General Articles

5 Tips on Becoming a Social Media Manager

Building a business on any type of social media service takes a light touch and an experienced mindset. Unfortunately not everyone can boast having both of these attributes. If a small time businessman includes himself/herself in the equation than that usually turns out to be a recipe for disaster. No one can think of managing a social media business presence without the aid of relevant management skills. You can opt to hire a social media manager to do the job for you which helps lesson the learning curve and saves you tons of hours.

One thing you must understand is that hiring a social media manager is not the be all and end all of online business management. You can’t just pay one off, sit back and dream of the oodles of cash just waiting to be tipped into your bank account. Before even thinking of hiring one, it’s always best to learn the ropes of social media management yourself. So, how should you go about it?

Get to know the lay of the land

The first thing you must do is to map out the online terrain and get to know the lay of the land. In layman’s terms that means you have to familiarize yourself with the best social networking and bookmarking sites and direct a large portion of your activities there.

Choose your tools wisely

Keep tabs on your most frequently visited sites and choose the most suitable tools to make your social management easier to manage. You can do that by regularly posting your progress online. Take Twitter for instance. If you have an account on that social media network along with a large following you can automate your tweeting with tools which will aid you in updating regularly.

Strategy is Key

Every website needs regular maintenance to keep it afloat. The same applies to business sites which need more than usual tune ups. The key to doing this is through website traffic analyzers like Google analytics which will provide you with detailed reports regarding where your traffic is coming from as well as the most used or popular keyword searches to your site.

The geographical diversity and density of your users can also be found out through the use of these analyzers making. This continuous update will allow you to strategize your business website accordingly.

Importance of Market potential

Be sure to check out the popularity of any good websites and blogs. When you find them try and have your advertisement campaign displayed on it especially if it is related to your products or services.

Don’t be the Needle in the virtual Haystack

The World Wide Web has been perceived as a potential business venture by billions of users around the world. Making your presence known in this dense corporate jungle can prove to be the key to many successful business ventures world wide. It’s therefore essential that you make yourself as visible as you can amidst …

Final Fantasy 13 Characters – Find Out Who’s in the Game!

Final Fantasy 13 (also known as FFXIII) is the latest game in the massively popular Role Playing Game series created by Square Enix. This is the first game in the series that will be released both on the XBOX 360 and the PlayStation 3, so both parties will now be able to meet the Final Fantasy 13 characters and experience their adventure.

Since the E3 event in 2006 when the game was first revealed (albeit, a rough demo of the game), the hype has been building, and information has slowly but surely been filtering through about the game. Now, with the release of the game not too far away, everyone’s wondering what the main cast of Final Fantasy 13 characters will be.

The game’s main character is called ‘Lightning’, and is a female soldier, once of the ‘Cocoon army’. She has red hair, and is quite the tom-boy. Lightning has elements of past Final Fantasy characters about her, as he main weapon is a cross between a sword and a gun (similar to Squall’s Gunblade in FF8), and she is supposedly the game’s female answer to Cloud Strife (from FF7). She, like Cloud, has a dark, mysterious past, and it is known that she was an orphan from an early age.

Vanille is another of the Final Fantasy 13 characters, and she originally starts out on the opposite side to Lightning; as a rebel who fights against the Cocoon army. She is another female character, who lives in a town called Pulse after being forced out of Cocoon. After the events at the start of the game, she joins up with Lightning and a team is formed.

The third main character in that team is called Snow. Snow is the direct opposite to the small, thin female characters previously mentioned, as he is a huge man, who uses brute force more often than not. Snow is undoubtedly the coolest character in the game, as he can be seen in the trailer riding a motorbike.…

PS3 Red Screen Fixes

Got PS3 red screen when turning it on? Have searched around the Internet but found no fixes that work? Maybe you should try my way to fix the PS3 red screen of death. It has helped two PS3 players repair their red screen and I hope it will work for you as well.

One way to fix red screen of death on PS3 is to update the firmware. You need to download the latest firmware from Sony’s website. Prepare a USB memory stick, and create a folder called PS3 on it. Inside this PS3 folder, create a folder called UPDATE. Down load the PS3 firmware into the UPDATE folder.

Connect the USB memory stick to your PS3. Hit and hold the power button on PS3 until you here 3 beeps. You may seen the menu screen on PS3. If not, press and hold the power again. From the onscreen menu, you should be able to install the new firmware. Update your PS3 and see what happens. No change? Go to the next method.

The other way of PS3 red screen fix is to reformat your PS3 hard drive. There is high possibility that your PS3 hard drive has been corrupted which causes red screen. Therefore you have to reformat it, and restore the system to build the new database.

