Joomla vs. WordPress. Which one do you choose for your business?

Joomla vs. WordPress
When choosing to bring your business online, it’s imperative that you choose a web solution that is effective and easy to manage. In the past few years I have been a strong advocate for the use of Joomla for building small business websites. Joomla! is a free and open source content management system (CMS) for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets. I’ve used it over the years to build numerous websites and love the flexibility and extensibility of the solution. In addition it is relatively easy for my clients to maintain their site themselves if they choose to not pay me to manage the site for them.

However last year I started investigating the use of WordPress for web site management. WordPress is know more as a blogging platform but it has options that allow for it to serve as a site management tool as well. Similar to Joomla you can extend WordPress through the use of plugins and most web site hosting companies have automatic installers already set up for it. In addition, both systems offer cool templates through third party developers that make site setup relatively easy.

So which do I recommend and why?

Well for start-up and non complicated sites I definitely recommend WordPress. WordPress has a very user friendly back-end user interface that is easy to understand even for the novice user. With the blogging style format of WordPress, it’s pretty straight forward for a non technical user to add content without feeling the need to build out an entire page. When your business begins to need advanced logic and direct interaction with the back-end database and server, it’s probably time to consider using enhanced CMS options like Joomla or DotNetNuke(if your business is .NET based).

Well I hope this post helped in your decision to bring your business online quickly and in a way that’s easy for a novice to manage. Please leave a comment below or check out my official blog here.

How to advertise your small business website with no money

Many small businesses have limited resources for advertising their business website. They invest in building the website and just assume that traffic will just magically find it’s way to their website. Unfortunately business owners are met with extreme disappointment when they see that their new cool site does not have the amount of visitors they expected. Well check out my article describing 10 ways to advertise your small business with no money. It describes useful tools and techniques you can use to grow traffic and advertise your business website.

Quibids not a scam. Here is how they make money

Today I was sitting with my wife discussing means to save money. We were thinking about purchasing certain items in bulk or online at auction or overstock sites. We have friends who have purchased items at sites like Woot and 1saleoftheyday and got cool items at a extremely discounted price. However usually these sites offer one item at a discounted price per day.

Well one of the sites that was mentioned by my wife was quibids.com. From what she understood, people could bid on items similar to an EBay auction, and save as much as 80% on the item retail price. I come from the philosophy that if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is so I decided to investigate the company online. At first I saw a bunch of questions asking if quibids.com is a scam but surprisingly most of the answers were no. So my next thought was ok, well how do they make money while selling items like the iPad, Macbooks, etc at such a discounted rate? Well I did the math so here it is!

Lets look at bidding on a iPad in an auction at Quibids. Well before you get started you have to purchase your bids upfront in fixed increments. The price equates to $.60 per bid that you make on an item. You have to purchase enough bids upfront however since you lose your bid cost (or 60 cents per) if you do not win the auction. Huh you say??? Well more on that later. Ok, now that you have purchased your bids, you choose to bid on the iPad. The item starts at zero dollars and the bids raise the price by 1 cent per bid.

So if we do the math, it costs you $.60 cents per bid but the price only goes up 1 cent per bid when a user decides to bid. Therefore lets do the math. Lets say a person wins an auction for the iPad at $100. Sounds like a great deal for this person right?? Well, remember I just said it cost 60 cents per bid. So if it took the person 300 bids, they would have to pay $180 plus the $100 plus shipping for a total of around $300 or so for the iPad. This is still a great deal right??

How can they do it?

So how does Quibids make money? Well, at 60 cents per bid, it takes $60 to equal $1 of price bidded. (i.e. 100 * .60) So if the person wins the bid at $100 for the iPad, Quibid makes a whooping $5700 for selling a $800 iPad ($6000 total- $300 paid by winner)!! You of course have to deduct the actual inventory price and overhead costs from this but you get the picture.

Is this a scam?

Well, no. Quibids is banking on you the bidder driving up the costs of the product and/or making numerous bids on a product to drive their profit. Most of the high end products will start bidding at 1 cent so they are pretty much guaranteed to come out ahead most of the time. There is the occasional steal here or there where a person gets lucky but those are probably few and far between. Someone will pay and that someone will most likely be you if you lose the bids you participate in since you do not get your money back. Repeat, you do not get your 60 cents per bid back if you bid and lose.

