Dropbox

Have you ever emailed yourself a file so you can view it later at work or at home? Dropbox is a free tool that syncs up folders and files in multiple locations. In addition, Dropbox folders are sharable with co-workers or friends and are accessible through Dropbox’s website. This is a great collaboration tool available for Windows, Mac, Linux and Mobile.

Launchy, Quicksilver, and GNOME Do

Launchy, Quicksilver, and GNOME Do are all keystroke launchers for Windows, Mac, and Linux respectively. Launching programs, opening files, opening folders, searching the web, and accessing a calculator barely scratches the surface of what these keystroke launchers can do. After setting up the launcher, a keystroke combo can perform a huge number of tasks in a blink of an eye.

Pidgin and Adium

Keeping in touch by instant messaging with co-workers, family, and friends can occupy a lot of time. Pidgin and Adium are universal chat clients for Windows and Mac that support a wide range of chat networks. With this one application, it is possible to chat with those on Facebook, Google Chat, Twitter, MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, and more. This can be incredibly helpful (especially if you’re nearing a web design deadline) as a way to get answers quickly and keep projects moving forward.

Evernote

Evernote is a handy application for computers, tablets, phones, or the web that captures and saves pieces of the web in one location. Evernote can sync notes, videos, images, bookmarks, which can be accessed from a wide array of devices. Also, Evernote makes it easy to collaborate with others on projects and is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Mobile. Our staff has been able to capture interesting web design ideas around Portland and save them for future discussions using Evernote.

Let us know what you think of these tools or if you have other suggestions. As an interactive agency, we have found a selection of these tools to be very helpful in increasing team productivity.

While there are a variety of Facebook applications that accomplish this goal, RSS Grafitti is our favorite because it’s easy to configure and works with multiple accounts. Designed for Facebook Page administrators, the application actually allows you to post any RSS feed to any wall. If you’re managing multiple Facebook pages this would be particularly useful, but it’s also an easy way to automatically post your own blog content.

First, make sure you have a feed set up for your blog. We suggest you use Google Feedburner to manage your web feeds. Then, add RSS Grafitti to your personal profile and configure it for whichever Facebook page(s) you are administering. While the process takes only a few minutes and is intuitive, full instructions are available on the RSS Grafitti Wiki. The two important pieces of information are:

• The name of the feed
• The URL of the feed

After configuring the application, your blog posts will automatically be posted to your Facebook page with the blog source name, date, and RSS grafitti icon.

Understand what questions to ask before jumping on the social media bandwagon

When deciding how to use social media, first ask yourself, “Who am I trying to interact with? Are they using social networks? Would they want to hear from me?” Answering these questions will help you target your campaign and maximize activity on channels where your customers are active.

Learn about your target customer

Deciding whether to use social media is largely dependent on your target audience. How do you know which social media channels your target customers are using? Rather than guessing, try using a data driven analysis of your customers and prospects. The services FlipTop and RapLeaf allow you to get data from email lists; you can upload an email list and get information about which social media channels your customers use as well as information about their demographics.

Professional vs. personal email

When using a social intelligence platform like FlipTop or RapLeaf, be aware that your customers may have multiple email addresses. Individuals may use personal email addresses for some social accounts and professional email addresses for other accounts. Keep this in mind when drawing conclusions about your target customers’ usage of social media channels.

The “real person” behind the account

In B2B social media marketing, the person behind the account you’re engaging with may not be who you expect. For example, when it appears that you’re engaging with a business owner you may actually be engaging with an employee or a third party hired to manage social media.

For more information, check out the full slideshow:

Here is some of the advice we give our clients when they are offering this feature on their website:

File upload limit

Larger files are going to cause more issues for you and your visitors; there’s a greater chance of the upload getting interrupted mid-way or otherwise failing, not to mention the load on the server. If you do not have an idea in mind for reasonable file sizes, set the upload limit at 20MB for starters and see what happens.

Virus prevention

Since you don’t know who uploaded the file, be safe and follow the usual advice:  run a virus scan before opening any of the files sent to you and frequently scan your computer for viruses and malware.

File extensions can be fake

While we can lock down what types of files can be uploaded, it does not actually offer protection from malicious files. Just because a file appears to end in “.doc” or “.xls” does not mean it’s safe. The extension has no bearing on what the file really is. Case in point, I often circumvent virus checkers by renaming an innocent zip file to “.jpg” when I send it somewhere so McAfee doesn’t have a hissy-fit and refuse to pass it through. And for goodness sake, *never* run one of these files. You should not be expecting executable programs.

