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ISSUE 831
11 GREAT WAYS TO
START YOUR WORKDAY
Series 18 Article 2

According to Jacquelyn Smith, of Forbes Magazine, the first few hours of the workday can have a significant effect on your level of productivity over the following eight—so it’s important you have a morning routine that sets you up for success.

Here are 11 great ways to be productive at work:

Arrive on Time - Getting to work on time or a little early helps your mindset for the day and helps promote a feeling of accomplishment.
Literally, take a Deep Breath - This helps you to focus in on the here-and-now. Many people come into work harried because they don’t leave enough time at home to deal with “home stuff,” and then they’ve barely survived another horrendously stressful commute, and then they dive into the madness.” Slowing down, taking a moment to pause, and creating a routine around centering yourself can work wonders.
Take Five - After a deep breath, give yourself five minutes to get settled in. Don’t allow yourself to be affected by frantic co-workers lost in their own confusion.
Start Each Day with a Clean Slate - Although you may have projects from the previous day, treat each day as a fresh one.
Don’t be Moody - This is a big one. Be aware of your mood and its effect on others. Your first hour at work can set your ‘attitude barometer’ for the rest of the day. One morning grump can infect an entire team and put everyone on the wrong footing.
Organize your Day - The first hour of the workday is the best time to assess priorities and to focus on what you absolutely need to accomplish. Make a to-do list, or update the one you made the previous day, and try to stick to it.
Check in with your Colleagues - A quick 5 to 10-minute team huddle is an effective way to start the day. By sharing your top goal for the day, and any critical information the rest of the team needs to know helps people focus and connects everyone with the team. It also raises the odds of everyone achieving their goals substantially.
Ensure that your Workspace is Organized - Clear off your desk and create a neat workspace sets a tone for the rest of the day. This will help you think clearly.
Don’t be Distracted by your Inbox - This one is difficult for most people! Priority-scan your inbox. There will be time during the day to respond to the less urgent e-mails.
Listen to your Voice Mail - If you know you need to get in touch with someone that day, place the call or send the e-mail first thing in the morning. If you wait until midday, there’s a greater chance you won’t hear back before you leave the office.
Plan a Mid-Morning Break - This is the time to assess where you are and take time to revitalize yourself so that you can keep your momentum going. Habits are created out of having regular cues that prompt a routine, which then eventually become our habits. The morning is the perfect time to create some critical habits that will, over time, become routine and help you be more focused and productive.

ISSUE 832
10 WAYS TO BE MORE
COMPASSIONATE AT WORK
Series 18, Article 3

According to Tris Thorp of the Chopra Center, creating a culture of compassion in the workplace is where many successful companies are placing their attention today. When we treat ourselves and others compassionately, bonds are formed, trust is established, and a willingness to collaborate on projects and shared visions becomes the driving force behind our intentions.

1. Offer guidance to a co-worker
You know how stressful it can feel to hit a roadblock on a particular project. If you see a colleague struggling in an area where you have strength, offer your knowledge or assistance.

2. Get to know your colleagues
People love to feel like they're part of a team and they have a connection with others. Take the time to introduce yourself to someone you may not know well in the workplace. Ask them questions about themselves, their families, and what they enjoy doing in their off time. Greet them regularly and be sure to use their name often when speaking with them.

3. Lend a hand to someone who is under a tight deadline
If you see a fellow co-worker under pressure, ask if they could use some help or what you can take off their plate to ease the strain. Showing that you genuinely care and want to help others not only inspires them but makes them feel happy to work with you.

4. Cultivate a collaborative environment
Encourage brainstorms and mastermind meetings. Invite the whole team to share in the organization's vision and goals, and help create action steps needed to achieve them.

5. Acknowledge employees' strengths and positive attributes in front of others
Edifying someone in the presence of others is one of the best ways to boost morale. See where you can find opportunities to acknowledge people for their strengths and celebrate their wins with them.

6. Be an example of a compassionate leader
The best leaders are those who lead from the heart, those who have the ability to inspire others through kindness, flexibility, support, and empowerment.

7. Check the motivation behind your decisions, your words, and your behavior
Always check in with your thoughts before they become words or actions to be sure your motivation is pure. Every word and action generates a reaction.

8. Organize team-building activities
Take the lead, or ask for a volunteer, to set up monthly or quarterly team building activities for employees -- softball teams, organizing a community clean up, volunteering to feed the homeless.

9. Encourage employees to practice conscious communication
Teach employees how to give feedback in a way that inspires motivation for improvement rather than making someone feel wrong. Guide people to ask sincere questions and listen to one another with interest.

10. Design a compassion challenge to inspire daily acts of kindness
Make kindness fun. Create an in-office compassion challenge (e.g. "30 Days of Kindness") and get your team pumped up to do all of the above (and more) on a daily basis.

ISSUE 833
A FUN OFFICE IS
A PRODUCTIVE OFFICE
Series 18 Article 4

There's a reason they call it "work" and not "play." At the office, you're supposed to be doing productive tasks instead of goofing off. However, if your workplace is a serious bummer, it's going to make it tough for you and your co-workers to feel motivated to do many productive tasks.

To lighten the mood in your workplace, look for little things you can do both during and after work. Not only will it make it easier to get up for work in the morning, but it can also help to increase productivity in the office.

The benefits of high employee morale in your company can be summed up in one word: performance. Research shows that high morale organizations consistently benefit from less stress, which in turn means higher productivity due to reduced turnover and absenteeism.

1. Install a game or diversion such as a ping pong or foosball table in the break room. Not only does it give people something fun and slightly competitive to look forward to on their breaks, it also encourages workers to do something active that gets their minds off work. (The Nest - Nicole Vulcan)

2. Play Music - Whether it’s Metallica or Mozart, music can have a gigantic impact on your mood and work habits. (The Daily Muse)

3. Exercise together - Socialize while focusing on something healthful. Since exercise stimulates endorphins, it's likely to help to lighten workers' moods. (The Nest - Nicole Vulcan)

4. Make someone else’s day - This can help you feel a whole lot better. Take five minutes to show someone in the office that you appreciate them. (Tiny Buddha)

5. Use comedy during business presentations, suggests Human Resources expert Barbara Mitchell. Even if the subject matter is serious, use a funny ice breaker to lighten the mood before the heavy stuff starts. Look for cartoons, anecdotes or short videos for your presentations -- according to Mitchell, comedy can spark creativity and encourage participation. (The Nest - Nicole Vulcan)

6. Feeling fatigued? Stand up and head to the water cooler. H2O is great for you for so many reasons, not to mention rehydrating can boost your mood in a jiffy. (Greatist)

7. Remember employees' birthdays, and do something special for them. A hand-written note or other recognition can improve worker morale -- and lighten the mood of the office. (The Nest - Nicole Vulcan)

8. Have desk decorating contests. As the old saying (kind of) goes, “Happy desk, happy life.” Okay, not really, but decorating your desk at work can boost your mood! (Refinery29)

9. Plan regular gatherings after work. Every month or quarter, invite workers to a local happy hour or lunch spot, and pay for a drink or a meal on the company's dime. Providing a forum for gathering outside of work can allow workers to loosen up and sound off away from the office, which may cut down on the amount of whining and drudgery that happens during office hours.

(The Nest - Nicole Vulcan)

ISSUE 834
A HAPPY WORK
ENVIRONMENT
Series 18 Article 5

In your workplace, do you have a sense of happiness? Here is a list of the 10 signs you're in a happy work environment:

1. Communication will matter to the entire team. Within a happy workplace, you rarely will see members of the staff put-off by new ideas or changes. Communication will be strong between everyone, from the leaders to the interns. Everybody is kept within the loop, and the managers are glad to ask their staff for advice and solutions.
2. The objective of the company will matter. From the team to the leaders, in a happy work environment, individuals feel thrilled about the team moving ahead, and they always are imagining ways to accomplish the company objectives.
3. You know you're an important part of the team. There is a feeling that everyone matters. You should feel as if you're an integral part of the team, with helpful talents and skills making you good at your job.
4. Gossip isn't acceptable. Though it may be difficult to fully stop gossip, within a happy work environment it just is not tolerated. It is not just the team leaders who attempt to shut gossip down, co-workers will be willing to openly solve problems, rather than creating cliques and separating the team.
5. Everybody welcomes change. The team ought to know that their leaders have the ability to manage change well, and everybody ought to be open to new concepts and ideas.
6. Growth will be encouraged. In happy workplaces, bosses and team leaders offer everybody the chance to grow and advance, viewing their jobs as an opportunity. From training programs to promotions, the company should be invested in providing staff the opportunity to take on new responsibilities or learn new skills.
7. The mood within the workplace is a positive one. You will witness people laughing and chatting. Though everybody is concentrated on work, the room isn't in stony silence.
8. Turnover is low. High turnover is an indication of a negative workplace; it oftentimes is a sign that workers are unhappy at work. Workplaces that have a low turnover are assign that the workers have excellent benefits, are content, and the opportunity to grow inside the company.
9. Nobody feels any fear at work. Within an excellent working environment, no workers are concerned with saying the wrong thing and discovering themselves in trouble. Workers aren't hesitant to voice their concerns to their managers, and everybody feels as if they're able to speak honestly and without fear.
10. Everybody supports one another. Every employee feels encouraged by the other team members. If somebody applies for a promotion in the workplace, both the team leaders and the team are supportive of the decision.