Firstly, backup all your personal files onto an external USB drive. Take out the your HDD and reformat it using your PC. OR reformat on you PS3 too. Press and hold the power button on PS3 until you here 2 beeps. Then you got a menu where guide you format the HDD.

After reformatting, reboot the PS3, there should be a screen asking you the restore the system. Follow the instructions and accept all the default settings. After that check to see how your PS3 works.

Give these two fixes a go. You have nothing to lose.

There are also chances that none of them works for you. If that is the case, you have to call Sony. They may ask you to send it back to it and return it after 4-6 weeks. But some lucky guys may have a replacement of a new PS3.

OR get yourself a PS3 repair Guide. This is also a good idea, for it costs little but benefits in the long term. Because a good repair guide will provide detailed fixes to most of the PS3 problems, including PS3 red screen.

No matter which way you choose, wish you a success at last.…

Using the Internet to Buy and Sell Homes

In this modern age, any business that would want to survive should have an online presence, most especially to buying and selling homes. People these days have been relying on to the internet for their real estate transactions. They are doing these for a variety of reasons, to increase the options available, convenience, or just to avoid agent commissions.

Online classifieds is where mostly people meet to buy or sell properties. The amount of websites where people can list or browse for houses that can be found in this place are endless.

Another great place for buying and selling properties is through online auctions. Here you can search for an agent in the real estate directory websites if you think you need professional assistance in buying or selling your home.

But if you want a better exposure for your properties, then you can opt for the property website service that guarantees greater exposure of properties by means of search engine optimization only that you have to pay for a membership fee.

But the most popular trend in buying and selling real estate nowadays is through social media sites. Social media sites not only allow you to list your properties on the market but also create a faster interaction between the seller and the buyer. Dealing with transactions through social media sites is much safer and more secure because it has more of a personal approach.

Buying and selling homes online is truly an effective and useful option where it allows you to reach a broader audience. The internet has made it easier than ever for you to find what you are looking for in the real estate market. Make use of these new technologies and ideas emerging in buying and selling your properties.…

Five Factors In Choosing Your Gaming Laptop

Gaming laptops today are very powerful in what they can do as they are able to cope with huge performance specifications that the newer HD and 3D games. A regular laptop will do the basics of allowing you to create Word and PowerPoint documents, browsing the internet, play movies and listen to music. But a gaming laptop is designed specifically for playing high-spec games.

Before going out and buying the first laptop that you see, it is worth considering these factors:

The first and most important factor in a gaming laptop is the graphics card. Most standard laptops now come with built-in graphics card which will drain the power of the memory and displays the actual image. You should look to get a laptop that has a dedicated graphics card ideally an nVidia or ATI. These are two of the leading manufacturers in producing graphics for desktop and laptop devices. Newer laptops now have SLI interface which allows the laptop to have two graphics card running at the same time.

In addition, newer laptops offer the capability of 3D gaming which comes with the 3D glasses. These laptops will cost a little bit more than your standard laptop. Newer Nvidia graphics cards have dual-GPU technology built-in, which is like having SLI interface but only with one graphics card. Dedicated graphics card will also have on-board memory with some carry as much as 2GB.

The second factor to consider is the RAM. The larger the amount inside the laptop, the better as this will enable you to play the latest games. If there is a built-in graphics card, then the RAM memory will be jointly shared between the graphics card.

The next important factor is the CPU as this will determine the laptop’s overall speed. The majority of laptops come with a dual core processor, which is great if the other specifications are at the top end of the scale. Some newer gaming laptops have now got quad core processor running in them. Be sure to check when buying your high end laptop that you look at the cooling options as these devices can get quite hot, which can have an impact on the performance. It is best to invest in some type of cooling device that will keep the laptop running at an optimum temperature.

The hard drive is another important thing to consider as most laptops now come with 320GB worth of storage enabling you keep all your gaming files and other associated documents in one place.

The screen size is the final important aspect to consider and that is why you should invest in a laptop that with a display over 15 inches.…

Choosing The Right Desktop PC Cases

Finding desktop PC cases that do what you need them to do often proves to be quite the task for many people. This is largely in part due to the fact that there are a lot of options out there to choose from. To ease the stress of this search you should first determine the functionality of the components it will be housing. After all, be prepared and knowing everything you need will save both time and money in the long run.

If your are mainly looking for things for a gaming computer you will find that this probably weighs heavily on your decision making for this type of purchase. Most people will have a specified look or design they want which can easily be made by picking out what you need from the several thousand options you will find available for this. A case can be bought in many different colors and usually comes with the option of what power supply you want to use and in some cases even the number of fans you will use as well.

