Saying Goodbye To MS Word And Excel

Months ago, I used Google Docs, and I thought it was pretty neat. However, I discontinued using it because it did not offer offline feature back then. Couple of days ago I tried Google Docs again and found out that it is fully equipped to work both online and offline. I like the fact that with Google Docs you can work on your documents whenever, wherever. I have had enough of Microsoft, and it is time to say goodbye to MS Word and Excel.

Google Docs is a free, hosted service where you can create and share documents such as word process, spreadsheet etc. The feature I like most is that you are not tied up to your own computer. Also, users can share and collaborate in real time. This is very useful if a group of students or a team of Internet Entrepreneurs are working on a project and would like to share and edit as they go along.

Recently, Google added limited PDF functionality to Google Docs. It can now upload, share, “copy and paste text” and “save as PDF”. Although Edit feature is not yet available, Google is expected to implement it shortly.

I have never been a fan of Microsoft Word and Excel. In this digital age, users are looking for a simple product with an emphasis on sharing ability. MS office failed to meet customer demand and ignored to address customer’s needs. Until now, I had no other choice but using MS Office. But now that there is an alternative , I am not going back to MS, and it is time to say goodbye.

First Published on: Jun 23, 2008 ADawnJournal.com

How To Come Up With Great Domain Names

Domain Name Ideas and Tips

One thing I am constantly doing and never fall short of is my relentless pursuit for great domain ideas or domain names. Today, I will share a few things on how to come up with great domain names out of thin air.

Creativity is your number one asset – if you want to be a proud owner of some world-class, high-end domain names. Whenever I don’t need to be attentive and can free up my mind, I put my mind to work questing for domain names. Most people will let their mind wander when on the subway, standing in line, or just wandering around and wasting time; however, I see these moments as an opportunity and concentrate on finding great domain names. Here are a few tips I can share with you. These tips have worked for me and if you use them, they will work for you too.

- Always keep your eye and mind open. Pay attention to details when you are watching TV, reading signboards or store names while walking, reading a newspaper, and so on. Why? Because you may bump into some words or variations of words that can be used as domain names. For example, I came up with Dotcomdiary.com, Earthroadmap.com, and Globalboundaries.com just doing what I just mentioned.

- Keep a notebook and pen handy on your table, next to your bed, in your bag, etc. This happens to me a lot – I wake up in the middle of the night with a domain name burning in my head. Because of keeping a pen and notebook handy everywhere, I am able to write down the domain idea that woke me up in the middle of night and research it later when I get a chance. I came up with domains like beyondyourimaginations.com, greenlivingjourney.com and many others because I was able to write down right away.

- If you are waiting in line or riding the subway and can’t find anything to do, play around with some words and variations domain ideas. For example, one day the word “Roadmap” somehow struck my mind and I got infatuated with this word. Since then, I have been building one after another great domain names with this word “Roadmap.” Some of my Roadmap related domains are: Earthroadmap.com, Roadmaptosaving.com, Roadmaptosaving.com, RoadmaptoChina.com and much more.

- Use domain tools such as Domainbots.com to help you create domains with those words you are enthusiastic about. If you enter a word in Domain Bots search and hit enter, it will give you many variations with that word and also will tell you which are available. For example, I found many domains tied with “Green” and “Travel” from my search results on Domain Bot.

- Many domain names are dropping out of someone’s portfolio because the owner forgot to renew, gave up Internet Entrepreneurship, or simply can’t afford to hold them anymore. There are many sites that list those domain names that are about to expire or have recently expired. Go through these lists and who knows, you may be able to pick up your gem from these dropped-out domains. I found domains like 1timecash.com, 1tourtravel.com, and Realestateexpedition.com because someone else forgot or decided not to renew these domains.

There are many other ways to come up with great domain names. I can think of the above I mentioned right now off the top of my head. If you are into domains, you will come up with your own ways. If you can’t think of something right away, never give up and keep trying. It will all come to you slowly.
First Published: EntrepreneurJourney.com Apr 18, 2010

What to Do When Hackers Hack Your Websites

Tips to Deal with Blog or Website Ad Codes from Hacking

Recently, I had my first incidence of one of my sites being hacked by online intruder. Nothing can beat the learning that comes from experience – that’s why I have decided to share my experience with you today. Also, I will describe a few steps you all should consider to better tackle this type of situation.

About two weeks ago, I opened one of my sites in my browser and found out that the top widgets on the right column had disappeared. Also, the whole site looked disheveled - it was like someone had played around and tampered with the site’s programming codes.

My programmer was able to fix everything in time. But then, he gave me a valuable tip which I have never thought of. He mentioned that hackers usually hack sites to implement their own ad codes. So instead of the site owner, these high-tech thieves make money. If you are an Internet entrepreneur, you know that all ad codes such as Google Adsense, Infolinks, Chitika, etc. run on your site because of a few line ad scripts or html codes. The only thing makes these codes identifiable for the individual is a numeric value such as 54890245 or something like it. Now, if someone hacked your site and implemented their own codes replacing yours – it’s almost impossible to know by looking at it. We usually never check and match these numeric values assigned to each individual.