ISSUE 835
FUN FALL
ACTIVITIES AT WORK
Series 18 Article 6

With the new season comes cooler weather, different foliage and a workforce that just wrapped up its summer. Keep your team members’ engagement high by incorporating fall fun into your workplace. There are many activities you can try at the office. Some are great for team building and others will show your employees that you appreciate their hard work.

1. Have team members bring in fall inspired dishes, such as apple pie or pumpkin soup, for a fall themed office party.
2. Stock the break room with warm apple cider or pumpkin flavored coffee for a morning treat.
3. Organize an office activity day at a nearby park and play football with your workers and their families. Make participation optional.
4. Help employees stay fit during the season by planning a group hike at a local nature trail. Make participation optional.
5. Purchase group tickets to a local football game or other fall activity for you staff members to enjoy.
6. Plan an office outing to a local apple orchard or pumpkin patch to bond while walking and picking autumn goods together.
7. Host a family hayride at a local park or farm.
8. Throw a Halloween party and create a costume contest and a pumpkin decorating and carving contest.
9. Buy a turkey and hold an office potluck lunch for Thanksgiving. Ask your employees to each bring a dish. You can also celebrate Oktoberfest with some Bavarian pretzels, sausages, and pumpkin flavored beer!
10. Make smores on a BBQ in the parking lot.
11. Have a “cozy sweatpants” day!
12. Put seasonally-inspired music on the phone system hold button - “Thriller” by Michael Jackson, “Dead Man’s Party” by Oingo Boingo, “Toxic” by Britney Spears, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by The Charlie Daniels Band, and “Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
13. Decorate the office in Fall colors. Have a desk decorating contest.
14. After school hours, have the employees’ children come by dressed in Halloween costumes and have them trick-or-treat at the office.
15. Pick a sunny day to hold your office meeting outside.
16. Put seasonal graphics in your email signatures.
17. Make popcorn in the lunchroom. This makes the whole office smell cozy!
18. Create a Thanksgiving office card to send to clients.
19. Have a costume contest. What would a fall activity list be without a reference to Halloween costumes? Incentivize employee participation with kooky prize categories such as best homemade costume, most tech-savvy costume, best unconventional materials costume and best pop culture-inspired costume.
20. Around Thanksgiving, have employees type anonymous “what I appreciate about you” notes for each employee in the company. This one is incredible for morale!

ISSUE 836
6 WAYS TO PROMOTE
YOUR WEBSITE FOR FREE
Series 17 Article 28

According to Outbrain, a content marketing company, you can have the best product in the world, but without effective advertising no one will know about it. Just because you have launched your website on the Internet doesn’t mean that everyone will come flocking to it. In fact, nobody will know it exists if you do not get out there and promote it.

There are several services available to help you get the word out there, but they cost money. However, there are several ways to get the word out for free. Here are seven website promotion tips you need to follow to get your page up to the top of the search engines.

1. Focus on Website SEO
Promoting your website by using traditional SEO is one of the best ways to gain natural traffic, and a higher ranking. Use the Google keyword tool planner to help you find the best keywords for your niche market. Remember to focus on long-tailed keywords versus short keywords as you can struggle to rank for a broad keyword. Focus on the keywords that have low competition and high search frequency to help you create blog posts that are compelling, and will get noticed. The keywords you select must be added to the title, headings, content, and Meta description. If you add images, remember to include the keyword in the picture title tag and the alt tag.

2. Social Media Marketing
Creating social media accounts, and interacting with the customers often is the best way to promote a website. Be sure to use branded imagery on all of your posts. Consider running contests and giveaways with unique landing pages to gain new “likes” and customer contact information. Facebook and Twitter remain the dominate forces of social media, but Pinterest and Instagram are starting to catch on with businesses as other ways to promote a website.

3. Search Engine Listing
Submit new content to the search engine directories like Google, Yahoo!, Bing etc, so it can be indexed. The major search engines offer this free service.

4. Signature Branding
Your brand image is how people will recognize your company. Spend some time working on making your brand easy to recognize, and compelling enough to get people’s attention. Create a signature for your email account, text messages, and forums that include your website URL. This is a great way to get people to recognize your brand, and it will get people to click on the URL.

5. Reciprocal Linking
One way to show the search engines your website is trusted is by having other websites link to your site. If you want promotion, website options include; guest blogging, forum posting, link exchange, and news articles. Search engines want to reward you with a higher website ranking when they see your website is linked to higher ranking, authority sites. Slow and steady is the best way to go when you are working on quality inbound links to your website.

6. Use Google Local Business
To gain a local audience, submit your site to Google Local Business. Not only will Google provide website promotion ideas, they will allow every business to register their information for free. You can add pictures, include promotional offers, and even submit mobile ads. The great part of the Google Local Business page is how the information is displayed. It will show up right above the rest of the normal search result information, giving your business a larger online presence. Google even provides directions to your location, and they allow customers to call right from their mobile device.

ISSUE 837
WEBSITE GOOGLE
OPTIMIZATION in 2017
Series 17 Article 29

To perform well online, a website needs to be more than just some drag and drop photos and wording. There is a very important list of functionalities that have to be developed.

Too many website owners have been led to believe that they can attract thousands of users and convert them into customers, despite having no backend functionality. A good-looking website is very important, but completely useless if the search engine functionality isn’t set up properly.

So many business owners want their website to magically bring them tons of new clients, but they have next to nothing in their budget for their website development. Remember the old adage “you get what you pay for”. If you have a legitimate business, you need to have a comprehensive and sophisticated website, and that will be an investment.

Here is Forbes list of the 10 most important website features that will help to bring your website higher in the search engines:

1. Mobile First: responsive mobile-friendly design that can be used on different devices - ideally designed with mobile as the foundation.

2. Fast Loading: quick loading times for users on all devices even with slow internet connections.

3. SSL Enabled: The second major shift in basic website SEO for 2017 is a focus on SSL certified websites. An SSL certificate is a way of confirming that your website is owned and controlled by you.

4. Tracking Enabled: web analytics tracking traffic as well as goals and conversions.

5. SEO Ready: all important on-page SEO tags and elements, including schema and XML sitemaps.

6. Conversion Optimized: tools for clients to create campaign landing pages with conversion in mind.

7. Powered by CMS: a back-end Content Management System that enables publishing and editing content.

8. Email Marketing: email capture forms synced with client’s email marketing system.

9. Social Media: integration with relevant social media platforms.

10. Strong Security: fundamental security and privacy protocols, such as basic security checks.
These items are all integrated by hand by your website designer and are not automatically step up in those drag-and-drop website builders like Wix and Weebly so don’t be fooled by the commercials.

ISSUE 838
5 SURPRISING WAYS
TO BE THANKFUL AT WORK
Series 18 Article 7

1. Be thankful for the problems that create your job.
Sounds crazy, but the only reason any job exists is to solve a set of problems or circumstances. IT experts solve projects with programing. A waiter solves people’s hunger with food. A mechanic solves car troubles with repairs.

If there were no problems to solve, there would be no jobs. So be grateful for the problems that create your job.

2. Be thankful for your colleagues.
It’s great to have friends at work. Studies have shown that having someone you care about at work is a key contributor to your satisfaction and engagement in the organization. Human beings are social animals, needing some level of connection with others.

Be thankful for the colleagues around you and take an extra minute to tell them. Don’t assume they know. If you feel it, share it.

3. Be thankful for your own skills at work.
There is something special and unique about you that you bring to your work, no matter what you do. There’s a reason you were hired. You have something to give that no one else in your office does. Know it, own it, and be thankful for your own skills.

4. Be thankful for your thoughts and feelings at work.
Our hearts, guts and bodies are often trying to tell us what we’re feeling long before our brains register anything that our mouths can put into words. Emotion puts us in motion.

Paying attention to your emotions can be a huge source of practical, real-life data about what you need to do next. Say thanks to your emotions for being your powerful information station.

5. Be thankful for your competitors.
Yes, even though there may be days when you just wish they’d go away, your competitors can push you, challenge you, and scare you into trying new things—things you may not have done otherwise.

Competitors are a great source of data about other ways to do things and different choices to make. Plus, they continue to create a new set of problems that reinforce the need for your job (see #1). Be thankful for them, often and always. Besides, you never know when a competitor will someday become a coworker or friend.

ISSUE 839
20 REASONS YOU SHOULD
BE THANKFUL FOR YOURSELF
Series 18 Article 8

I can list so many things I’m thankful for: my family, my friends, my education, being able to afford three meals a day, everything my parents have given me. List could go on for hours. But sometimes you forget one of the most important things you should be thankful for: yourself. We are so good at recognizing the positives in everyone around us, and now it’s your turn. So use this list to remind you how great you are, and eventually it will be a habit.

