Essential applications Archives

by Jonathan Ginsberg on December 8, 2014

Return Receipt Email Utility for Gmail

Recently I have been testing a return receipt email utility called YesWare, which integrates with Gmail. When installed, YesWare adds a small toolbar to the top of your Gmail inbox and a small toolbar to the bottom of any outgoing mail you may compose. The outgoing email compose bar gives you the option of checking a box to track your email open status.

When you send an email with tracking enabled, you get a popup notification that your email was opened. This information can also be found in a dropdown (“events”) in the inbox toolbar.

I find this utility useful when I email clients or prospects – at a minimum you can tell how quickly a recipient will respond to you and you can identify prospects who may not use email much or cases where your email got sent to a spam folder.

Currently YesWare offers a free plan where you get 100 tracking events per month. $10 per month gets you unlimited tracking and some additional features, and $20 per month adds mail merge features and delayed sending.

YesWare email tracking utility

by Jonathan Ginsberg on October 13, 2014

Create Attractive Buttons for Your Site

Recently I was working on a site for which I needed buttons. These buttons were to be used in a sidebar widget – in this case red buttons that looked like this:

You would think this would be an easy task to accomplish, and my first thought was to go to Fiverr.com and get these buttons created for $5 each. It occurred to me, however, that this task ought to be simple enough that I could do it myself. I work with a wonderful Fiverr designer in Indonesia but because of the time difference, the turnaround time is 8 to 10 hours.

I started looking around and I discovered that it was difficult to find online button makers. I did find sites like BestCSSButtonGenerator.com and ButtonMaker which create attractive buttons but they create CSS files that you have to upload. The CSS component allows you to choose different looks when a user hovers over the button and after a visitor has already visited. These are neat features but not essential to my needs. In any case, I prefer not to mess with the CSS files in my WordPress installs so I kept looking.

Another interesting concept is DaButtonFactory. Here, you create a button that is hosted on DaButtonFactory’s servers and you simply link to the URL. The problem with this approach, of course, is that if DaButtonFactory.com goes dark or if they suddenly decide to start charging for hosting all those buttons, I would have a problem.

I had also tried an online button generator at http://jirox.net/AsButtonGen. This was a site maintained by a Japanese company and it did everything I needed – but now it has gone away.

So my search continues….

by Jonathan Ginsberg on February 26, 2014

Hardening Your WordPress Install

Recently I installed a very useful plugin on most of my WordPress sites called Wordfence. Wordfence offers both a free and a paid version. The free version is quite robust, although the paid version does unlock a number of useful features. Both the free and the paid version do a nice job at blocking the most common types of hacking attempts and, if you wish, the plugin will email you when someone tries to penetrate your site.

The Wordfence emails are interesting in that they reveal what hackers are trying to do. In my case, I previously maintained dozens of WordPress installs on the same IP address (not a good idea, and I have fixed this). There are numerous tools out there that anyone can use to identify all web sites – WordPress or otherwise – on any IP address, so if you own or manage multiple sites and use the same login name and password, once one site is penetrated, they could all be at risk. [Read more…] about Hardening Your WordPress Install

by Jonathan Ginsberg on January 15, 2013

Adding Driving Directions to Your Website or Blog

Are you trying to figure out how to add driving directions to your website or blog? If you Google “embed code for driving directions” you will see several results for a Google Gadget that is supposed to do this, but currently, the gadget does not work and no code is generated.

I needed to add driving directions to one of my sites so I dug around and found code that works. [Read more…] about Adding Driving Directions to Your Website or Blog

by Jonathan Ginsberg on November 23, 2010

Search Engine Optimization Instructions…Directly from Google

Because I spend a lot of my time tweaking and optimizing for the search engines my own sites as well as client sites, I have a good sense of the various strategies and tactics being discussed by SEO professionals as well as business owners interested in finding an edge. Generally the strategies for achieving good results on the search engines are well known – produce quality content for a human audience, produce it regularly and figure out ways (tactics) to get other web sites to link back to you using descriptive link text. I currently own or manage over 100 web sites and blogs, many of which appear on the first page of search results for several relevant keywords (search phrases)