Conclusion

My wife and I have decided that Quibids auctions are basically like gambling since you have no guarantee that your bid will lead to a return. Therefore we have decided not to participate at this time. Please check out my new blog if your looking for legit ways to bring in income or invest time that will have some return. If you have participated in or actually won an auction from Quibids, I’d love to hear your testimony.

Blockbuster bankrupt but kiosks should continue to compete with Redbox

This past week Blockbuster announced that the company will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. However the kiosks and online delivery products of the company will continue as usual. I wrote an article in the Examiner about it here detailing the impacts to the company. The common question that I’ve been hearing is what about the kiosks? Will they continue or will Redbox take over. Well one thing that many don’t realize is that NCR actually owns and finances all of the kiosks and just license the Blockbuster name. So the competition with Redbox should continue.

So what do you think? Will Blockbuster survive or is this the end of the video giant?

Moving blog to website

Hi all,

Thank you for following this blog. I did my best to provide information to serve you the reader. However I am now moving my blog to my site at http://bluecrystalwebdesign.com/blog/. This will give me more flexibility to add content that will help me server you better. Look forward to hearing from you at my new blog.

Thanks and all the best!

Issues with the user registration are finally resolved!

Issues with the user registration are fixed! join #roswellballers online for basketball events and schedule meet-ups http://ow.ly/2iDDD

Is writing articles for Examiner.com really worth it?

Atlanta Online Media Examiner

Those of you who read and follow me on this blog may have noticed that my postings have gone down in the past month or so. Well that is because I have been selected as the Atlanta Online Media Examiner for Examiner.com. For those of you who don’t know, Examiner.com allows you to work as an independent contractor and post articles on their site.  You are then paid roughly on cent on a per click basis on the number of hits you receive. Here is the official wording from them:

“Examiners are local insiders who are passionate about their topic and prolific in sharing information about it. Their credibility is real and varied, based on education, experience and insider enthusiasm. Each Examiner has a page on Examiner.com dedicated to one specific topic in their local edition. Examiners are independent contractors, not employees, of Examiner.com.”

Why be an Examiner?

Since I was attempting to blog personal interests and useful information that people can use to improve their Internet Marketing, I figured I’d try to at least get paid something in return. (Besides the satisfaction of helping people find the information they were seeking of course) In addition it will give me an opportunity to  investigate the viability of making part-time  money in a per click system. There are a lot of schemes out there for people like stay at home moms to make money so I figured this would give me the inside scoop on Examiner.

So….how is it going? Are you making any money????

Well I joined Examiner.com on June 3rd, 2010 and after writing 20 articles with an average of 30 minutes per, I have made around $18. I think I’m given some additional money for writing articles on local events but as you can see, I won’t be rich anytime soon. However, I was making ZERO dollars from my blog here since it is hosted on WordPress.com and I can’t add pay per click ads. Also I typically write about things I need to investigate anyway so getting paid something is better than nothing.

Anyway I hope that my hits on Examiner will pick up as I get my name out there as a writer.   In the meantime I will use my pennies to pay for my Starbucks for the month.

Low budget development opportunities and trends for 2010

I know you have heard it time and time again…”you can’t get something for nothing”…”everything has been invented already”…blah blah blah. Well I’m hear to tell you that today there are golden opportunities available for the taking if you are a developer! Most companies have embraced the open source philosophy of providing SDKs to their products and services.  Therefore if you pay attention to the trends, you can potentially become a market leader in an emerging product.

The main trend for 2010 is internet based devices with custom applications. Apple started this trend with the iPhone years ago but now most of the electronic leaders are on board with internet based electronic devices with custom widgets.  From iPads, to HDTVs, to blu-ray players, just about everything new electronically has wireless internet connection  capabilities. Once Wimax and other large area Wifi connectivity become more prevalent, expect to see a real explosion in this space.

What does that mean to you as a developer? There is a golden opportunity here to gain direct access to customers in their homes in emerging technologies.  The players right now are big (i.e. Netflix, Facebook and Blockbuster) but there are limited applications available on most devices.  With the entry point on most device SDKs ranging from free to less than $200, there isn’t a better time to jump into this market space.