Here are 20 reasons why you should have confidence in and be thankful for yourself today and everyday:

You are capable of doing anything you want.
You are passionate about something and that passion will one day help someone.
You take care of yourself so you can help take care of others.
You set goals and (almost) always achieve them. Failures happen. Turn them into lessons.
You are surrounded by people that care about you, and you have strong, mutually beneficial relationships.
You know what’s good and what’s bad for you. You get rid of the bad when it doesn’t feel right.
You know your greatest qualities and make them shine bright.
You know your weakest qualities and work to improve them for yourself.
You take advantage of new opportunities because when one door closes, another door opens. You might just have to look for that door somewhere else.
You make yourself laugh when nobody else can and that’s totally acceptable.
You grow from your mistakes and don’t allow yourself to dwell on the past for too long.
You have the ability to make a difference, for yourself and others, and put those plans in to action. No matter how long it may take to accomplish.
You are always ready to grow as a person.
You take criticism as positive feedback and don’t let it hurt you.
You create a positive environment for yourself and surround yourself with great influences.
You take some time to be selfish, even when other people may not like what you’re doing (it’s more than okay to say “no” to questions/requests).
You are aware of how to balance all aspects of your life. And when that balance is thrown off, you know how to remain calm and restore that balance.
You wake up and appreciate that you’ve been given another day to make a difference for yourself (and others if you choose).
You love yourself.
“Today you are You; that is truer than true. There is no one alive that is Youer than You.” -Dr. Seuss

Thank you, Alainie Goldstein, for this wonderful list!

ISSUE 840
ECOMMERCE STATS REVEAL
HOW CUSTOMERS ARE SHOPPING
Series 17 Article 30

According to recent 2017 surveys, 51% of Americans prefer to shop online, compared to 48% in 2015 and 47% in 2014. 96% of Americans with internet access have made an online purchase in their life, 80% in the past month alone.

One of retail’s biggest game changers is Amazon which is killing its brick-and-mortar rivals. According to data released by eMarketer to Fortune, Amazon’s e-commerce revenue rose 15.8% in the last 12 months, which is roughly the same clip as Wal-Mart. But Amazon posted $82.7 billion in sales, compared with $12.5 billion for Walmart, and that chasm in dollars keeps getting wider.

Ecommerce trends

Ecommerce is growing 23% year-over-year, yet 46% of American small businesses do not have a website….that’s crazy! With an investment of approx. $2500, small businesses can be easily and quickly selling their products without expensive brick and mortar stores!
67% of Millennials and 56% of Gen Xers prefer to shop on online rather than in-store; 41% of Baby Boomers and 28% of Seniors will click to purchase.
Millennials and Gen Xers spend 6 hours per week shopping online; Baby Boomers spend 4 per week shopping online; Seniors spend 2.5 hours per week shopping online.
Parents spend 61% more online than non-parents. (It’s obviously much easier to shop online and have things delivered than to drag the kids to the mall.)
Although men and women both report spending 5 hours per week shopping online, believe it or not, men reported spending 28% more online than women during the past year.
Although they have greater proximity to physical stores, customers in large or mid-size metropolitan areas spend more online annually ($853) than suburban shoppers ($768) or those in rural areas ($684).
95% of Americans shop online at least yearly. 80% of Americans shop online at least monthly. 30% of Americans shop online at least weekly. 5% of Americans shop online daily.
43% of online shoppers have made a purchase while in bed.
23% of online shoppers have made an online purchase at the office.
20% of American online shoppers have purchased from the bathroom or while in the car.
Millennials and Gen Xers are 5x more likely to have made an online purchase from the bathroom than Baby Boomers and Seniors.
Men are more than twice as likely as women to have made a purchase after consuming alcohol.
The top three factors that are very or extremely influential in determining where Americans shop are price (87%), shipping cost and speed (80%) and discount offers (71%).
Almost a quarter of online shoppers (23%) are influenced by social media recommendations.
Online shoppers want products to be brought to life with images (78%) and product reviews (69%).
78% of online shoppers want more images from ecommerce sites.
69% want more reviews from ecommerce sites.
46% want more product comparisons from ecommerce sites.

ISSUE 841
HOLIDAY CELEBRATION
IDEAS FOR THE OFFICE
Series 18 Article 9

Offer employees alternatives to the traditional office party with dinner, drinks, and dancing:

Consider an ugly holiday sweater day on which employees wear gaudy, delightful holiday sweaters and pose for group pictures.
A cookie day brightens everyone’s holidays. Interested employees bring plates of cookies and everyone gets to sample. Sponsor a cookie swap in which employees trade plates of cookies to have a variety at home.
Provide a holiday lunch that highlights holiday foods such as turkey, stuffing, and Christmas cookies.
A Secret Santa swap brings inexpensive presents to delight participating employees.
Establish traditions in the office for the holidays that include the employees and their families.
Make up an annual employee-featured holiday card to send to clients, customers, and business partners. Be fun with it…..have everyone bring a musical instrument to play in the group photo, or have everyone wear ugly holiday sweaters, etc.
Treat employees and their families to a holiday luncheon, at a location that features games and things to do for families. Shut the office down at noon, so employees can pick their kids up from school for the party.
Foster team building and gentle competition by giving gift cards to employees who decorate their workstation or work area in a holiday theme.
Get thoughtful gifts or generous gift cards for your employees for the holiday season. Accompany the gift with a personal note of thanks from the manager or owner of the company. Appropriate gifts could be something they can use during the holidays like a frozen turkey or a fresh ham, holiday pies, cookie assortments, and gourmet treats.
Fine pens, jackets, leather notebooks, briefcases, lunch kits, weather radios and sweaters with the company logo are examples of gifts that delight employees. Mugs, t-shirts, or other inexpensive offerings are not appropriate for the holiday season—you need to kick it up a notch.

And by all means, Honor
Diversity for the Holidays

Remember that not every employee exchanges Christmas cards for the holidays. The days that are celebrated by diverse employees are many in December and January. You want to honor and celebrate employee diversity. Take care not to schedule important celebrations to conflict with the holidays of various religions or nationalities. Be sure to serve food at events that allow any employee, with any beliefs, to participate. Always provide a vegetarian option.

While it’s okay to say, “Merry Christmas,” keep most office celebrations secular to honor diverse beliefs. Look for ways to note the celebration days of religions other than Catholicism and Christianity. You can extend a card, a gift or a thank you note to honor diverse employee celebrations, remembrances, and religious events.

Consider offering floating holidays to meet the needs of diverse employees for holiday time off. Ask employees with diverse beliefs to share how holidays are celebrated or noted in their country of origin or how they practice their beliefs currently.

ISSUE 842
ELF-FRIENDLY
WORKPLACE
Series 18 Article 10

Do you think that Santa’s elves are happy on the job? I do. Universal principles of how to create happy employees are operating on full throttle at the North Pole.

Workplaces that emulate Santa’s workshop resonate with excitement, engagement, positive employee morale, and employee motivation. Wouldn’t you like to create a workplace where employees feel happy about showing up in the morning? You can. Just create a workplace that is elf-friendly.

Humor me for a moment…..At Santa's workshop at the North Pole, people focus on creating a work culture that is elf-friendly, fun, and engaging.

Santa’s elves have a purpose bigger than themselves. They provide all the boys and girls in the world with exactly what they want for a Merry Christmas. Bring joy through your work, know that you are participating in an activity that is bigger than your small world and doing work that impacts millions in a positive way.
Elves have a customer intelligence gathering system that is admired and envied worldwide. How do elves know what their customers want? They read the letters from the children. Santa's Workshop has no objective other than producing products that their customers need, want, and revel in. They have, not just happy customers, their customers are delighted and become word of mouth (WOM) evangelists.
Elves feel totally needed and secure in their employment. Since there are definitely more good girls and boys than bad, elves know that they will never run out of work. Job security is a desirable condition to create happy employees. Feelings of job security allow the energy of the elves to be invested in building, creating, sharing, and producing a helpful, supportive, happy work environment.
Elves have both a mission and a vision. Elves know that they must meet the goal of presents delivered on Christmas. Elves have a clear mission that they must do whatever it takes to make that delivery happen.
Elves know they are making millions of children happy. Happy employees are the ones who know how their work impacts the lives of customers and coworkers.
The guy who manages the elves (the boss) is accessible, easy-to-talk-with, participative, fair, and fun. Santa’s merry laughter envelopes the workshop in an environment of joy. He doesn’t play favorites because every elf matters to get the work done. Every elf idea is seriously considered because the goal is happy children, not stoking the boss’s ego nor feeding his need to control.
Elves are smart; they know what they’re doing. Santa knows that the best way to lead elves is with gentle encouragement. They don’t need micromanaging or to be told how to do their work.
Elves receive perks that make them feel cherished and needed. Mrs. Claus is famous for her cookies that she shares with joy in the workshop.
Elves have the opportunity to develop their skills and abilities. In the off-season, they learn about new toy technology and they cross-train on the job. When elves are learning, and keeping their skills up-to-the-minute, the future of Santa, the elves, and holiday traditions for people worldwide is secure for generations to come.
In Santa's Workshop, the behavior and interaction of the boss and coworkers broadcast a message of trust, respect, belief in, and value.
Elves receive lots of positive feedback and recognition. Not only do elves receive droves of thank you letters from happy children everywhere, they receive positive feedback from Santa every day. Then you’ll have a work environment in which every employee is happy, recognized, and valued.

Thank you Susan M. Heathfield for this cleaver analogy of an elf-friendly workplace.

ISSUE 843
10 POSITIVE WORK GOALS
FOR THE NEW YEAR
Series 18 Article 11

Welcome the end of the year and the start of a New Year with events and employee activities that set the stage for a happy, prosperous New Year for both your employees and your business.