The marketplace of tactics is a lot more fluid – methods to achieve your strategic goals change frequently. Ten years ago, most web sites contained pages titled “recommended links” and there was even software available to automate this process. Today, we know that Google and other search engines ignore pages that exist solely to exchange links and a much better tactic involves guest posting articles with links embedded therein. [Read more…] about Search Engine Optimization Instructions…Directly from Google

by Jonathan Ginsberg on January 20, 2010

WordPress vs. Local Website Authoring Tool – Which Makes More Sense

Just the other day, I was in attendance at a meeting with one of my consulting clients, his paid advertising rep, and a rep from his web design vendor. I was there as the content consultant and provider – when I came on board, my client already had established relationships with a web design company and other vendors.

My client (who is the owner of a thriving personal services law firm) expressed his frustration at the lengthy delays in getting sites created and online – he noted that the production of his most recent site has taken almost 6 months. It seems that every revision takes at least a week to get implemented. In fact, I suspect that it was this delay that prompted him to call me – as an attorney I can prepare content about legal topics. By contrast, his web design company was using writers who were not lawyers, nor were they knowledgeable about the legal issues addressed by the web site. As such, they would produce content that contained factual errors, someone from my client’s office would review and point out the mistakes, then it would go back to a writer for revision, more mistakes would be made and the process would repeat itself over and over. Because our client’s web site was being developed in a proprietary development environment, the web site designer was the only person who could make any updates.

Just a note, by the way, for those of you who want to outsource content about a technical topic or one where unique knowledge is necessary, you will need to be involved in the content creation process – otherwise you will face ongoing frustrations.

During this conversation, the paid advertising rep and I looked at each other and almost simultaneously asked “why are you not using WordPress to produce this site?

WordPresslogo WordPress, as you may know, is an “open source” blogging platform that is widely used and very flexible. Open source means that there is no cost whatsoever to download the software and there are a plethora of “plug-ins” that add flexibility to the base software’s functionality. The site you are now reading is a WordPress site.

Because it is open source software that has reached critical mass in terms of its use and popularity, the software is regularly updated and upgraded. Anyone is free to suggest proposed changes to the software – the supervising engineers review these suggestions and incorporate the best of them into the production updates. I suspect that for many of the volunteer programmers, a development credit on the WordPress site would be valuable resume fodder as well as positive publicity within that developer community.

I first started using WordPress around 2 years ago. At that time, WordPress was primarily a blogging platform. Since that time, the software has been significantly upgraded to the point where it can function as the backbone to a more traditional looking web site. In fact, I have seen WordPress used as the structure for a multi-user membership site, a storefront site for selling multiple items and just about any other application you could imagine.

More recently, I have been using WordPress to create web sites, rather than my previous site authoring tool – a program called NetObjects Fusion. Other common web authoring tools include FrontPage (a Microsoft product that has now been discontinued), and Dreamweaver. [Read more…] about WordPress vs. Local Website Authoring Tool – Which Makes More Sense

by Jonathan Ginsberg on January 2, 2009

Useful Tool – Atomic Clock Sync

What time is it? Not “approximately” but down to the nano-second. Check out the Atomic Clock Sync utility from WorldTimeServer.com. Now in Version 3.0, Atomic Clock Sync automatically synchronizes your computer’s clock to National Institute of Standards and Technology.

I also use a utility called “L-Clock” which puts a configurable clock on my System Tray. Now I will always know what time it is, despite my wife’s insistence that time has no meaning for me!

There are, of course, many reasons to have an accurate clock. If you use an online backup program, for example, you will want to schedule your backups for 3AM when you are most likely not online. An accurate system clock insures that your scheduling does not cause a utility to run when you need full processing power.

Atomic Clock Sync can be run manually, or set for automatic updates. Highly recommended.

by Jonathan Ginsberg on November 22, 2008

Useful Tool – Gmail

Gmail is certainly not an unknown product, but I am including it in my “useful tools” directory because it is such a good product. For those who do not know, Gmail is Google’s free email service. Now, there are plenty of email services out there – what makes Gmail so much better than other services?