Here is a list of SDKs you should take a close look starting today:

iPad

Price: $99

Platform: Mac OS X (Snow Leopard)

Device:  iPad and iPhone

URL:  http://developer.apple.com/iphone

Yahoo Widgets

Price: Free

Platform: Ubuntu 9 (Linux)

Device: Various HDTVs including Samsung, SONY, LG, etc

URL:  http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/developer

Samsung Apps

Price: Free

Platform: unknown

Device:  Samsung blu-ray players (with Internet capability)

URL:  http://samsungdforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13

Sony Dash

Price: Free

Platform: Ubuntu 9 (Linux)

Device:  Sony Dash

URL:  http://snap.sonydeveloper.com/

Free ride over? Ning to start charging fees for ALL sites in July 2010

So I guess the free Ning ride is finally ending. In July they will officially start charging for ALL of their web sites. Yes….I did say all. So if you have a free Ning community now, better get your checkbook. The prices will run from $2.95 a month for their basic site up to $49.95 for their full fledged site. Time will tell how people will respond to this but I’ve already started redirecting my low budget clientele to other alternatives like Spruz (http://www.spruz.com) They are even offering a Ning migration script to support the transition! Wow.

Anyway, here is the official email i received from Ning:

Hello!

We’re writing today to let you know about some new and exciting changes coming to Ning. In July, we’re doing two very important things:

1. We’ll be phasing out all free Ning Networks.

We want to provide a new level of innovation to Network Creators — and build all the valuable features Network Creators have asked us to. To get there, we need to focus 100% on paid Ning Networks. This phasing out of free services won’t happen until July, so you’ll have plenty of time to weigh your options. We’ll do our best to provide you with a migration path if you don’t wish to continue with Ning, but we’d love to have you come along for all of the exciting future developments.

2. We’re introducing new plans and pricing.

To help make it easy for you to come along with us, we’ve created new plans for every kind of Ning Network: big, small and in between. We think you’ll find these new options affordable for almost every budget — as little as $3/month. That’s an unprecedented deal that even allows you to go ad-free.

The plans will be available in July, but you can get a sneak peek at the details here.

What does this mean for my Ning Network?

While nothing is going to be changing today, we encourage you to check out the upcoming plans. If you don’t wish to continue as a Network Creator, we’ll be following up with you in the coming weeks to provide you with details on how to close out or migrate your Ning Network. You’ll have plenty of time to make the best decision for you and your members, and we’ll do our best to make that decision as easy as possible.

What if I have more questions?

We thought you might! We’ve put together a list of FAQs that will help answer many of your questions. Nothing will be changing immediately, and we’ll be contacting you again via email with more details.

Sincerely,

Jason Rosenthal CEO, Ning, Inc.

Complete list of HDTVs that support Yahoo Widget Development

I’m currently involved in the development of a Yahoo TV widget. A Yahoo TV Widget is a software application that you can develop to be run on the new Broadand/Internet TVs that have been released by top TV manufacturers. These TV’s allow you to run these widgets and interact with Internet based applications similar to the iPhone apps one would run on their iPhone/iTouch devices.

Here is a list and basic information on the TVs that support the use of Yahoo Widgets. If I missed any please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll be happy to update the list.

LG

LH50 series

LG’s Broadband TV uses the Yahoo! Widget system as a convenient way to access a vast selection of content including weather, finance, news and other information. LG also connects you to Netflix and YouTube and plans to add other content partners in the future. Also, link up with the contents of other file storing equipment like the PC or the USB memory stick.

Features

Picture •1080p Full HD Resolution – TruMotion 120Hz
• 80,000 : 1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio
• 24p Real Cinema
• HDMI 1.3 with Deep Color
• AV Mode : Cinema, Sport, Game
• Picture Wizard : Easy Self Calbration
• Expert Mode / ISF Ready

Design • High Glossy Finish 
• Invisible Speaker
• Breathing LED

Features • 4x HDMI
• Broadband (Yahoo, YouTUBE & Netflix contents on TV)
• Smart Energy Saving Plus
• Intelligent Sensor
• USB 2.0 (JPEG / MP3)
• Clear Voice 2 : Clear listening to human voice
• SIMPLINK

PS80 series

Now your living room can really feel like the movies. Engineered with THX Display Certification the new PS80 makes pictures look exactly how they appear in the movie theatre. Uniquely involved in every step of the production chain THX rewards you with unparalleled Full HDTV picture quality.

VOD

Netflix Built in: Choose from any of 100,000 DVD titles  including 10,000 movies and TV episodes

Picture

FHD Resolution
  THX 
  600 Hz Max Sub Field Driving
  2M: 1 Controalst Ratio Ultra Bright Panel

Usability

Picture Freeze
  HDMI Ver 1.3 4 ea(Deep Color)
  USB2.0 for moving picture and photo

Sound

Clear Voice II
  20W

※ This product qualifies for ENERGY STAR in the “factory default (Home mode)” setting and
 this is the setting in which power savings will be achieved.

