
- The ability to run applications and use services of your choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.
- The ability to connect your choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.
- Competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.
Protecting Your Data with On-Disk Encryption
Posted by Shazad in Business Intelligence, Solutions on July 7, 2010
A common issue facing businesses and organizations today is a lost or stolen laptop or PC that contains sensitive data. As a result, many companies are starting to move to on-disk encryption to protect their data. Windows Vista and Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise editions contain a feature called BitLocker which protects data by encrypting information over entire volumes.
BitLocker is a full disk encryption program that uses the AES encryption algorithm in CBC(Cipher-block chaining) mode with a 128-bit key. BitLocker is only available on Server 2008 and select editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. There are 3 different authentication modes that can be used as building blocks to implement BitLocker encryption.
Transparent Operation Mode
Transparent Operation Mode uses a key for the disk encryption. It is encrypted by the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip and will only be released to the OS loader code if the early boot files appear to be unmodified. By using TPM, a user can only protect against software based attacks but the computer is still vulnerable to hardware based attacks. An example of such attack would be a cold-boot attack where a user doesn’t let the computer shut down completely. This attack relies on data to be in the RAM after power has been removed.
A Case for “Adaptive” Websites
Posted by Damon in Business Intelligence, General Knowledge, Solutions on July 1, 2010
Recently, I came across an astonishing article written by Ethan Marcotte for A List Apart titled Responsive Web Design. The concept of the article is quite simple: can a website be designed & developed in such a way that it is smart enough to adapt to the size of the window it’s in? Marcotte’s article attempts to answer this question.
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