First and foremost, it is web based. This means that your Gmail account is not tied to your home or office computer. You can access it from any computer or computing device that is attached to the web, and this includes web enabled wireless phones. If you don’t currently use more than 1 computer, you will and it simply makes no sense to tie yourself to a particular machine. My wife is dealing with this problem right now. Her email goes to an account that is processed by Outlook on her office machine. At the same time, she uses a Verizon “wireless synch” service to send those emails to her wireless phone/pocket PC device. Although the Verizon service is reliable, it does get out of synch periodically necessitating either a phone call to customer service or my time in reconnecting the synch. Additionally, her email responses from the phone/wireless device do not end up in her “sent” directory on the Outlook program on her office computer unless she sends herself a copy.

By contrast, I use Gmail for my office email. I can check it at home, at the office on or my Blackberry. Gmail can be open on 5 computers at the same time and it always stays in synch. It automatically saves work in progress as a draft, so if I start an email at work, but then have to run home, my work in progress shows up as a draft when I open Gmail at home. I also added the Gmail application to my Blackberry so I can receive and respond to emails in real time.

Gmail also has a robust search feature, it allows you to label emails based on the sender or the topic and Google gives you enough space to save everything – I am going on 2 years and I have plenty of space. I have several Gmail accounts for different businesses so as a practical matter, space is not an issue.

Google also updates Gmail regularly and new features are frequently coming on line. There are also a number of third party applications that add to Gmail’s functionality including applications that allow for multiple signatures, applications that allow you to upload files to Gmail and use it as an external hard drive, backup utilities, etc.

I suppose that Gmail would not be a good choice if you still use dial-up or have only periodic access to the Internet. There is also the risk that Google will someday start charging for Gmail or that it may snoop into your email messages, but I think we should all assume that any email is not “secured” no matter who the provicer. All in all, Gmail functions as a simple, elegant and powerful email application that will enhance your productivity.

by Jonathan Ginsberg on November 17, 2008

Useful Tool – Foxmarks

In my view, one of the nicest things about the Internet relates to the multitude of “free” tools and resources out there. This free stuff may not last forever (if you are old enough to remember the original Napster – and its promise of “free” music, you know what I mean). In the meantime, I will periodically post reviews about some of the free stuff that I actually use.

The first tool I want to discuss in this series is called Foxmarks, which you can find at Foxmarks.com. Foxmarks is an add-on to the popular (and free) web browser Firefox. It syncs and backs up your bookmarks and passwords across multiple computer. Here’s how it works for me:

I work on three computers regularly – my office desktop computer, a laptop that I take with me everwhere, and a home machine that I use primarily for video editing. Before Foxmarks, I had three different lists of bookmarks (favorites). If I saved a site to Favorites at home, that site would obviously not appear on my Favorites list at work unless I wrote myself a note or sent myself an email.

Foxmarks works by creating a web based “master bookmarked favorites” list. If you install the Foxmark add on to each computer and then log in to your web based account, Foxmarks sychs all of your bookmarks and each machine has an identical “Bookmarks” list of favorite sites.

You can also log in to your master list from any computer to access it, thereby making your bookmarks portable. A new feature adds password portability to the service but I have not yet activated that.

The add-on also reminds you to synch your local machine to the web based master list if you add a site to the local Favorites list of any computer that you happen to be on at that time. All in all, Foxmarks functions as an essential tool in a world where more and more people own or work on multiple computers.

Foxmarks gets my highest recommendation as an essential tool. Here is a link to the Foxmarks blog if you want to learn more about the service and about forthcoming features or if you want to post a question.

I have no idea how Foxmarks makes money, although I do note that its founder is Mitch Kapoor, who gave us Lotus 1-2-3 back in the early days of the PC. Presumably Mitch doesn’t need any angel investors.

One clue to what Foxmarks may have in mind can be found in its about us page:

We are hard at work analyzing over 300 million bookmarks managed by our systems to help users discover sites that are useful to them. By combining algorithmic search with community knowledge-sharing and the wisdom of crowds, our goal is to connect users with relevant content.

Sounds like a social networking application may be on the drawing board. Whatever they do I’ll certainly check it out as these folks have saved me hours with a must-have application.