Samsung

medi@2.0™

Medi@2.0™ lets you enjoy more with Internet TV Internet® TV¹ which allows you to receive content via Yahoo!,® Flickr,® on screen. It also includes a content library so you can enjoy pre-loaded content, such as cooking recipes and fitness exercises. Plus, DLNA CERTIFIED™ connectivity lets you remotely access your PC’s personal media so that you can download music, video, and photos and enjoy them anywhere in the home your TV is. Finally, USB 2.0 multi-media center lets you connect a thumb drive or a digital camera quickly and easily.

http://www.samsung.com/us/internetTV/

LCD

LN65B650

LN55B650

LN46B650

LN40B650

LN46B750

LED

UN55B7000

Samsung ultra-slim LED TVs combine breakthrough picture quality, eco-friendly* design and advanced connectivity options that will keep you entertained 24/7. Including Internet@TV that allows you to receive content via Yahoo!®, Flickr®, and other online TV Widgets on screen. USB 2.0 Movie: Multi-Media Center makes it easy to watch movies, browse photos and listen to music on your TV. The Samsung UN55B7000 LED HDTV also makes it easy to be green with up to 40% less power consumption than conventional LCDs¹.

UN55B8000

UN46B8000

UN46B8500

Plasma

PN58B650

The PN58B650 plasma TV is a combination of SAMSUNG’s innovative technology and brilliant design. New e-panel technology eliminates glare and creates action scenes that are realistic. Crystal Full HD Engine enhances the picture with clear images and Medi@2.0 delivers customizable online content. It’s also tastefully accented with Touch of Color™ design—in the bezel and now in the stand. More than anything, this SAMSUNG plasma TV is something you’ll enjoy for years to come.

PN58B850

PN50B850

Samsung Series 8 plasma HDTVs represent our finest innovations in design and performance. E-Panel technology combined with our Ultra FilterBright™ Plus provide a stunning high contrast picture even in bright rooms. It’s not just the images on screen that capture your attention – the ultra-slim cabinet with our Touch of Color™ design adds beauty to the bezel and stand. Plus new Medi@2.0 connectivity offers customizable online content right on your TV.

PN58B860

PN50B860

Sony

BRAVIA™ Internet Video³

With BRAVIA Internet Video you can enjoy select premium and free on-demand entertainment directly to your HDTV. Use your in-home broadband connection and the BRAVIA HDTV remote control to access online video, music, and more content from over 20 providers including Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube™, Sports Illustrated, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, Slacker and Epicurious.com.

BRAVIA^® Internet Widgets

Personalize your viewing experience by selecting, positioning, and resizing widgets on your BRAVIA HDTV display. BRAVIA Internet Widgets are small applications that can be accessed with the touch of one button providing you with the latest in news, weather, stock info, and much more right on your BRAVIA W-Series HDTV.

Model features: Full HD 1080p resolution, Motionflow™ 120Hz refresh rate, BRAVIA Engine™ 3, 100,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, BRAVIA Internet Video/Widgets, 7 HD inputs

KDL52W5100

KDL65W5100

KDL40W5100

KDL46W5100

Endless Entertainment

Enjoy free, premium on-demand entertainment directly to your HDTV. Using your in-home broadband connection and BRAVIA HDTV remote control, you can access online content from an ever-growing list of providers including Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube™, Sports Illustrated, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, Slacker and Epicurious.com.

Personalize Your Viewing Experience

Stay in touch with the world and access the latest news, weather, sports, entertainment and more at the touch of a button with BRAVIA Internet Widgets. These small application widgets are located on TV’s display and can be positioned to your liking.

Model features: Full HD 1080p resolution, Motionflow” 240Hz refresh rate, BRAVIA Engine™ 3, 10-bit panel and processing, 100,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, BRAVIA internet video/widgets, 7 HD inputs

KDL-52Z5100

KDL-40Z5100

KDL-46Z5100

Model Features: Full HD 1080p resolution, Motionflow™ 240Hz refresh rate, BRAVIA Engine™ 3, 10-bit panel, 100,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, BRAVIA internet video/widgets

KDL-40XBR9

KDL-46XBR9

KDL-52XBR9