Extreme measures (for the paranoid only)

If you are paranoid, you probably would open the file in some sandboxed computer–there are many links on the web to methods of doing it. I’d probably set up a virtual machine with the operating system and document programs on it so if that system got infected, you could blow it away easily. But the setting up of this and training is costly and time consuming. Googling for “virtual machines” would be a starting point.

When Synotac programs a file uploader, we make sure the web server is not in danger. The document won’t ever be opened on the server–it is just bits as far as the server is concerned and to the chagrin of hackers everywhere, “just bits” don’t infect anything. The safety of your own computer is dependent on the use of the good safety habits above.

1. Not having a mobile website (which is to say, not having your website optimized for mobile devices).

If you do not have a mobile-optimized website, you are failing to connect with at least some portion of the 80 million users that regularly access the mobile web from their Smartphone devices.

2. Not having a real mobile site

Be wary of any site or business that suggests that a website can be mobilized simply by resizing objects and rearranging the web view. It takes a more in-depth web design process to create a nicely functioning mobile web page.

3. Not having goals

Deciding what you actually want users to do with your mobile site—and thus, the criteria for determining whether or not the site is effective at driving users to perform this action—is critical to any mobile marketing strategy.

4.  Producing a rocky mobile experience

Brands can engage mobile users much more successfully by providing a fluid mobile experience that makes it easy for mobile users to navigate the site and access information or data that they may be searching for.  Sites that only have one page (the home page for example) optimized for mobile access can be frustrating to mobile users and often drive them away from the site.  At least a few (2-3) pages of a site should be mobilized, allowing users to explore content and learn more about the services that business provides.

5. Overwhelming mobile users

A mobile website shouldn’t have all of the same copy and content as a desktop site. By trying to jam-pack everything into just a few pages of your mobile site, you‘re putting too much information into too tiny a space. As with so many other forms of media, when it comes to the mobile web, your best bet is always to keep it simple, clean and presentable.

We hope that these tips are helpful whether you’re just starting out on the small screen, or working to perfect your mobile marketing strategy and set your brand apart from the rest.  If you have any additional tips for avoiding mobile pitfalls, please let us know in the comments below!

About the author: Erin Kelley | Erin maintains the DevelopmentNow company blog. Her insightful reports on mobile marketing trends serve to inform brands, businesses and individuals of how to take advantage of the growing new media industry.DevelopmentNow is a new media consulting company that specializes in building integrated mobile web solutions and native apps.

So where can we find inspiration for great headlines?  How about the 100 Greatest Headlines of All Time?  Read on for inspiration…

1. The Secret of Making People Like You
2. A Little Mistake that Cost a Farmer $3,000 a Year
3. Advice to Wives Whose Husbands Don’t Save Money — By a Wife
4. The Child who Won the Hearts of All
5. Are You ever Tongue-tied at a Party?
6. How a new Discovery made a Plain Girl Beautiful
7. How to Win Friends and Influence People
8. The last 2 Hours are the Longest — and those are the 2 Hours you Save
9. Who Else wants a Screen Star Figure?
10. Do you Make these Mistakes in English?
    
