Logging on to Love

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching our thoughts turn to love on the internet. There has been a proliferation of online dating sites since they first started appearing in the late nineties. Last year, over 40 million people visited online dating sites in search of their one true love, or at least something vaguely resembling it. Do these sites really work? Some people say, yes. In fact, since 2007 the number of people who are trying out online dating has doubled.

As well as the more established sites we have many and varied gay sites, sites for people with disabilities, specific interests (hot rodding, comic super heroes, Elvis) and of course Christian sites ‘find God’s match for you’.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a 2009 study in the journal “Cyber Psychology and Behavior” has also found that more sociable people -especially those who possess high self-esteem and value romantic relationships-have a greater likelihood of being internet daters than less sociable people who value romantic relationships.

Other than sexual predators and commitment-phobes these confident individuals have a few privacy issues to consider before signing up to find their soul mates. Your photo and profile can hang around on the site’s computers long after you’ve moved on. Also and most unromantically, Google indexes your profile. Of course your data is also packaged up and lent or sold off to online marketers or affiliates. The cynics among us might think this is the primary purpose of an online dating site.

Despite all this the Internet dating industry is expected to experience tremendous growth in upcoming years. According to Forrester Research Inc., the internet dating industry, with a gross income of $957 million, ranked third place in 2008 for largest revenue producer out of all paid content sites, behind video games and digital music. Revenues are predicted to rise 10 percent by 2013.

In the end, it doesn’t quite matter whether your planning to invest in a relationship, or invest your money. I guess online dating sites might be having high web traffic rates for the next week or two.

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don’t sweat – Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

What’s Mine is Virtually Yours

Imagine wandering into a colleague’s office, one located in another city, turning on their computer and instead of a strangers wallpaper and files appearing on the desktop, hey presto it’s yours.

This is essentially the wonder of the virtual machine (VM). It’s an amazing collaborative tool that is making everything easier for business and global organizations.

A virtual machine is segmented by software to act as a standalone machine. Several virtual machines reside on one physical server. Instead of one Operating System (OS) partition, a server running VM technology can have multiple “virtual” OS partitions on one physical machine.

This allows you to leave your computer in the office but still access your desktop anywhere connected to this server. This virtual world needs a lot less than we’re used to providing. Fewer wires, less hardware, less space needed and less maintenance. And many things such as file sharing, collaboration and communication become easier. VM also increases security.

Some users set up a virtual machine as a group of computers that work together to create a more powerful machine. In this type of setup, the software makes it possible for one environment to be formed through several computers. This makes it appear to the end user as if he or she uses only a single computer, while there are actually numerous machines at work. The memory and other resources of each of these systems work together to create a more powerful machine.

If you’re interested in entering the world of VM, Chill IT can set you up. We’d also be happy to explain the system further. For instance, virtual machines are ideal for testing out other operating systems – like the new Windows 8 or alternative operating systems. You can also use virtual machines to run software on operating systems it wasn’t designed for – for example, you can run Windows programs on a Mac with a virtual machine.

Soon every computer could be your computer and the opportunities the VM provides could help your business and technological capacities expand while your related expenses decrease.

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don’t sweat – Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

Tuning into Channel Intel

A few weeks ago some of the world’s major tech magazines had representatives camping out in Las Vegas waiting for Intel to announce its rumored entry into digital TV. No announcement was forthcoming so, what doesn’t happen in Vegas stays as a sort of stealthy work in progress.

However sources familiar with this top secret project are expecting the curtain to lift soon. At the center of Intel’s efforts is a set-top box manufactured by Intel and possibly Intel-branded as well. So why is a manufacturer of computer parts planning its own digital TV channel? The plan is to build a better Google TV and dethrone Apple TV, the de-facto leader in the market for video streaming devices.

Courtnee Westendorf, the head of marketing for Intel Marketing worked more than a decade at Apple, where she managed global marketing for the iPhone and iPod. So you can see where they’re headed.