1. Review the past year. Oftentimes we forget to recognize our own successes before moving on to the next big thing. Think about what worked for you last year and what did not, then start thinking about what you’d like to do differently this year.

2. Set goals for the new year. Really think about where you ultimately want to be in your career and set a plan that will get you there. Encourage goal setting at both the individual and departmental level. Employees need to see where their job and goals fit in the bigger picture. Keep the atmosphere positive, uplifting, and forward-looking. Have a lunch or cocktail hour to celebrate the goals and prospects for the New Year.

3. Review your mission, vision, and values or guiding principles at the departmental level to ascertain that all employees are on the same page. Do it as a group and ask questions such as: what does the company vision mean for you and for your job? Which of the company values are most important to you and why?

4. Divide your employees into groups at tables and give them a pile of pipe cleaners. Then ask each group to build an object that portrays the organization’s mission, goals, values or guiding principles. It’s silly and fun, but what employees come up with will amaze you.

5. Provide lunch for the whole company, a department or a work team. Provide comfortable collaboration spaces with couches, snacks, and beverages. Assign employees to various work groups to thoughtfully discuss and respond to work-related questions.

6. Schedule employees to visit another department for a “take an employee to work day”. Employees are always curious about what other employees do. Satisfy their interest and introduce the employees to a whole new work group in the process.

7. The opportunity to observe in another department allows employees to participate in team building that enhances cross-department cooperation and understanding. It also offers employees the chance to explore another career path.

8. Create commitment notes signed by all of your employees that set out the company’s desired relationship with customers. Post them on your website, email them to customers and clients, and so forth—then live it.

9. The new year is a joyous time to tell your employees and your coworkers that you care about them. Build employee morale and appreciate employee contributions pass you by. Your abundance will overflow to bolster your relationships with your customers and clients. Seize the opportunities inherent in the season to delight employees and cement positive business relationships that will last all year—and for many years.

10. Omit the negative and be positive. Omitting the negative means learning from the inevitable negative experiences you will encounter without dwelling on them or letting them consume the valuable real estate in your head. Tough times do not last; tough people do.

ISSUES 845-849
START 2018 WITH
A CLEAN COMPUTER

PART 1 - CLEANING
YOUR HARDWARE
Series 2, Article 18

Regularly cleaning your computer hardware will ensure that it’s always at the top of its game. Here is a checklist we’ve put together for you:

Hardware
Your hardware can get grubby quickly. Get out those microfiber cloths and compressed air cans. Dusty and animal fur love to attach themselves to all things electrical.

Keyboard and Mouse
You have your hands over your keyboard and mouse all the time, so they’re bound to get dirty. Make sure to unplug your keyboard and mouse. If they’re wireless then take out the batteries.

For your keyboard, turn it upside down and give it some shakes to clear any debris. If you have a tiny vacuum or a compressed air can, that helps too. Use disinfectant wipes to clean the surfaces of your keyboard and mouse.

Monitor
Your monitor is extremely delicate, unlike the boxy old screens with glass fronts. You should never use a purely alcohol-based spray because this might strip some of the monitor’s coatings. You should also never use a standard cloth or paper towel because these aren’t smooth. Even rubbing a bit of dust round with these could cause scratches on the monitor. Always use a microfiber cloth and distilled water only (you can add white vinegar too). Apply light pressure only. Before beginning, turn your monitor off at the plug and let it cool down.

Components
The inside of your computer needs cleaning, too. This is because dust can clog up the fans or damage the circuits. How often you choose to do this will vary, depending on factors like where your system is kept and whether you have pets. Generally speaking, you should clean it out every 8 months or so.
To begin, switch off your computer, let it cool down, and move it to an open area that is well ventilated. It’s important to ground yourself and open up your case. Next, grab a can of compressed air and use short, strong bursts to blow the dust out of the case. Static electricity is the number one computer hardware killer, and its everywhere!

If you’re cleaning a fan, hold it in place so that it doesn’t spin. Spinning the fans the wrong way can damage them, but it’ll also make it easier to clean if they’re static.
If there’s some dirt that refuses to budge, you can use a high quality soft brush to get rid of it. Providing you’re comfortable doing so, you can also remove the components to get a better angle on them and give them a proper clean. Do this ONLY if you are familiar with replacing computer parts.

PART 2 - CLEANING
WINDOWS 10 SOFTWARE
Series 2, Article 19

Over time, every Windows installation builds up excess stuff that just wastes space. Files and programs that we fail to clean up contribute to the problem. Unless you step in, you will soon encounter a low disk space warning or a computer.

Clean Useless Files
When cleaning up temporary files on your PC, you have two main options: the built-in Windows Disk Cleanup and CCleaner. Since they have different strengths, however, they can be used in harmony. Do not download a fishy third party tool to reclaim valuable disk space! Windows has its own tools for the job and they are easy to use.

Disk Cleanup
The Disk Cleanup utility is part of Windows. You can access it by typing Disk Cleanup into the Start Menu. Give it a few minutes to analyze the system and it will present you with a list of items for review.

You can remove most of the items without thought. Make sure to click the Clean system files button first to view everything that can be removed! You might want to hold off on cleaning the Windows ESD installation files option though. Removing this saves space, but you will not be able to reset your computer using the PC Refresh feature without Windows 10 installation media.

CCleaner
If you want to go further, using CCleaner is your best option. This trusted utility cleans many more applications than the built-in Windows tool. Open it up and use the Cleaner tab on the left to get an overview of everything you can remove.

Review the checkboxes that CCleaner selects by default before using it. Some options, like removing thumbnails, aren’t necessary because Windows will re-create them when you access the files again. Use the Analyze button to find out how much space each category is taking up. Choose Clean when you’re ready to delete those files.

CCleaner also has an option for cleaning the registry. Don’t do this! Even a trusted registry cleaner like CCleaner is useless at best, as removing hundreds of registry “errors” won’t improve performance at all, and you’re more likely to break something with the excess cleaning than help anything.

Clean Large Files
Once you’ve removed junk system files, the next step is to analyze installed apps and programs. TreeSize Free (only download this from CNet) can help you identify the folders that take up the most space on your system.

Scan for Large Items
Open up TreeSize and click Scan on the top bar. You can choose to scan any or all of your drives. After a few minutes, TreeSize will show you everything on your system, arranged by the largest files first.

Your largest folder will probably be your Windows folder. Leave this alone! The Program Files and User folders will be the next largest.

Eliminate Large Items No Longer Needed
Once TreeSize identifies the Program software on your computer, determine if you want to delete any of them that you are no longer using. Go to Apps and Features in your computer Settings, then right-click and choose Uninstall.

Last is your personal folder under Users. This is where Windows stores all of our personal files, including images and video. To clean up space from your own folder, move large files to an external hard drive, or delete old stuff you don’t need.

PART 3 - CLEANING
WINDOWS 10 SOFTWARE
Series 2, Article 20

We’ve cleaned up temporary files and gotten rid of user data we don’t need. The next step is to remove pre-installed bloatware. Whether “recommended” Windows 10 Modern apps or manufacturer-installed junk, removing this is a great step anytime you install Windows or take a big cleaning run. You shouldn't have to put up with advertising in your operating system. Windows 10 features a few ads and promotions. I'll show you where to find and how to get rid of them.

1. On the Lock Screen
If you’re using Windows spotlight on your lock screen, a feature that displays high quality images from Microsoft’s library, then you may occasionally be greeted with an advert when you come to unlock your system. Rather than a nice nature scene appearing on your screen, past examples include images for the video game Rise of the Tomb Raider and the film Minions. The Windows 10 lock screen is more than a stylish display to cover the login screen. Sadly, you either have to put up with these adverts or stop using Windows spotlight entirely. If the latter option is for you, press Windows key + I to open Settings and then navigate to Personalization > Lock screen.

From here, use the dropdown beneath Background to select either Picture or Slideshow. You can then customize as appropriate. If you want to make sure you don’t even get links to Store apps, slide Get fun facts, tips, tricks and more on your lock screen to Off.

2. On the Start Menu
The Start Menu is one of the worst offenders for adverts as they appear in two places.

Live Tiles
The current Start Menu has five tiles that display promoted applications by default. These might be pre-installed applications or links to Windows Store downloads. In an upcoming update to Windows 10, the number of these tiles are going to double to 10. For Microsoft, Windows 10 is a cash machine. With future updates, more apps will be pre-installed and promoted on the Start Menu.

It’s a nuisance, but simple to deal with. For pre-installed apps, right-click the tile and select Uninstall. For Windows Store links, right-click the tile and select Unpin from Start. These won’t reappear once you’ve removed them, unless a future update forces them back.

All Apps
When scrolling through your list of programs you might come across applications that are listed as being Suggested. These are placed by Microsoft — rather than the application developer — who is basing its suggestions on other apps that you’ve downloaded.

If you see an app suggestion you want gone, right-click it and select “Don’t show this suggestion” or “Turn off all suggestions”. Alternatively, if you want to be proactive and turn these off before even seeing them, press Windows key + I to load Settings and navigate to Personalization > Start. Once here, turn “Occasionally show suggestions” in Start to “Off”.