11. Why some Foods “Explode” in your Stomach
12. Hands that Look Lovelier in 24 Hours — or your Money back
13. You can Laugh at Money Worries — If you Follow this Simple Plan
14. Why some People almost always make Money in the Stock Market
15. When Doctors “Feel Rotten” this is what they do
16. It Seems Incredible that you can offer these Signed Original Etchings — For only $5 each
17. 5 Familiar Skin Troubles — Which do you want to Overcome?
18. Which of these $2.50 to $5 Best Sellers do you Want? — For only $1 each
19. Who ever Heard of a Woman Losing Weight — and Enjoying 3 Delicious Meals at the Same Time?
20. How I Improved my Memory in one Evening
21. Discover the Fortune that Lies Hidden in Your Salary
22. Doctors Prove 2 out of 3 Women can have more Beautiful Skin in 14 Days
23. How I made a Fortune with a “Fool Idea”
24. How Often do you Hear yourself saying “No, I haven’t Read It: I’ve Been Meaning to!”
25. Thousands have this Priceless Gift — But Never Discover it!
26. Whose Fault When Children Disobey?
27. How a “Fool Stunt” made me a Star Salesman
28. Have you these Symptoms of Nerve Exhaustion?
29. Guaranteed to go through Ice, Mud, or Snow — Or we Pay the Tow!
30. Have you a “Worry” Stock?
31. How a new kind of Clay improved my Complexion in 30 Minutes
32. 161 Ways to a Man’s Heart — In this Fascinating Book for Cooks
33. Profits that lie Hidden in your Farm
34. Is the Life of a Child worth $1 to you?
35. Everywhere Women are Raving about this Amazing New Shampoo!
36. Do You do any of these Ten Embarrassing Things?
37. Six Types of Investor — Which Group are You in?
38. How to Take Out Stains…Use (Product Name) and Follow these Easy Directions
39. Today… Add $10,000 to your Estate — for the Price of a New Hat
40. Does your Child ever Embarrass You?
41. Is your Home Picture-Poor?
42. How to Give your Children extra Iron — these 3 Delicious ways
43. To People who Want to Write — But can’t get Started
44. This Almost-Magical Lamp lights Highway Turns before you make them
45. The Crimes we Commit Against our Stomachs
46. The Man with the “Grasshopper Mind”
47. They Laughed when I sat down at the Piano — But when I started to Play!
48. Throw away your Oars!
49. How to do Wonders with a little Land!
50. Who else wants Lighter Cake — In half the Mixing Time!
51. Little Leaks that Keep Men Poor
52. Pierced by 301 Nails…Retains full Air Pressure
53. No more Backbreaking Garden Chores for Me — Yet Ours is now the Show-Place of the Neighborhood!
54. Often a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride
55. How much is “Worker Tension” costing your Company?
56. To Men who Want to Quit Work Someday
57. How to Plan your House to Suit Yourself
58. Buy no Desk — Until You’ve seen this Sensation of the Business Show
59. Call Back these Great Moments at the Opera
60. “I Lost my Bulges — and Saved Money, too”
61. Why (Brand Name Bulbs) give more light this Year
62. Right and Wrong Farming Methods — And Little Pointers that will Increase Your Profits
63. New Cake-Improver gets you Compliments Galore!
64. Imagine Me…Holding an Audience Spellbound for 30 minutes
65. This is Marie Antoinette — Riding to Her Death
66. Did you ever see a “Telegram” From your Heart?
67. Now any Auto Repair Job can be “Duck Soup” for You
68. New Shampoo leaves your Hair Smoother — Easier to Manage
69. It’s a Shame for You not to make Good Money — When these Men do it so easily
70. You Never saw such Letters as Harry and I got about our Pears
71. Thousands now Play who Never thought They Could
72. Great New Discovery kills Kitchen Odors Quick! — Makes Indoor Air “Country-Fresh”
73. Make this 1-Minute Test — Of an Amazing new kind of Shaving Cream
74. Announcing…the New Edition of the Encyclopedia that Makes it Fun to Learn Things
75. Again she orders… “A Chicken Salad Please”
76. For the Woman who is Older than she Looks
77. Where You can Go in a Good Used Car
78. Check the Kind of Body you Want
79. “You Kill that Story — Or I’ll Run You Out of the State”
80. Here’s a Quick way to Break up a Cold
81. There’s Another Woman Waiting for Every Man — And She’s too Smart to have “Morning Mouth”
82. This Pen “Burps” before it Drinks — But Never Afterwards!
83. If You were Given $200,000 to Spend — Isn’t this the Kind of (type of product, but not brand name) You would Build?
84. Last Friday…was I scared!– My Boss almost Fired me!
85. 76 Reasons Why it would have Paid You to Answer our Ad a few Months ago
86. Suppose This Happened on Your Wedding Day!
87. Don’t let Athlete’s Foot “Lay You Up”
88. Are they being Promoted Right over Your Head?
89. Are We a Nation of Lowbrows?
90. A Wonderful two Years’ Trip at Full Pay — But only Men with Imagination can Take it
91. What Everybody Ought to Know…About this Stock and Bond Business
92. Money-Saving Bargains from America’s Diamond Discount House
93. Former Barber Earns $8,000 in 4 months as a Real Estate Specialist
94. Free Book — Tells you 12 Secrets of Lawn Care
95. Greatest Gold Mine of Easy “Things-to-Make” ever Crammed into one Big Book
96. $80,000 in Prizes! Help us Find the Name for these New Kitchens
97. Now! Own Florida Land this Easy way…$10 Down and $10 a Month
98. Take any 3 of these Kitchen Appliances — for only $8.95 (values up to $15.45)
99. Save 20 cents on Two Cans of Cranberry Sauce — Limited Offer
100. One Place Setting Free for every Three you Buy!

The plans are in this R2 unit...Well, they were. We put them in a podcast for you, just click! Turn your website into your own secret weapon!

Below are blueprints of sorts, the beginning of how exactly to turn your website into your secret weapon. Now you probably think, hey, they will give us a little snippet of something good and then make us pay to get to the good stuff. No way, you’re getting everything. Below is a little bit from Synotac’s podcast done for E-Myth Worldwide, but it’s just the beginning!

Check out the 5 steps to turning your website from zero to hero and then click to the podcast for the details, in-depth information, free tools to help you accomplish these things, and practical advice from an industry expert.

