Tech
We’ve added a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to this site.
We’ll add questions and answers we get regularly… or feel free to ask about anything related to web design and development, online marketing, or software development and we’ll do our best to answer.
Working with Saltspring Community Education, Charles is offering two courses for the late Spring session:
- Photo Editing for Photographers
- Websites for Community Groups
Register for a course with a friend, and one of you gets 10% off!
You can buy attention (advertising);
you can beg for attention from the media (PR);
you can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales);
or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.
I believe that competition and the mindset that accompanies it are a form of scarcity consciousness. Focusing on “beating competitors” and the associated conflict may be exciting for some, but ultimately it hurts both the business community and the social community.
I believe in abundance consciousness. I believe there is enough work, food, love and compassion to go around… if we open to it.
Charles Buchwald & Friends are now certified by CEME as email marketing experts. Ask us what this means for your business, or leave a comment with your question or email marketing tip.
Search Engine Optimization is always changing. Thankfully, Rand Fishkin and SEOmoz perform a survey every two years. They poll up to 100 of the SEO industry’s top minds. In 2009 they had 72 experts participate. They recently published the results as the Search Engine Ranking Factors 2009 Survey.
This chart summarizes the five most important factors which they identified: Read what it means for your site, new or old...
Charles Buchwald is offering a course through Salt Spring Community Education for the Fall 2009 schedule. The class, called Photoshop for Photographers, is focused on basic and intermediate photo editing using Adobe’s Photoshop software.
Here’s the course description from Community Ed:
Learn how to edit photos with Adobe Photoshop. Improve composition, contrast and colour; fix defects such as redeye or incorrect exposure. Learn about key concepts and techniques including color space, resolution, file types, and image noise. The class will edit a variety of sample photos to create beautiful, powerful images. The lab will have PCs available. Contact the instructor if you wish to bring your own laptop. Prerequisite: intermediate computer experience; ability to open, save and organize files
8 Wednesdays
Oct 7, 14, 21, 28, Nov 4, 18, 25, Dec.2
7-8:30pm
GISS Room S111
The class filled quickly, but if you are interested please stay in touch, as it may be offered again in the Spring 2010 schedule.
If you are have registered for the course, please check this new section of this site for class information, examples, tips and resources… or leave a comment below… and we’ll see you soon!
Registering .ca domains can often be confusing. Here’s a quick, “how to” guide.
Registering a .com, .org, .net or many other top level domains is quite straitforward: you sign up with a registrar, pay them around $9 to $20 depending on their services and the domain, and you are set.
But with Canadian .ca domain names, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) adds some extra steps. It goes like this:
- After you register with your domain name registrar and purchase your .ca domain you receive an email from CIRA.
- The email contains a link, a username and a password.
- You must follow the link, user the username and password, and confirm your legal status in Canada, your address, and other information. They’ll ask you if you want to establish an account or membership with them, although it’s not necessary to complete the domain name process.
So, it’s not a scam, it’s not particularly complicated… and it is essential to confirm on time with CIRA, if you want to get up and running with your .ca domain name.
CIRA has more info for new registrants.
Tips? Questions? Comments? Please leave me a message in the comments for this article.
P.S. For registering .ca domain names, and .com, .org., .net, and others, I’ve used v2reg.com for several years, and I appreciate their simple, inexpensive service. There are many others, including Godaddy and Network Solutions for example, that work well, but because they complicate their offerings with lots of addons and up sells, my experience has been that they are more trouble than they are worth.
CB&F is pleased to announce that Denise Okan of West Wind Translations has contracted with us to develop a web site for her growing business. The site will be in both English and German, with a possible Turkish version to follow. Taking advantage of the multilingual capabilities of modern CMS systems will be key to keeping this project accurate and efficient.
In a related note, Charles Buchwald & Friends is now offering translations services for web content!
Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine’s Editor in Chief, has written a thought-provoking article for the latest edition of said magazine. Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It’s Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity presents views from his latest book about how the falling prices for information technology have the potential to change our thinking and feeling.
The central premise is that most of our business and organization thinking is based on promoting scarce materials, products and ideas. But falling tech prices present a different paradigm, where it’s our thinking and creativity that are the main limitations. This chart was very helpful:
Note that the audio version of the book is currently available for download within the body of the article.
What do you think? Please leave a comment and let me know!