PART 4 - REMOVING
PRE-INSTALLED APPS
Series 2, Article 21

The current version of Windows 10, the November Update, comes with 17 pre-installed Microsoft apps, including 3D Builder, Photos, and Mail. On top of that, five apps are promoted on the Start Menu: Candy Crush, Flipbook, Minecraft, Photoshop Express, and Twitter. Three of the promoted apps only deep-link to the Windows Store, while two others, most famously Candy Crush, come pre-installed.

Removing Windows 10 Apps
Never one to pass up an opportunity to promote their own products, Microsoft included a number of promotional apps within Windows 10. These include Get Office and Get Skype.

Not only will you find these on your Start Menu, but you may also get notifications about them. To get rid of the notifications, press Windows key + I to open Settings and navigate to System > Notifications & actions and then slide the offending apps to Off.

However, let’s go one step further and rid these promotional apps completely. Press Windows key + Iand then navigate to System > Apps & features. This will bring up a list of all apps installed on your system. Either you can do a search for an app or you might just want to scroll through them all and clear out the clutter while you’re here. Click an app and then select Uninstall to remove it.

Windows Games
Gone are the days where you could play a simple game of Solitaire without being bothered by advertisements. Now it includes adverts! Microsoft Solitaire Collection comes preinstalled with Windows 10 and serves up a variety of adverts, from banner ads to full-screen videos. Sadly, to remove these adverts you’ll have to pay and upgrade to a Premium membership -- $1.49 per month or $10 for a year, per app. To to this, launch the game and go to Menu > Upgrade to Premium.
Alternatively, you could download similar applications from the Store. Or you can Google “Winaero’s guide” to find out how to run the Windows 7 games within Windows 10.

Removing the Apps from a List
The best way to remove all the apps is by using Windows X App Remover. In addition, if you have Windows 10 Professional, Enterprise, or Education, you can turn off the Microsoft Consumer Experience via Group Policy. Simply press Windows + R to open the Run menu, enter gpedit.msc, and hit Enter to launch the Local Group Policy Editor. Head to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Cloud Content, open Turn off Microsoft consumer experience, set it to Enabled, and click OK to save your changes.

And They May Sneak Back In
Although we do hope that Microsoft will respect a user’s choice to remove promotional Start Menu tiles, we suspect those tiles will sneak back in, if Microsoft becomes desperate enough.
Removing pre-installed apps is easy enough. The Microsoft Consumer Experience, however, could ensure that you will continue to see app promotions on your Start Menu on the Windows Home version, but at least they won’t be clogging up your system.

PART 5 - REMOVING
PRE-INSTALLED APPS
Series 2, Article 22

You will be amazed how much a tidy desktop makes things easier to find, increases efficiency, and is less stressful to look at. Here are some tips on how to organize your desktop so that everything you need is on your fingertips, and yet not in your way.

Move Your Most-Used Programs (apps) to the Taskbar
The “Task Bar” is the bar at the bottom of your screen. I only recommend this for apps that you use on a daily basis. This would include items such as your favorite Browser, File Explorer, Word, Excel, Photoshop, QuickBooks, your Music App, Skype, or others you may use on a daily or weekly basis.

To pin an app to the Taskbar:
Find the app shortcut on your desktop or by clicking on the “Start button”, then right-click on the app and select “Pin to Taskbar”. Once pinned, apps can be dragged left and right so they are organized according to type.

If you run out of room on the taskbar, right-click the taskbar and select “Settings”. You can then make the app icons in the bar smaller.

Move Folder Shortcuts to Quick Access
The Quick Access feature is one of the better refinements in Windows 10’s File Explorer (formerly called Windows Explorer). Whereas the Start Menu and Taskbar are great for consolidating app shortcuts, Quick Access is where you should put all folder shortcuts.

Open up File Explorer (using keyboard shortcut Windows + E) and look in the left sidebar to see a section called Quick Access. Think of it like folder bookmarks: You can pin folders here and instantly access from anywhere in File Explorer.

To pin a folder to Quick Access:
Navigate to the folder you want to pin, right-click on the folder, and the select “Pin to Quick Access”.
Be sure to have “File Explorer” pinned to the Taskbar for convenience. (See step 1 above.)

Or Bypass the Need for Shortcuts With a Launcher
If you really want to clean up clutter all across your system, then you may want to forego the above alternatives and use an on-demand launcher instead. You have two options for this.
The first option is the Start Menu + Cortana. Open the Start Menu, and then search for the file or app you want. You can also use voice-activated Cortana if you have her set up.
The second option is to install Wox. At any time, you can hit Alt + Space to open Wox, then type any app, file, or folder to launch it instantly.

Or Here’s a Clean Way to Keep your Shortcuts on Your Desktop
If you don’t like any of the above suggestions, and you really want to keep shortcuts on your desktop, you can use “Fences”. (I personally have my most-used Apps in my Taskbar, and my most-used files in Fences.)
With Fences, you can create sections on your desktop for organizing your shortcuts. Fences are boxes you create on your desktop. You create a title for the box and then put the pertinent folders and files in that box. I LOVE IT! Fences can be minimized so they just show the title until you mouse over them.
You can download Fences by googling “

ISSUE 850
6 Email Marketing
Tips for the New Year
Series 9, Article 8

You probably already have an Email Marketing System, and if you don’t, choose one and get started now. The top 3 are iContact, Constant Contact, and MailChimp. (Google all three to get comparisons of their features.)

1. Plan, plan, plan
Get ahead of the game and plan out potential marketing opportunities to guide you month to month. It’s best to have an idea of what you’re going to send, instead of scrambling at the last minute. An idea would be: an article one week, a coupon the next week, a video the next week, a funny meme the next. Then calendar in the holidays with special items to send too.

2. Be Consistent
Make 2018 the year you finally establish a consistent email marketing schedule. When you send at the same time every week or month, your subscribers come to expect your email and look forward to it.

And, if you invest the time to create a reusable email template, you can create an email in minutes. Create your master template, then choose an optimal time to send based on what’s worked well for you in the past. Take a look at your email reports to see if any day or time gives you especially strong results.

3. Contact Management
Contact management is a crucial part of email marketing. Just like organizing your closet, you want to start by getting rid of things that no longer serve you, such as bounced contacts. Targeting subscribers with the right message at the right time is far more useful than just blasting subscribers with your marketing messages.
Create a number of different email lists so you can target people with specific messages that match their interests. Customize your sign-up form so new subscribers can select what kind of information they want to receive from you.

4. Always Ask for Emails
Contacts are the lifeline of your business. Build your email list everywhere you can. Here are some ways to get email addresses:

1. Website signup forms through your Email Marketing Company.
2. Use ListBuilder, an app you can have on your phone or tablet that automatically adds them to your Email Marketing Program.
3. If at a conference or event (whether you are the speaker or not), you can create a printable sign-up form and get emails from people as you speak to them. Don’t ask, “Will you sign up on my mailing list?” Rather approach people with, “Would you like me to send you free coupons/tips/articles/etc. on [the subject of your choice]?”

5. Be Creative!
You don’t have to be a designer to create beautiful, eye-catching visuals for your marketing emails. The Email Marketing Company you use will have a ton of templates and ideas for you. Be sure to use a lot of visual.

6. Use Your Analytics
Again, the program you choose will have analytics. If you don’t check to see which campaigns are getting attention, you won’t know how to focus in the future. These reporting tools tell you how many people opened and clicked on your email and which devices people are reading it from.

It’s time to get with the program! Digital marketing is not going away and if you don’t hop on the bus, you will the party!

ISSUE 851
GREAT APPS FOR
PHOTO ENHANCING
Series 14, Article 41

#1: Remove and Insert Photo Backgrounds With Pixomatic
If you market physical products, the ability to remove backgrounds in product photos and insert clean, white, or branded backgrounds is important. With the Pixomatic app, you can do this even with limited photo editing skills. The app is available for both iOS($4.99) and Android (free with in-app purchases).

#2: Enhance Photo Quality With Snapseed
Google’s Snapseed (free for iOS and Android) is one of the most popular photo editing apps available. It offers a wide range of features to improve your smartphone photos, whether you’re a photography novice or expert. For quick and easy editing, try any of the filters in the Looks section. And for more advanced editing, tap on Tools for a full range of features.

#3: Add Logos With iWatermark+
If you need to brand your designs and videos with logos, try the iWatermark+ app, available for both iOS ($4.99) and Android ($3.99). It lets you add watermark logos to photos and videos. You can also store multiple logos inside the app, which is helpful if you produce visual content for more than one business.

#4: Create Designs Like a Pro With Adobe Spark Post
Whether you have design skills or not, Adobe Spark Post makes you look like you know what you’re doing! It’s available for free for iOS. If you’re an Android user, you can sign up for beta testing.

There are two timesaving features in this app. First, you can easily produce your social media designs without having to Google specific pixel sizes. The app does the work for you. Swipe left to find even more output sizes for your designs.

Second, the app will save your templates. So if you’ve already created some designs in this app, you can duplicate them for future designs and/or sizes. This allows you to quickly produce consistent designs with your branding already intact for all social media platforms.

#5: Design On the Go With Canva
Are you a Canva user yet? If not, make sure to download the free computer app and smartphone app (iOS and Android). Although the design app is fairly basic, you can access your desktop designs and make edits on the go.