If you wish to build your whole gaming computer yourself you will also want to look into the components you will be using to find out if any of them will need special mounting in the case or other accommodations.

If you are planning for a water cooled system you will also need to make sure the material on the inside of the case is capable of handling such a thing. Not picking the proper material can cause a lot of problems and often result in the total destruction of the entire computer which only wastes the money you have already spent on the system.

If a plain and basic computer for work is all you are interested in you won’t have to worry about most of these aspects of the process. You will only need to locate a case that blends well with your surround office decor. A very basic case model usually works out perfectly fine here. Gaming systems tend to be more elaborate and would never fit in to a setting such as this.

If a case for a work computer is your main interest you most likely won’t have any certain type of design you are looking for. In such a case it is typically best to go through your computer’s manufacturer and choose from one of the several options they will have. The choice of a case is dependent mostly on the type of hardware it will house and when it comes to a work only system this doesn’t mean anything big.

If you are serious about building this entire computer on your own you need to make sure you remember to get any specialized mountings that will be required and that the inside of the case has enough room to hold everything that needs to go in there. By knowing ahead of time all of these things you …

So What Makes a Good Gaming Computer?

PC gaming has been around for decades and PC gamers are a special breed. Where console games use simplified controllers and offer standard performance, video games on the PC tend to offer better graphics, more extensive gameplay and more customization options including higher graphics settings and even surround sound. To reap these benefits you do have to be willing to accept some inconveniences as well. Playing video games on a console generally involved popping in a disc and going, but on a PC you need to go through a (sometimes lengthy) install process first. You also have to deal with things like driver updates for graphics cards or sound processors. Still, for a richer and more detailed gaming experience it is absolutely worth it.

So what makes a good gaming computer? Generally speaking it takes a good balance of CPU and GPU power, coupled with a decent amount of memory and decent sound capabilities. These days most computers come standard with a good amount of RAM and built-in sound processing, not enough to satisfy an audio fanatic but good enough for just about anyone else. Those are important to look for but the CPU and GPU are the real workhorses for today’s games. Lacking in one or the other can cause your games to run slowly, or only run well at lower resolutions or with a number of graphical effects turned down or off. The CPU would generally be an intel chip and the most popular and compatible GPUs are made by Nvidia, although ATI’s Radeon systems have been consistently good over the years and shouldn’t be passed up if the price is right.

One thing that I cannot stress enough is to be very conscious of the expense curve with a good gaming computer. Console gamers need to spend money on a new console every five years or so, and this is about the same for entry level PC gaming (which is still advantageous over consoles in a number of ways). Maintaining a high end PC gaming system can become an expensive proposition very quickly. The top of the line graphics cards and CPUs can cost nearly double that of units that are only slightly less powerful. Unlike new console systems, the latest and greatest PC technology tends to stay that way only for a few months, or at most a year. Anyone who is spending several thousand dollars on the absolute top of the line machine should know an even faster machine will be available in a year, and it will likely cost about the same (if they were planning to always have the latest and greatest).

Most PC gamers manage this dilemma by finding a price point they are comfortable with and sticking with it. The gaming PC’s that cost a fraction of top-of-the-line machines often are within 10% – 20% of the same performance. Whether you are a techie that upgrades CPU’s video cards, motherboards and RAM as you …

Drivers are software that typically controls how your computer’s hardware runs the system. All the hardware components of your computer, such as the CD player, PC card, and DVD drive all use drivers. Updating your drivers is crucial as it can help make the computer work properly.

Thankfully, there is a tool that can help you update your driver. It is called driver update software or PC driver updater. It helps ensure that the system works to its maximum capacity. Here is what you need to know about why and when to opt for these updates.

The need for updates

Tech experts recommend updating your driver regularly to boost the computer’s performance. If you notice that your computer is functioning strangely or is constantly slow, it is time to update the driver using the driver update software.

Some of the problems that you may encounter that show that it is time to update your driver include:

• The printer stops functioning or doesn’t accept print commands
• The game you play lacks graphic quality
• Your computer fails to connect to Wi-Fi
• The CD player does not read
• The mouse is not detected

When you notice the above problems, instead of having to change the hardware, it would be good to try updating the drivers first.

Checking your driver’s current version

Once you have pinpointed these problems in your computer, it is not time to check your software’s current version. Your device manager menu will give you the current version of the driver you have, its dates, as well as the recent updates. You can opt to click ‘update driver’ to install your driver to the recent version.

With that said, let’s take a look at some of the top benefits of driver updaters.

1.  Automatic scanning

The PC driver updater software typically doesn’t need your intervention to scan or look for updates. They simply run in your PC’s background and scan the whole of it to look for bugs and fix them automatically.