Anyway, after a lot of secretive machinations including building its new TV platform inside a building that looks more suited to manufacturing cardboard boxes, Intel seems ready to unveil its big thing. And it won’t be just about that one single box. The company’s goal is to deliver its video service to all screens, including tablets, PCs and mobile phones. This will likely include an ambitious licensing play to secure content across all of these devices.

People in the know say as of six months ago, Intel had already spent more than $100 million on these efforts. That’s real money, even for a company like Intel — and it shows how serious the company is about this project. It’s not just about capturing their piece of our living rooms; it’s about redefining who and what they are in a bid to be prepared for a post-silicon future.

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don’t sweat – Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

Get Help, Give Help. A New App for Natural Disasters

The occurrence of natural disasters is increasing around the world so it was only a matter of time before someone asked ‘is there an app for that”?

Microsoft recently launched HelpBridge a mobile application that can assist you immediately act on the major emotions you’re likely to experience during a major crisis. You might need immediate help or want to notify loved ones and friends that you’re OK. Either way HelpBridge simplifies the process by letting you first assemble a list of the friends and family members you’d want to notify in an emergency. Then, if the time comes, it will simultaneously send everyone an e-mail and SMS as well as posting a message to your facebook wall. You can even include your GPS coordinates. Several reviewers of this app have wondered why Twitter hasn’t been included considering responsiveness is its major attribute. Perhaps that is still to come.

If you’re not directly affected by a natural disaster, you might want to understand how you can help and this app quickly helps you discover and donate to the world’s largest disaster response organizations. It provides multiple ways to help – text-to-give donations, larger contributions via PayPal, and goods donations. You can also explore major volunteering opportunities near where you live.

The app is currently available on Android and IOS and is powered by Windows Azure. Launched in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, it is currently only available in the US. It’s possibly only a matter of time before Micosoft understands a natural crisis can happen anywhere in the world and increases its regional support.

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don’t sweat – Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

We’re not in Kansas anymore

Canadian Engineer Louis Michaud looks at the destructive power of a tornado and sees only the potential for lighting up the world.

Michaud’s work on his invention, dubbed the ‘Atmospheric Vortex Engine’ (or AVE) has established the principles by which we can control and exploit a tornadoes power to provide clean energy on an unprecedented scale.

The AVE is a process for producing an artificial vortex capable of capturing the energy produced when heat is carried upward by convection in the atmosphere. In other words it’s a way of controlling the energy generated within an artificially created tornado. It could even mean harnessing solar energy without having to use solar collectors.

Essentially it works by introducing warm air into a circular station. The difference in temperature between this heated air and the atmosphere above creates a vortex – or controlled tornado, which in turn drives multiple wind turbines in order to create electricity. The tornado could be shut down by simply turning off the source of warm air.

Michaud’s company, AVEtec Energy Corporation, reports that the system produces no carbon emissions, nor requires energy storage to function, and that further to this, the cost of energy generated could potentially be as low as US$0.03 per kilowatt hour.

Naturally there is a reluctance to attempt to reproduce a phenomenon as destructive as a tornado, but controlled tornadoes could actually reduce hazards by relieving instability. Imagine a small, furiously turning tornado firmly anchored above a strongly built station. It’s a whacky but wonderful example of a soaring imagination supported by engineering and science.

Developing the process will require determination, engineering resources and cooperation between engineers and atmospheric scientists. There will be difficulties to overcome, but they should be no greater than in other large technical enterprises.

As our power bills rocket up their own vortex, let’s click three times and wish them all the luck in the world..

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don’t sweat – Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

The more you know, the more you grow.

Right now, Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics application. It’s simple, has many advanced features and gives you the basic statistics for tracking the performance of your website. No doubt you know this and once you got your head around the dashboard you probably felt comfortable knowing you had all the helpful analytical information you need. Well, right now we’re going to shake the tree and show you there’s a lot more important information that can fall your way.