So, hacking your codes could go unnoticed for many months until one day you think: wait a minute, how come I have never made money in the past 2 months? What precautions should you take if your site gets hacked or even if it did not get hacked but you just want to be safe?
Follow these simple tips:

- Always backup your site
- If your site gets hacked, change your password ASAP
- Go through all ad codes to make sure they are indeed your codes, install fresh codes if necessary
- Always keep an eye on your revenue. If you see a sharp drop in income or no income at all, it means your site  
  has been compromised.
- It is a good idea to change your password periodically. 
- Do not use the same password for your ad accounts, email, and other programs. If hackers get thru your site,
  they will have access to everything
- Do not make your password too easy to guess
- Your programmer, editor, virtual assistant … should be someone you can trust. For example, I have been with
  my team of experts for a few years now and I trust them all, as they are very trust worthy.
- Always take precautions and be vigilant. Use your common sense and let it be your guideline.
First Published: EntrepreneurJourney.com Apr 3, 2010

Google Finance Canada

Google Canadian Financial Site

First Published: ADawnJournal.com Jan 08, 2010

You have got to check Google Finance Canada out. Because it’s a Canadian financial site and from Google. Google lunched Google Finance Canada in August 2007. Google Finance Engineer Dion Roy, a Canadian, stated in his blog that Canadians are the second largest users of the original Google Finance and Google Finance Canada is a localized version tailored specifically for Canadians. I like Google Finance Canada for the following:

• Unbelievably simple to use. Looking for a stock or a company? Just start putting the name or trading symbol in the search box. Let’s say you want to know about Bombardier, and you don't know the trading symbol. Just write bom and see what happens. This autocompletion feature is really a brilliant idea. Try it now.

• An Ad-free site (yes, it is ad-free but hard to say how long it will remain ad-free).

• simple layouts. Easy to navigate.

• Create a portfolio to watch your stocks. Google has made this so simple. Try it out. You can even add Price and Number of Shares to monitor how much money you are making (or loosing).

• Watch Canadian financial news, Canadian economic data, Canadian stocks and mutual funds data – all in one page.

You will not find lots of tools(like Yahoo Finance) on Google Finance Canada because it is a very new project. I am sure Google will be improving this site rapidly and will be adding lots of features. Another positive feature Google Finance Canada has is that it does not have too many things crammed up in too little space, unlike Yahoo. Click here to visit Google Finance Canada.

Search Engine Optimization - Good, Bad Or Both?

Don’t Just Use SEO Without Relevant References

For any entrepreneur who is serious about making money in this day and age, the Internet is a powerful, and some would argue indispensable, tool. A web presence enables you to reach customers wherever you want – and for companies with a mail order aspect this has been proven to drive orders up by allowing them to sell far and wide. In order to increase your web presence, there are many tools available. Some of these tools are more effective than others, but one which has proven to be immensely popular is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short. SEO has become one of the ultimate buzzwords in Internet marketing – and is seen as being immensely desirable for the purposes of increasing presence.

Search engines are seen as being hugely important in increasing your web presence. Many people who are looking for something specific will, without even thinking, turn to the search engines, and most usually Google. By entering their required search term, they will turn up relevant results in the search engine and pick from the list that they see. Because people tend to read a page from top to bottom, having the result which ranks first in Google for a specific search term is considered very lucrative. Search Engine Optimization works by making a web page more “attractive” to the robots which search the Internet for relevant results. It does this by reading the keywords which people are searching for and judging by their volume on the page how apposite the site is for the searcher.

So far, so good, then. To create a page that will bring in the attention of someone who is looking for, say, tickets for a Justin Timberlake concert, the SEO user will make as many references as possible in the text of their web page to “justin timberlake tickets”, “justin timberlake concert”, “justin timberlake concert tickets”, and a range of other phrases which can include the venues at which Justin will be appearing, as well as eyecatching words like “cheap”, “cut price”, “front row” and so forth. Then when the potential customer searches for “cheap justin timberlake tickets Chicago” or a similar search term, the site with the most relevant references will appear high in the Google search results.

So what is the drawback to SEO, if it is bringing in traffic? The answer is that people know SEO works, and can occasionally be very indiscriminate in their use of search terms. Look at the two sentences that follow:

“I have found a fail-safe way to get cheap front row tickets for Justin Timberlake in Chicago – read on for more info!”

“Cheap Justin Timberlake tickets Chicago I have found Justin Timberlake concert tickets front row – CLICK HERE!!!”

The first sentence holds more promise for the questing Timberlake fan, as it reads like something a sentient person might write. The latter is stuffed with search terms and reads like gibberish – but at least initially will get into the search engines at a higher level due to its SEO volume. More and more people, conscious of the power of SEO, are using nothing but optimization to drive traffic, and it is becoming problematic for the person looking to find relevant information. Search engines are, however, developing to forestall this problem – but it is not, as yet, an exact science, and poor SEO is still slipping through the net.

First Published: EntrepreneurJourney.com Oct 5, 2009