#6: Produce Eye-Catching Videos With Quik
Looking for an easy but professional way to get into video marketing? Try the free Quikapp (iOS and Android). It combines smartphone photos and videos into some of the flashiest eye-catching slideshows out there.

When you open the app, you can select multiple photos and videos. Quik will automatically combine them into an animated slideshow.

#7: Resize Videos and Photos to Various Aspect Ratios With InShot
Whether it’s content for Instagram Stories or a Facebook ad, being able to create photos and videos in the correct social media size is more important than ever. That’s where the free InShot app (iOS and Android) comes in super-handy. It will reformat a photo or video to almost any size you desire.

Tip: Smartphone-edited photos and videos can turn out to be very large. How do you reduce size without compromising quality? If you have an iOS device, run them through the Video Compress and Photo Compress apps (free with in-app purchases).

ISSUE 852
SECURE YOUR
SOCIAL MEDIA INFORMATION
Series 16 Article 2

Limit the information you share on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social media sites are part of most people's everyday lives. On Facebook, people post their maiden names, their parents' names, their birthdays, the birthdays of their children, their hometowns, their home address, their home, and cell phone numbers, along with myriad other personal information. This information gives anyone with a computer just about every essential piece of information about you. Limit what you share online to protect your identity and privacy.

Sharing too many details on social media sites can put you in physical danger as well. Letting the internet know where you live and when you will not be at home may lead to someone breaking into your house - especially when they see all the photos of your new TV, computers, and jewelry. Too many personal details, like your home address, phone number, and daily whereabouts and habits, gives stalkers plenty of information to use against you.

Many secure sites, like banking, insurance, loan, and school websites, require security questions. These questions include: "What is your mother's maiden name?", "What is your paternal grandmother/father's name?", "What town did you grow up in?", or "What is your father's birthday?" These answers can be found easily on some people's Facebook pages. Sharing this kind of information can result in identity theft. Choose harder questions only you know the answer to.

Don't give your full name, address, or phone number to anyone online that you don't trust or know. This is especially important in chat rooms, when negotiating jobs or deals, or making plans through meet-up sites.

Be careful when making friends on the internet. Many great friendships can be cultivated through social media, but there are many people who pretend to be someone they are not.

Practice caution when dating online. Use only your first name, and never give out specific personal details, no matter how great the other person seems. When you finally decide to meet, always meet in busy public places, like a restaurant or coffee shop. Let other people know where you are going, and never let them pick you up or go back to their place.

Don't give money to people you have met online.

Giving personal details to strangers not only compromises your accounts and identity, but your physical safety as well. While most people on the internet may be benign and friendly, you have to be aware of the possibility of people using chat rooms, social media, and other websites to collect information that could lead to physical harm at your place of employment or at home.

Always check the legitimacy of websites when you shop. If the site has a messy design or pop ups, it might not be legitimate. Beware of sites that don't allow you to pay through things like PayPal or with a credit card. When shopping on sites like Craigslist, practice caution.

If you don’t want everyone to know about something, do not post it. Others can share your status or photos, or save them and send to whomever they choose. Complaints about work or other people are likely to get back to your employer or the other person, and that can hurt your job or your social life.

If you have any doubts about whether a comment or photo is appropriate for public viewing, it is best not to post it.

ISSUE 853
BEING SECURE
ONLINE
Series 16, Article 3

Personal contact information such as addresses and phone numbers could help potential burglars or stalkers locate you much more easily. A photo of you standing next to your Christmas tree with your new TV, diamond bracelet, and stereo system is a great advertisement for burglars. Identity theft is made simpler by every piece of information the thief can obtain.

Do not post pictures of checks or credit cards. A friend of mine posted a photo of her check to her bank and stated “My last car payment!” Well, now thieves have your routing number and account number, along with the way your name appears on your checks, and a beautiful sample of how you sign your name.

Do not make comments about your finances, even in general. “Just got a huge raise” or “Just won $50K on the lottery!” Keep that information to yourself. Besides, in the end, you will be much happier if no friends and relatives call for favors.

Do not post comments about going out of town for the night or week. It will give others an idea of when your house will be empty.

Do not post photos while on vacation, as again, potential burglars will be able to tell they have time to pay your home an unwanted visit.

Consider avoiding “checking in” to places when you go out for the evening, as this is also a record of when you aren’t home.

Do not post information that could give crooks information about your “password hints”. Some common ones include your mother’s maiden name, your first pet’s name, or the name of the street you grew up on.

And here’s the biggie….Passwords.

When choosing a password, you want to make sure you choose one that is unique, strong, and not easily guessed by strangers or those close to you. Choose a password that uses letters, numbers, lowercase, uppercase, and characters.

Here are some ideas:

Choosing password or 1234 is lazy - and easily guessable.
Choosing birthdays of those close to you (or yourself) is probably also not safe.
The longer your password is, the harder it will be to guess.
Also try leaving out letters, or substituting numbers for letters.
Full dictionary words are easier to guess than ones with intentional letter substitutions.
Try passwords that reference phrases or things significant only to you. For example, if the name of your beloved childhood goldfish was Sir Bubbles, swap out some of the letters for numbers and you can end up with a very nice password like s1rbubb735 that only you understand.
Make sure to choose passwords that are easily remembered or you can write them down and keep them in your safe. If you write down your passwords, don't leave them in plain sight. Don't keep them on your computer desk by your computer.
Never use the same password for different accounts. If you don’t want to come up with and keep track of dozens of different passwords, come up with a base password (ex. s1rbubb735) and tack a logical modifier onto it for each account. For example, on Amazon, use amzns1rbubb735; on Gmail, use gmails1rbubb735 or for Twitter twitts1rbubb735.
You can also use a service like LastPass.com to securely save your passwords online.

ISSUE 854
BE SECURITY-AWARE
Series 16, Article 4

Be diligent about online security and understand the risks. After all, 2017 was a banner year for cybercrime.

1. Use an anti-virus program and anti-spyware program. Surfing the internet without these things is unsafe and invites spam, hackers, and viruses onto your computer. Equip your PC with a powerful antivirus software to secure your computer from all the virus, malware, and threats. Make sure your antivirus offers all the features required for your PC security and performance, including security engines, anti-phishing, anti-ransomware, anti-malware, and a clean up and speed-up feature. Keep your software automatically updating so you it can catch the latest threats. These threats make you vulnerable to identity theft and invasions of privacy, but they also can significantly bog down your computer and slow your processor. Keep up to date. Keep all your software updated so you have the latest security patches. Turn on automatic updates so you don’t have to think about it, and make sure that your security software is set to run regular scans.

2. Use a firewall. A firewall is hardware or software that creates a barrier between your network and the outside cyber world, allowing only certain data to cross. Be sure the connections are all secure including devices like smart thermostats and webcams. Any of these devices can give hackers a vulnerable point of entry to your entire network. You can use the firewall that comes standard with your operating system.

3. Boost Your Network Security in order to make your connections at home and office are secure. Use a password-protected router that encrypts your data.

4. Whether at home or out on the town, be sure you’re using a secure Wi-Fi connection. Spoiler alert, your local Starbucks’ or airport’s Wi-Fi network don’t pass this test. When you’re on the road, you might be tempted to use free, public Wi-Fi. The problem with public Wi-Fi is that it is often unsecured. This means it’s relatively easy for a hacker to access your device or information. That’s why you should consider investing in a Virtual Private Network (VPN). A VPN is a piece of software that creates a secure connection over the internet, so you can safely connect from anywhere.

5. When shopping online, or visiting websites for online banking or other sensitive transactions, always make sure that the site’s address starts with “https”, instead of just “http”, and has a padlock icon in the URL field. That “s” stands for “secure.” Also, be on the lookout for websites that have misspellings or bad grammar in their addresses. They could be copycats of legitimate websites.

6. Stop auto filling. Don’t save sensitive personal information all over the web. Allowing various sites to remember your credit card or home address is not safe.

7. Sign up for text and email alerts to stay informed about important activity on your bank and credit card accounts.

8. Always have your important files backed up. You can use either an extra hard drive to store your data or online file storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox or Apple’s iCloud.

9. Beware of sweet offers lying in your mailbox or on a web banner. Phishing is another favorite of attackers to steal personal information, or even get control of a PC. A website banner saying “Get free iPhone X. Limited time!” may still be a good bait to lure victims. Remember, if an offer is too good to be true, then it usually is NOT true! You can be tricked into revealing personal or sensitive information for fraudulent purposes. Spam emails, phony “free” offers, click bait, online quizzes and more all use these tactics to entice you to click on dangerous links or give up your personal information. Always be wary of offers that sound too good to be true, or ask for too much information.

This year, undoubtedly, will have more security events coming, so if you haven’t been hit yet, get ahead of the game and put these security measures in place.

ISSUES 855 & 856
KEEPING HACKERS OFF
YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT
Series 16 Article 5-6

If you are like millions out there, Facebook has become your no. 1 website on the Web. As you login to it every single day from many devices, be it from your mobile phone, computer, laptop and office workstation, there is a chance that you may leave your Facebook account on without logging out. If your account gets accessed by strangers, it’s going to open up a large can of worms, so you should seriously try to prevent unwanted access to your account.