For a start Google Analytics can generate up to 85 different reports to help you analyze all possible data about your website traffic. Yes, you know about page visits but what about time spent on the page, what content they’re most interested in, which ads brought most of them to your site and more – and even more.

It’s easy to set yourself up to make the most of Google Analytics and here’s a quick run down of how you can go about it.

The Tracking Code.

You need to add a small Java Script snippet, either manually or through the use of tools and plugins. To help you we’ve placed some tools and plugins near the bottom of this post. If you want to manually install the code into your pages, copy and paste the code segment into the bottom of your content, immediately before the body tag of each page that you wish to track.

The Dashboard and Analytical Reports

 Log into Google Analytics and you’ll arrive at dashboard, the central hub that gives you an overview of all the popular reports. You can customize this page by changing what reports are shown, as well as dragging and dropping the reports into a format that suits your needs.

Analytics and Ecommerce

After you have enabled ecommerce transactions, Google Analytics will generate very detailed reports about every single transaction. This will provide valuable insights over and above what you’re getting now.

Analytical Goals

When you define a goal (which is simply a page view) in Google Analytics, you are telling it what number of page views constitutes the completion of a goal, so Analytics can track it. It is an easier way to generate the reports that you need as well as a great way to measure your business objectives.

Custom Reporting

Custom Reports give faster access to the information you need and less data reports to sift through. Simply, they remove the data that isn’t relevant to you, leaving you with the bare bones reports that you need. You choose the information and metrics you want to see, organized in the way you want to see it.

WordPress Plugins

In the directory you can find, download, rate, and comment on all the best plugins the WordPress community has to offer.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Joomla Module

Modules are lightweight and flexible extensions used for page rendering. These modules are often “boxes” arranged around a component on a typical page. A well-known example is the login module. Read more here.

http://docs.joomla.org/Module

Naturally, if you need help or simply want to know more of what’s available to you through Google Analytics please just give us a call.

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don’t sweat – Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

An Ocean of Application

Technology offers new opportunities every day. New business applications are constantly being released into the online marketplace to help us deal with tedious tasks and improve time efficiency. Unfortunately, many of these products are being developed faster than most people can find them… It’s hard to keep up!

This is a common problem on the internet. Such a large portion of data is available, yet our nuggets of gold are buried within piles of garbage. Sometimes you know what you need, but knowing what to search for and how to search for it is a completely different thing. Finding the right keywords and sifting through the many accounting tools, CRMs, email clients, and calendars can prove to be quite time consuming.

Many blogs, news feeds, and channels promote popular applications, interesting products, and even something that just sounds cool. This can be a valuable source for news.

Being part of the IT industry makes it easier to stay up to date with the latest product releases, updates, and online tools. It allows us to be inspired by new ideas, and helps us develop our own dynamic applications.

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don’t sweat – Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

It’s that time of year again

It’s that time of year, the one that always seems to take us by surprise. Christmas always creeps up on us making us think about how fast the year has gone, days disappeared almost without us noticing. Sometimes we blame this new technological age for sucking time down a wormhole. The age of faster and smarter, churning out it’s new devices, applications and challenges keeps us running hard to catch up, and wondering if we’re missing a few things along the way.

So it’s good to have a designated time of the year to stop, reflect and dare we say it, chill. This Festive or holiday season is a wonderful still point in a constantly moving year. It gives us a chance to take that deep breath, lie on the couch just a little bit longer, go for a walk with the kids and the dog and keep the top down on the laptop. We get some precious time to think about all the things that are important to us, not only our business.

And while we’re on that subject, we’d like to thank you for involving us in your business goals this year and trusting us to find the solutions for achieving them. It’s a great privilege to do what we do for our clients and we value your commitment to us.

So whether you’re a valued client or someone just passing through this blog, everyone at Chill IT wishes you the very best for this Christmas and the coming year. We hope you get the opportunity to share all of yourself with the ones you love, that you are able to do something special for someone and someone does the same for you.

