The world as we know it is changing in many ways, one of the things that has changed dramatically in the past couple of years is the social media takeover. Today news is spread to all corners of the world before it ever appears on a single news website, never mind on TV or radio. Facebook and particularly Twitter has become the fastest way to distribute information  and developing social networks can help grow your business.

If you’re interested in learning more we’re seeking expressions of interest from those interested in participating in class to help you learn what you need to know to make social media work for you.

This applies more so with electronics than other items but the savings you can gain by being prepared will astound you.  Electronics and technology are typically much cheaper in the USA and the low value of the Australian dollar pushed up wholesale prices for retailers but now the tables are turned and you should be taking advantage of it while it lasts.

Here are some simple bargaining tips that may help you save when buying your next tech or electronic item:

• Search online retailers,
  check prices of the items you are interested in both locally and in the USA, make note of the best prices and print out one or two webpages with information showing the item you are interested in and the price the online retailer is offering.
• Go in person to stores that have sales people to assist you on the floor ,
  (eg, Harvey Norman, Dick Smith, Retravision).  These retailers are almost always prepared to drop the price of items, it’s their job to make a sale and work to get your business and they are prepared to negotiate with you, it’s expected. People commonly think that this kind of bargaining only works for “cash” sales but it will work for credit card sales too.
• Ask “What is the best price you can give me”,
  in order to make a sale you will almost always get a quick response from your sales person who will go and “check to see what they can do” to get  you a better price.  If an item is on sale, you can still ask for a better price!  You may be happy (and surprised) with the first response you get and if you’re ok with that then go ahead and close the sale, if after having done your research online you know that other retailers are selling at a significantly cheaper price, press on.
• Let them know what other retailers are charging,
  you’ve done your research and now’s the time to put it to use.  If the first offer you’ve received isn’t close to the online prices you’ve found then bargain some more.  Let the salesperson know that you found the same item online and for what price. If your online price is from an Australian retailer you’re almost guaranteed to get a matched price  (If my price is from an online-only retailer I usually offer the same price plus whatever it would have cost me for postage).  If the item is from a USA retailer remind them that with the Australian dollar doing so well you think they are in a position to be able to offer you a better deal.
• Don’t be afraid to walk away
  If you don’t get the kind of offer you’re looking for, don’t feel obligated to buy the item anyway.  It’s ok to say “Thank you but I’ll try somewhere else”. Try your luck at some other stores and if you still can’t get a better deal anywhere you can always go back.

As an example of some recent personal situations where I’ve used this approach, I was interested in a computer from Dell and when I pointed out to them that the same model in the US store was half the price of the Australian version they reduced the cost of my new laptop by $500.  It wasn’t close to the much cheaper price of the US one but it was a significant saving and all I had to do was ask! (And this was before the Aussie dollar was doing quite so well!).  Around Christmas time last year I was looking for an iRobot automatic vacuum cleaner. I’d done my research and in the US the basic model was selling for just under $300 on sale.  In Harvey Norman they were $600 for the same model.  I brought up the cost of the item in the US and the first offer I was made was $450. I pushed a little further and ended up getting the item for $400, that’s $200 off the store price and all I had to do was ask!

Always remember to be polite.  Don’t be afraid to push a little but play it by ear, some smaller retailers are going to have a harder time giving you a decent discount but larger chain stores like Harvey Norman expect you to bargain with them.

Good luck!

If you use this approach to get a good deal we’d love to hear about it, post your comments below.

Previously I’ve had cards printed overseas (when I was visiting Canada) for a fraction of the cost I could source them locally but I still needed to buy 1000 cards which was more than I needed.

Recently I discovered an excellent source of business card printing for print runs of just 1oo and up.  The more you buy the more you save but my order of 100 cards just cost me $21 USD including postage.  They take around 2 weeks to arrive.

You can use pre-made templates or create your own by uploading your logo.  There are several card stock options available including plain or textured options in addition to rather fancy silver and gold. The quality of the cards and the printing is exceptional and I’ve found customer service great too.

Simply go to zazzle.com and create your design.  If you prefer to shop locally you can go through the Australian store however with the Australian Dollar performing well at the moment if you’re concerned about your budget you may find it’s more affordable using the US store.

Windows 7 tries to be smart and decide how I want files to be displayed.  For example, if you’re looking at a folder with photos in it it will automatically display thumbnails.  This is quite useful at times but if you want to find your most recently edited photos (rather than most recently taken) it can be difficult to do because by default Windows 7 will arrange “image folders” without a “Date Modified” field to sort by.  To get around this you have to click towards the upper right corner of the window to select additional columns (or right click somewhere within the window) and then after you’ve asked windows to display the date modified field you have to switch from thumbnail view to Details view to be able to see the column names in order to sort by the “Date Modified” column you just added! 

It’s all very painful and no matter how many times you ask windows to remember the setting and use the “apply to all folders” option it doesn’t seem to work and  you have to go through the motions frequently to achieve what should be the most simple of tasks.

Today however, I discovered there’s a way to make it work!  Finally!

1. Sselect the root folder of your drive (eg, c:\ or if you’re using an external drive it might be E:\ etc).
2. Right click on the root folder and select Properties.
3. Select the Customize tab.
4. Choose “General Items” under the  “Optimize this folder for:” option.
5. Tick the “Apply this template to all sub folders” box.

Once this is done you can set things up as you would have done with earlier versions of windows.  My personal preference is to default folders to “Details” view with the fields “Date Modified”,  “Size” and “Type” which are the fields I most commonly refer to and sort by.

Customize one of your folders the way you would like to set others to default to.

1. Select the fields you want right click in your windows explorer window choose “sort by”
2. Select the “More…” option
3. Tick the boxes of any fields you would like to use
4. Apply any other changes you’d like for example the default view (my preference for default is “Details”  and I change to thumbnails whenever I like for each specific folder I browse).