2.  The software is always up-to-date

Another incredible benefit of the driver updating software is that it is always up-to-date. This guarantees you that your system will always run at its maximum capability.

3.  It provides backup

Another best thing about premium versions of driver updating software is that they take a backup of the previous versions before they start the upgrade.

4.  Boosts efficiency

Of course, you want your updated driver to perform as efficiently as possible. Thankfully, you can achieve that by using the driver updating software. It boosts efficiency by up to 100%, which is very remarkable.

5.  You get official driver updates

Finally, you don’t have to worry about downloading counterfeit or corrupted updates for your driver when using the driver updating software. This is because providers of this software ensure that they only choose driver updating software from the best and reputed brands. This, in turn, will give you great peace of mind knowing that your driver is safe and secure.…

Should the Government Be Able To Monitor Social Media?

Socrates once said that the virtue of goodness comes from knowledge. The counter to that is ignorance, or lack of knowledge, which is considered “evil.” In modern terms this means the ability of the media to withhold information in a way that alters its meaning. Censorship, propaganda, conspiracy, these are the worst case scenarios that can result from the power of the media which would be considered immoral. But perhaps we should look at it in a different light. Instead of knowledge being purely goodness and ignorance being purely evil, we should consider instead how that knowledge or ignorance is being used. For example, the Department of Home Security usage of social media monitoring as a means of assessing public belief and sentiment towards certain “sensitive” topics. This isn’t immoral because of the government withholding information from the people but rather the accessibility of information about the people by the government.

The Social Networking/Media Capability was officially announced in a Privacy Compliance Review on November 15th of 2011 but was formulated as early as June of 2010. According to the review, this capability was meant to allow the government to utilize the openness of the web’s social media for early identification of possible threats and “collect information used to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture.” The problem is that, like in many government documents, the words are rather ambiguous and noncommittal. What types of threats are they looking to identify? What kind of “common operating picture” are they trying to create? They make it seem like these monitors have a specific purpose, but the extent to which they use them in pursuit of that purpose is not stated.

Here’s what we do know: The government has implanted monitor accounts in multiple forms of social media including top sites Facebook, Twitter, and Wikileaks but the full list of monitored sites is unknown. The privacy and civil rights ethics of this is obviously questionable but in light of the SOPA/FIPA backlash and controversy it seems we’ve reached a double edged sword. If the internet is free to access the way that it is then we must also allow the ability to monitor sites. It’s not just the government with the ability to do this but really anyone with a computer and internet access. Saying the government can’t do this is directly contradicting our belief in the freedom of the web. So which is worse, too much information or not enough?…

How to Find a Summer Job

A summer job is a great experience for teens. It gives a sense of accomplishment to earn your own paycheck. You can pay for your own expenses and learn to save for larger purchases, like a car or jewelry. Besides money, the maturity and skills you earn makes you attractive to colleges and future employers.

Having a summer job is a smart way to spend your free time. This is the perfect way to explore your career goals. It is also a great time to try something interesting. Do you want to work in a bakery, as a pet sitter, or dress up like a clown? Take risks and treat the summer job as an exciting new experience.

Here are a few tips to help you find a summer job:

• Find your interest. A good starting point is figuring out what you like or want to learn more about. You may want to gain skills in a certain career or simply find out more about an occupation. Perhaps, you just want extra money. Knowing what you expect from a summer job will help you focus your efforts.

• Rely on your strengths. In a slow economy older workers tend to take traditionally teen jobs. An experienced 45 year old motivated to take care of their family can be stiff competition. Make sure you stress what makes you attractive as a teenage worker. Talk up your flexibility and target jobs that need employees on the weekends and at nights when people with outside responsibilities are unavailable. Let them know you are good with computers and social media. Small businesses need people familiar with social media to market their business.

• Meet with school counselors. Your counselor not only has solid advice for a job search they also have contacts. They may even have an internship/ job board with plenty of jobs to pursue.

• Consider the Feds. If money is your main motivation, look into a federal job. Positions with the government start at $10 an hour. Plus they have jobs set aside specifically for teens in places like community centers, YMCA’s and clerical jobs on military bases. To land a gig higher than the minimum wage, check out .

• Rally the troops. You have a built in network of family and friends who want to see you succeed. Enlist them to spread the word that you are looking for a summer job. Finding you the ultimate job can be as simple as a search on their linked account. Or you can even ask them to update their status on Facebook announcing their teen is looking for a job. With six degrees of separation social media is a very powerful tool.

• Hit the streets. Local businesses often need outside help. Go door to door at restaurants and stores and offer your services. Local businesses are also a great way to learn skills. Do you want to become a lawyer or a vet? …