There are many ways to prevent access to your account by the next person to use the device, the easiest of which is to log out. However if your smartphone or device gets stolen, it’s a whole different matter. In this article, we will go through some important options you can take to prevent others from accessing your personal Facebook account.

1. Activate Secure Browsing
Among other things, to make sure your browsing activity within Facebook is safe, you can turn on the Secure browsing option. By doing this, you automatically limit all external applications that are integrated with Facebook from doing any harm or taking your personal information without your knowledge or approval.
To start securing your account, click on the drop down menu from the top right corner of your Facebook account and go to Account Settings/Security/Secure Browsing/Edit then ‘check’ the box Browse Facebook on a secure connection then click on the Save Changes button.

2. Activate ‘Login Approvals’
Login approvals is an extended security feature offered by Facebook, and it will require you to enter a security code each time you try to access your Facebook account from unrecognized devices. To activate Login Approvals, go to Account Settings > Security, look for Login Approvals and click on the Edit button, and check box for activate Login Approvals, then a popup window will appear with descriptions of login approvals, click on the Set Up Now button to continue. If you already register your mobile number, Facebook will automatically send you a code via SMS. Enter this code in the given box and click Submit Code.

Now you have completed with Login Approvals request, click Next to continue. Next, Facebook will offer you to setup a Code Generator from your mobile phone; this is useful in case you are unable to receive SMS. Click Continue.

Code Generator for Android phones: Download the Facebook Mobile App from Google Play if you don’t already have it. After downloading it to your mobile, click “Next”.
Once downloaded, Facebook will provide instructions to install the Code Generator. To install, launch your Facebook App, tap on menu > Account > Code Generator > Add App. Then click on Finish Setup below.

Now that your Code Generator is active, Facebook will guide you with the correct steps to use the code generator. Next time when you want to generate a new code, simply launch your app, tap on Account > Code Generator and the code will appear. For now, click Close as you have completed the steps to activate your Login Approvals.

3. Create Strong Password
Chances are, you already have your password created for Facebook however it is advisable for you to make sure your Facebook password is one of a kind and different from your other online accounts like email, bank, etc.

To change your password, go to Account Settings > General > Password The best passwords would have the combination of small and capital letters, numbers and symbols.

4. Confirm your mobile number
Confirming your mobile number is one of many ways to enhance your account security on Facebook. This way, even when you lose or forget your password, Facebook will be able to send you a new one via SMS.

To add your mobile number, go to Account Settings > Mobile and click on Add a Phone. Now your mobile phone is registered with Facebook, and when the need arises, this connection will be useful to reactivate your Facebook account.

5. Disconnect Previous Active Sessions
The good thing about Facebook is that it lets you know about your previous active sessions, where you login from, and what devices you used to access your Facebook account. Now to make sure your account is safe, from the Account Settings > Security page, look for ‘Active Sessions‘ and click on Edit.

Now all previous sessions will be listed, together with the current active session at the top of the list. Click on the link ‘End Activity‘ to kill the activities from other devices.

6. Activate Private Browsing
Another way to prevent another person from accessing your account is by activating the ‘Private Browsing’ option from your browsers. All browsers have this private browsing option, and by activating this option, your activity will not be logged into the browsing history.

If you are using the Safari Browser on Mac, activate Private Browsing from the menu with Safari > Private Browsing. For Firefox, go to Tools > Start Private Browsing. If you are using Chrome, there’s an option to browse using the Incognito window, it’s a version of Chrome window where all browsing activity will not be logged in. To open this window, go to File > New Incognito Window.

7. Don’t ‘Keep Me Logged In’
The moment you want to login to your Facebook account, at the Log In page, there’s a small checkbox that says Keep me logged in. Make sure this box is unchecked.

Then, log in as usual. With this on, you will be asked for your email and password every time you launch Facebook.

8. Avoid Spam Links
Facebook is serious about spam and is always enhancing its features to make sure you are safe from being a victim to scams. The types of attacks include money scams through direct or indirect requests via Facebook messages, chat etc, phishing links that will redirect you to fake websites, malicious links that could retrieve your
personal information or even harm your computer. There are also chances you may receive emails from ‘Facebook’ but it is actually from a phishing website, this modus operandi is part of a scam.

9. Sign Out after use
Lastly, which is the most important of all (and definitely worth repeating), never forget to log out from your Facebook account.

ISSUES 857 & 858
SEO MYTHS 2018
PARTS 1 & 2
Series 4, Article 79 & 80

Myth #1: A homepage needs a ton of content.

Have you ever come across a homepage littered with copy? Or, on the opposite spectrum, a homepage with barely any content at all?

Your homepage content should be long enough to clarify who you are, what you do, where you’re located, the product and service you provide, and what visitors should do next. These visitors should leave satisfied, not overwhelmed or underwhelmed – and certainly not confused.

Myth #2: Keywords are the key to SEO.

It used to be important that you write your content with exact matches of your keyword.

Now, Google uses “RankBrain”, which is its machine-learning algorithm. Amplified by the rise of mobile and voice search, queries have become more and more conversational. A few years ago, many people entered fragmented terms into search engines. Now, it’s more common for people to ask complex questions using full sentences which changes the importance to topic-focused SEO.

Myth #3: Keywords must be an exact match.

Keywords do not need to be repeated verbatim throughout a piece of content. In a headline, in particular, you want to use a keyword (or keywords) in a way that makes the most sense to your audience. The goal should be to write a stellar headline (somewhere between 4-9 words) that clearly explains what the piece of content is about.

This rule applies not only to headlines, but also the content on the page. Keyword stuffing (the act of stuffing as many keywords on a page as possible) will be noticed by Google and you will be penalized. Write your content with your customers in mind, not your need to impress Google.

Myth #4: You must add as many links as possible to each page.

In the past, adding as many links as possible would rank you higher in the search engines. All of this has changed. Nowadays, it is important to focus on the quality of links you are obtaining, rather than the quantity.

Myth #5: I only need a secure site (HTTPS encrypted) if I have an online store.

Have you ever noticed that some URLs start with “http://” while others start with “https://”? Perhaps you noticed that extra “s” when you were browsing websites that require giving over sensitive information, like when you were paying bills online.

To put it simply, the extra “s” means your connection to that website is encrypted so hackers can’t intercept any of your data. The technology that powers that little “s” is called SSL, which stands for Secure Sockets Layer.

In October of 2017, this changed. Google now gives higher ranking to sites that have an SSL certificate.

Myth #6: Meta descriptions have a huge impact on search rankings.

Meta descriptions do not affect search rankings, however they are very important for click-throughs. Imagine you search for a topic on Google. 10 websites are then presented to you on the first page of your search. The first 3 have horrible descriptions that don’t seem to be what you’re looking for. You (like everyone) will look down the list until there is a concise and clear description that fits your search. That is the one that gets clicked on.

Myth #7: Pop-ups will always hurt my search ranking.

As inbound marketers, we care about creating lovable experiences for our
website visitors – and, at the same time, we also want to generate leads for our sales teams. To help generate these leads, many marketers have put pop-up forms on their website pages.

As of August of 2016, Google announced that will penalize websites with “intrusive pop-ups”. Google doesn’t penalize all pop-ups -- just the ones that get in the way of a user’s ability to easily access the content on the page when they search on mobile. The key is to have only a couple pertinent pages with pop-ups, and to turn off your pop-ups for mobile.

Myth #8: The <H1> header tag is the most important element on a page.

The <h1> header tag in HTML, usually the title of a post or page, is important for the reader to know what you post or page is about. Because search engines are getting smarter these days, they realize that most web designers use <H1> tags for styling type sizes, and therefore your <H1> are not as important.

Myth #9: Images don’t need optimization.

For a long time, it was okay to neglect the images on your site and still rank without using alt text and image file names to boost your page relevance. Onpage SEO is more important than ever now. Name your image files something that is indicative of what the image is itself, rather than something like IMG2394870.jpg. Yes, keywords matter
here!

Myth #10: The more pages on my website, the better.

Logically, you would think that the larger the footprint of your website, the better you would rank – but that’s simply not true. Unfortunately, those who strive to have lots of pages on their website also tend to overlook the quality of that content. If you don’t have good content, you will not rank well and all those pages you created won’t help your cause.

Myth #11: It doesn’t really matter if my site works on mobile phones.

In the spring of 2015, Google had a algorithm update called “Mobilegeddon,” which expanded Google’s use of mobilefriendliness as a ranking signal. The update
rewards mobile-friendly websites and penalizes those that aren’t fully optimized
for mobile in mobile search results.

ISSUE 859
FREE AND PAID
ONLINE ADVERTISING
Series 5, Article 3

What is Free Online Advertising?

Free online advertising are tools that you can make use of with no actual cost attached to them. This includes tools that can increase your website traffic and crawl your website and index it in search engines. Some of these tools help build back links and a referral network. All of this increases exposure of your brand and your reach and costs you only your time to input the information.

Free tools include:
Website indexing directories
Search engine submission websites
Blog directories
Affiliate networks like Google’s AdSense, and Amazon and eBay’s Partner Network

What is Paid Online Advertising?