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don’t sweat – Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

Show Me the Money

For those of us who prefer the feel of cold, hard cash slipping through our fingers the arrival of Bitcoins simply does not compute. However everyone wedded to the digitised world is scooping them up by the bucket load. Virtual money! Is this the point when we can officially say ‘enough already’?

In use since 2009, Bitcoins has become a very widely used alternative payments system and now there is Bitcoin-Central. This newly authorised exchange is one of many that swaps computer generated cash for real world currencies.

One bitcoin is currently worth about $13 and in a continuing sign the world might have gone mad, a growing number of web stores and online firms accept bitcoins as payment. Prior to the establishment of this new bank it was hard for novices to get started, or to ‘mine’ their bitcoins but Bitcon-Central will make it possible to transact a bitcoin account in exactly the same way you would any bank account.

The Bitcoin cheer squad claims it makes money more democratic. Bitcoin is an open source that nobody owns. It uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: the network carries out managing transactions and issuing money collectively.  Against the suggestion virtual cash transactions could become a haven for criminals is the declaration it’s more secure as an electronic payment system. This is because it’s based on cryptographic proof – something that protects the purchaser from fraud.

Perhaps bitcoins are the future of online money management as more and more of us seek residency in the virtual world. Many organisations and businesses will start accepting this form of payment as they see governments and banks willing to deal with Bitcoin.

Those of us who prefer the folding stuff will have to keep one eye on the growing popularity of computer generated cash. It will never fatten our wallets but it could transform global commerce.

What do you know about Browser Behaviour?

Is your website habit proof?

We are all creatures of habit and this is as true of our Internet behaviour as it is about anything else. The good news is habitual behaviour gives us the opportunity to create websites that work. By factoring in the habits of our visitors we can design a website that avoids the pitfalls and maximises the attention grabbing elements. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Banner Blindness

If you have a website design that incorporates a cool banner underneath your site name or logo, we’re sorry. People will not look at banners. It’s like a selective blindness; their eyes veer away from anything that looks like an advertisement. An over designed website looks great on paper but we’d suggest you make sure your site banners are mostly text.

Home is not sweet.

People come to your site with an objective in mind. They’re not going to hang around your home page because they’re clicking in deeper, getting the job done. So make sure the site’s purpose and content are clear from the moment they arrive. It’s OK to have a well crafted home page, just not at the expense of the info they’re really after.

They want it and they want it now.

You know it. People are impatient on the net. If they don’t find what they’re looking for they’ll go elsewhere. Make it clear they’ve come to the right place.

You can’t stop progress.

Even though some ‘experts’ will tell you otherwise, people are prepared to click through more than three pages, as long as they feel they’re getting closer to their goal. One of the most important aspects of your site is ‘the flow’. Don’t make them stop and wonder where to go next.  If the flow is right, everyone will go with it.

 If they have to scroll, they’ll scroll.

Everyone says they hate to scroll but it’s actually less of an issue than they claim. In fact many people scroll without noticing they’re doing it. The key is to make sure they know they have to scroll…the scroll bar isn’t a big enough clue. Ensure some content drops below the fold. They’ll go there.

They will read when they’re ready.

On the net, people will only read once they’ve found the information they’re looking for. Up to that point they’re scanning for key words. In fact, they prefer to avoid reading anything if they can avoid it. So it’s wise not to write reams of text and to break up whatever does survive into bite size pieces.

But wait, there’s more.

Basically, people don’t like having to learn new ways to do things. We all get annoyed when the supermarket swaps produce around the aisles or the transport timetable changes. It’s no different for web users. Once they have found a way to do something, they’ll want to repeat that. Even if there is a better way.

We’ve given you a snapshot of some ways you can make this work to your advantage and naturally we’d be delighted to help you further.

In the meantime, remember the more your website is in tune with the way people tend to use it, the more successful it will be.

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don’t sweat – Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.