Once you have chosen the defaults you’d like to apply to all the folders on your computer finish off with the following steps:

(If your Menu bar isn’t already displayed press Alt + T  to bring up the Tools menu, if you’d like the menu displayed permanently choose the View tab under Folder Options and then tick the option for “Always show menus”)

1. Go to the Tools Menu
2. Select Folder Options
3. Click the View Tab
4. Click the “Apply to All Folders” button

That’s it!

If there are certain folders (eg. “My Pictures” or “My Music” ) that you would like displayed differently by default you can adjust those folders by doing the following:

1. Select the folder you wish to change (Do NOT select the folder via Libraries as this won’t give you the options you need, instead browse from your user file eg: C:\Users\Yourname\)
2. Right click on the folder name you wish to change
3. Select Properties
4. Click the Customize Tab
5. Choose the option you want under “Optimzie this folder for:” and if appropriate select “”Also apply this template to all subfolders”

• Studies show that 80% of visitors hate flash intros.
• They’re annoying.  Visitors want to get to the content of your site as quickly as possible and with as few clicks as possible.  Splash intro pages waste time by forcing your visitors to either sit and watch or click unnecessarily through to another page.  Your website should make it as easy as possible for people to get what they want, not to put roadblocks in their way.
• Splash pages will affect your search engine ranking. By having a splash page instead of primary content on the home page of your website you’re not only putting a roadblock up for your visitors, but for search engines too, this will certainly have a negative effect on your ranking.
• Web expert Jared Spool of “User Interface Engineering” says:
  When we have clients who are thinking about Flash splash pages, we tell them to go to their local supermarket and bring a mime with them. Have the mime stand in front of the supermarket, and, as each customer tries to enter, do a little show that lasts two minutes, welcoming them to the supermarket and trying to explain the bread is on aisle six and milk is on sale today.
• If you were to survey people who use the internet on a regular basis most of them will admit they will click on “skip intro” before watching the splash animation. By looking into website access logs it has been shown that at least 25% don’t even make it past the splash page.
• Flash discriminates against the visually impaired.  “Screen readers” cannot read flash content.  Users with visual impairment will typically enlarge the text on a page to enable them to read it, if there is no text, there’s no reason for them to stay on your site.
• Typically visitors will be coming to to your website looking for information, not entertainment.

Some of the tech speak may be a little beyond your level of understanding but stick with it, you’ll still get a general idea of what it all means and how this new concept has the potential to change the way you work…

Please remember that ‘too good to be true” offers usually are. Any new scheme that requires you pay out money or sign up other people to make a fortune is a bad idea, you’ll get burned and risk take your friends and family with you.

If you get approached by someone or receive material inviting you to a seminar, my advice to you is do some research first. Try doing a Google Search for the name of the organisation along with the word “scam” and you’ll find plenty information that will tell you not to trust these people.

Buyer beware.

This company has operated under various names over a number of years and while the scams vary slightly from invoices for domains you don’t own to very overpriced “renewal” invoices their motivations remain the same, to scam you out of money.

A number of clients of Anchor Web Design have contacted us recently to question “invoices” they have received regarding their domain names from this company. If your domain name was registered through Anchor Web Design your invoice will always come from us. If you’re ever uncertain, please don’t hesitate to contact us and ask our advice.

The Australian government has a website suggesting what to look out for and how to report domain name scams. www.scamwatch.gov.au

Some of the warning signs they offer are:

• You receive a letter that looks like an invoice for the registration or renewal of a domain name.
• The domain name listed in the invoice is very similar to your actual domain name, but may have a different ending. For example, it may end in .net.au instead of .com.au or the .au at the end may be missing.
• The domain name may be correct, but the letter is not from the company that you previously used to register your domain name.

They also offer some helpful advice including:

• Use your common sense: the offer may be a scam.
• Check the website address carefully. Scammers often set up fake websites with very similar addresses.
• Try to avoid having a large number of people authorised to make orders or pay invoices.
• Always check that goods or services were both ordered and delivered before paying an invoice.
• Make sure the business billing you is the one you normally deal with.
• Read all the terms and conditions of any offer very carefully: claims of free or very cheap offers often have hidden costs.
• You can contact your local office of fair trading, ASIC or the ACCC for assistance.

• Firefox
• Opera
• Safari

The following story was published on the ABC News website

Microsoft is releasing an emergency patch to fix a perilous software flaw which allows hackers to hijack Internet Explorer (IE) browsers and take over computers.

The US software giant said that in response to “the threat to customers” it immediately mobilised security engineering teams worldwide to deliver a software cure “in the unprecedented time of eight days”.

Researchers at software security firm Trend Micro say attacks based on the vulnerability in the world’s most popular web browser are “spreading like wildfire”, with millions of computers already compromised.

Microsoft typically releases patches for its software on the second Tuesday of each month and rushing this fix to computer users out-of-cycle is testimony to the severe danger of the threat, according to Trend Micro.

“When the patch is released people should run, not walk, to get it installed,” Trend Micro advanced threat researcher Paul Ferguson said.

“This vulnerability is being actively exploited by cyber-criminals and getting worse every day.”

Trend Micro has identified about 10,000 websites that have been infected with malicious software that can be surreptitiously slipped into visitors’ unprotected IE browsers to take advantage of the flaw.

Hackers can take control of infected computers, steal data, redirect browsers to dubious websites, and use machines for devious activities such as attacks on other networks, according to security specialists.

“What makes this so insidious is it takes advantage of a big gaping hole of IE, which has the largest install base of any browser on the market,” Mr Ferguson said.

IE is used on nearly three-quarters of the world’s computers, according to industry statistics from November.