1. Define Success: What does it mean for your website to be successful? What is it that you want people to do once they get to your site? Is it signing up for a newsletter? Selling a product? Filling out a contact form? Whatever it is, define it clearly and be ready to measure it.
2. Know your visitors: Do whatever it takes to get in the mind of your visitors. Think how they think, use the site as they do. Talk to your frequent visitors and find out how you can make their experience better. A website built around your visitors is a huge key to better conversions! You don’t want people leaving because they can’t find what they want or had an issue navigating it.
3. Give them something of value: If you provide something useful to your potential clients even when they aren’t actively searching for your services, you are still building your reputation, potential for word of mouth and referrals, and keeping your site on the minds of potential customers that look to you for things they need online. What can you provide, exactly?
4. Use many roads to get traffic: Building a site, even an awesome one isn’t enough to get people to come to it anymore. The sheer number of sites is astounding and your potential clients are bombarded with all kinds of links, offers, and ads constantly. To get to them effectively, you’ll have to explore multiple ways of capturing their attention.
5. Track: What is working? What isn’t? Where are people coming from? Where should you focus your efforts? What kind of people are you succeeding with? Who is ignoring you? This one is all about analytics; numbers, numbers, numbers.

Remember, this is just from the first 5 minutes! Listen to the podcast for all the juicy details, it’s free right here! Included are 3 Basic Tools To Improve Website Performance, the 4 Most Common Website Mistakes and much, much more.

Well, if you wondered exactly what everyone is doing online all the time, we have the perfect pie chart for you…

It’s pretty to easy to see on this awesome pie chart from Nielsen that social media is king online. (Other is considered a collection of 74 other categories of online activities combined) Social media has even managed to pass up porn for the number one activity online.

If your site isn’t playing nice with social media or your presence on social networks isn’t easily identifiable and accessible on your web page, it might be time to update your site design to include it. If you can be connected with them where they are, it makes life easier on you! People who are fans of your page on Facebook spend an average of $73 more dollars than those who are not. Getting people to fan your page only costs the time to make the page (5 minutes) and spread the news. If your site is helping in those efforts, you have a powerful tandem furthering connections with your potential customers.

1. Does your page load fast? If your page takes forever to load no one is ever going to see it, much less visit it often. Slow loading pages can be a symptom of design and some other things. If your page is loading slowly on a good connection, it’s something to check into.

2. Is navigation clear? Does the way your site is laid out make sense to most people? It should be clear how to get from place to place on your site and the page links should be prominent.

3. How does your site look in different resolutions? There are all kinds of screens out there these days, your site should be designed to look the best on as many of those as possible. Consider laptops, desktops, people using their TV’s, tablets, and even mobile phones. The more screens your site looks good on, the better.

4. Is your site compatible with all kinds of browsers? Have you experienced your own site in IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Flock, or all the rest? A well designed web site will look nice in all of the browsers your potential customers may be using.

5. Is your text readable? Cool fonts are nice and sometimes hard to resist, but they can be distracting. It is generally a good idea to go with a very readable and professional font. You and your design team can find one that fits your personality and is also easy on the eyes.

6. Is there any white space? Filling all of the page might be the urge, but in most cases it should be fought. Using a background that leaves the eyes a place to rest and let the design elements pop in contrast will prevent people from getting color shock or being visually overwhelmed by the page and leaving.

7. Are there broken links? Obviously broken links are going to frustrate the people on your site. Don’t you hate it when it happens to you? Not only is it annoying, but it also looks unprofessional.

1. Do you have examples you can show me of projects you have done that had similar goals and needs to my own? A firm that has experience in your field or with meeting the types of demands you have is probably more likely to succeed with your site than a firm charting new territory with your site as guinea pig.
2. How dedicated are you to the usability of the site? They should have something to say about keeping the focus on the visitor at all times. The visitor is the most important thing to your success and as your website design team, it should be their focus as well.
3. Can I meet everyone? If they say yes, the work isn’t all outsourced and they are more likely to have experience working together on projects. Keep probing to find out how they work together and if they bring in outsiders or not. You want a tight knit and experienced team working for you.
4. How do I make changes later? Most likely, it isn’t going to be perfect the first time. This is why it is important to see what the relationship is going to be like after the product is delivered. It should be a continuing one with a team that is willing to keep adjusting and serving your needs during the life of the site.
5. How will we know if it’s working? It is important to decide on success factors and critical numbers on your own first and then see if their answer lines up. The answer might be technical, but they should have some things to say about traffic, bounce, usability, and conversion at the very least.

If you happen to be looking for a web design team of your own, start by checking out our portfolio and please feel free to give us a call or drop us an email to schedule a meeting with our team, you can ask us all the questions you can think of.