Paid media or advertising, as it implies, comes with a price tag attached. Most examples involve:

Online partnerships
Website banner takeovers
Pay-per-click advertising
Paid search engine results
Pop-Up Ads
Facebook Ads
Twitter Ads
LinkedIn Ads
Google Plus Ads

Typically, most people understand paid advertising in today’s world as pay-per-click (PPC). Examples of PPC are Google Adwords, Facebook and Twitter advertising. With PPC, you pay for your advert only when someone clicks on it.

What is the difference between Free and Paid Online Advertising?

With paid online advertising, there is a higher level of control. It allows you a higher degree of customizability with targeting keywords or to specific demographics on social networks. PPC, in general, allows you to do this and is more cost effective than other forms of paid advertising. This is because you’re directly attracting your niche/target audience. PPC is also easily measurable and you get a stronger indication of your ROI (Return-on-investment).

Free online advertising is great for a business as it helps with organic reach and ranking naturally on search engine results. If you have more time than money, the free tools are wonderful! Just Google the free tools above along with the words “step by step instructions” and you’ll find many articles explaining how to take advantage of free advertising. It will take time, a lot of it, but once it’s all set up you will have some great forms of advertising that cost no money out of pocket.

Free is great, but to get the quickest results for brand exposure, then paid online advertising is the way to go.

ISSUE 860
12 WAYS TO PROMOTE
YOUR WEBSITE
Series 5, Article 4

According to Kristin Edelhauser and Entrepreneur Magazine, the advertising of the future is going online--and going local. Consumers are using the internet to navigate their way to local brick-and-mortar retailers. In fact, online searches influence 20 to 30 percent of purchases made at retail locations. Here are some ways to promote your website!

1. Google AdWords
Helps you target local online customers by setting your pay-per-click ads to appear only when people search a particular city, state or region.

2. Yahoo! Local Listings
Local Listings will promote your business to customers looking for information in Yahoo! Local. Choose from three different plans (one is free) to meet your company's needs.

3. CitySearch
CitySearch offers online advertising tools to easily open your account manage your daily results and receive ad placement on MSN, Yahoo!, Google and Ask.com. Similar to the idea of pay-per-click advertising, CitySearch offers two paid plans, "Web Connect" and "Call Connect."

4. Craigslist
Craigslist gets an estimated 10 million unique visitors per day. With an online classified ad format organized by region or city, Craigslist connects buyers and sellers in more than 300 communities; for the most part, posting on the site is free.

5. MerchantCircle.com
This free site offers a local business listing service that allows you to better manage your online reputation and become more visible in search engine results.

6. Dotster
A web domain registration and hosting company offering a local web advertising package called "Local Site Promotion." You set your monthly budget and Dotster will make your ad visible on all the major search engines.

7. Local.com
Gives you access to their 10 million-plus monthly customers. Choose from a free basic listing or pay-per-click options.

8. ReachLocal
This site provides a central location for businesses to set-up, maintain and track local search advertising campaigns.

9. RegisterLocal
Costs $199.95 per year -- allows you to create a master profile which they submit to search engines and directories on your behalf.

10. TrueLocal
This local search engine features full-text searching and offers advertising opportunities for businesses. Currently indexing more than 13 million local businesses -- starts at $1 per month.

11. YellowPages.com
YellowPages.com is a large online local directory site featuring city guides and advertising solutions. Basic listings are free.

12. Google my Business
This is a free service from Google! You get a large free ad to the right of the search listings on a Google search!

ISSUE 861
IS YOUR WEBSITE
GETTING RESULTS?
Series 4, Article 81

As a business owner, investing in your website is probably one of your highest priorities. However, what if you’re not getting your desired results? What if sales aren’t coming in, your site takes forever to load, and it’s difficult for people to find you Google? What are you supposed to do?

It’s advised that you completely re-design and re-build your website every 2 years. Yet, due to the busy world we live in, your website might be over 6 years old and in dire need of a complete overhaul.

Keeping your website’s content updated and fresh is not an easy job to do, it costs both time and money. On the other hand, the benefits from doing so – especially the long term benefits worth the effort and cost.

Your website is usually the first point of contact your customer has with your brand. It is important you invest in designing your website in such a way that they’ll keep coming back for more.

We live in a digital world where customers are in constant contact with websites on a daily basis. If your site isn’t up-to-date, chances are that you won’t survive that long in the digital world.

Website redesign means improving your website so it meets its desired goal and outcome. When it comes to redesigning your website, you don’t have to change everything. Focus on making it functional. Make changes that allow it to perform better and help reach your marketing goals.

With the rapid change in technology, you need to ensure that your website is continuously updated to match the coding requirements, and is updated to take advantage of all the new technological options that exist.

These are the benefits of redesigning your website:

Improved User Experience – Nice to look at and easy to navigate.

Fresh Content – This is THE most important factor of your website! Content should update monthly, if not weekly. Change out your photos and descriptions, or add testimonials or blog posts.

Page Load Speed – 47% of visitors will leave your website if it takes more than 2 seconds to load. New coding on your site is the number one way to speed it up.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Search engines LOVE new content. Website redesign will improve your visibility through search engines. More visibility means more visitors, which means more business!

Social Media Sharing – The more you post meaningful content on social media, linking back to your website, the better ranking your website will receive from Google.

ISSUES 862 - 865
FREE WEBSITES!
Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4
Series 4, Article 82, 83, 84, 85

Sound too good to be true? Without trying to sound too cliché, whenever someone is offering you something free remember the saying “you get what you pay for.”

Many have fallen prey to the lure of free websites over the years and lived to regret their decisions. I don’t want you to fall into the same trap so I’ve compiled 45 things to seriously consider if you want to try to build your own free website:

Let me start out by saying that I DO recommend a free website if you are able to get one through GoDaddy, you build it with their WordPress platform, and you know something about HTML coding. The website builders that will give you issues are the free versions of Wix, Weebly, Yola, Squarespace, Odoo, Site123, etc.
Site visitors may doubt your credibility. If you’re trying to run a business, and you don’t want to spend money on your most important advertising, where else are you cutting corners? Why should people trust your product or service?
Free websites companies have to advertise on your website is order to get something back. Your domain name will include their name. For example, website.myfreewebsite.com, which is not going to make a great first impression. It will also be mandatory to have their logo in the footer, which unfortunately makes you look cheap.
The Bait and Switch. It’s become common practice for businesses to lure in customers for free initially and then starting charging a few months down the road. By that point, you’ll have spent a ton of time building the site, and it’ll be a hassle to change, so you’ll probably just pay up. And then they often work out to be more expensive than just using a paid service in the first place.
You lose ownership of your content. Using a free website service is like renting instead of buying a house. While you can add lots of great content to your website and make it look beautiful, you never really own it – the provider does. They might even use your content. In some cases, the content you upload is considered “payment” for hosting it. Make sure you check the small print – once you’ve uploaded content to a site, it’s possible that you’ve agreed to give up your ownership rights.
Your site could go down at any time. As you don’t really own your website, you have no control over it being live. Your host can decide to pull your site at any time and don’t have to give you any warning. And because it’s free, you’re not in control. If it goes down, your content and your domain gone for good.
Your site may be plastered with advertising. As we’ve already mentioned, it’s unlikely that anyone will give you a free website out of the goodness of their heart. No, they want to make money, and one of the ways of doing this is by sticking advertising banners in the premium space on your site. This not only looks ugly in most cases, but you may even end up advertising one of your competitors. And it looks really tacky.
Your site may be used in a link farm. Selling links is another easy way for website owners to make money. If you have a free website and the provider has sold links on it, you’re putting yourself at risk of Google penalties and even being de-indexed
It may be vulnerable to hackers. Security is often not of the utmost concern to free website providers so don’t be too surprised if you’re the victim of a hacker. Not only is it difficult to secure a website on free hosting, but restoring it can be a huge pain and you may well lose data.
You’ll have limited disk space. Free services are almost always limited in terms of disk space (because it costs money). If you upload a lot of photos or videos, you could find you’ve reached your limit in no time at all.
Bandwidth is limited. For the same reason, free websites usually have quite strict bandwidth restrictions. If you suddenly have an influx of traffic or you host many videos on your site, expect your site to be pulled without warning for going over its bandwidth limit.
Free sites are usually limited to a certain number of pages. Think you can live with a 3-5 page site? You may end up frustrated when you want to expand.
Moving your site is a hassle. Free services often make it incredibly difficult and time consuming to move your site. This is especially true when they’re trying to get you to upgrade to a paid service – they hope that you’ll find it so hard to move your site that you’ll just stick with their service, and in many cases this is exactly what people do.
Your design options are limited. Free websites usually come with a limited number of templates. And they are very difficult to customize. Sometimes you may be able to change the colors or fonts on a template or theme and upload a header graphic, but that’s about as far as it goes.
You can’t add additional features. If you want to add some useful plugins to your site or set up an online store with shopping cart, you’re probably out of luck. Free websites are usually limited to the basics and you’ll have to pay up if you want to upgrade to have e-commerce, slide shows, galleries, forms, etc.
Your ability to do SEO is limited. As you can’t really get into the backend of a free website, any on-site SEO you can do is limited to including keywords in your titles and content.
Search engines give less priority to free domains. Free websites are usually considered to be less important and come up lower in the listings. Whole domains may even be penalized if there are a lot of websites on them considered to be spam (which is a high probability for a free service).
No branded email address. As you don’t have your own domain, you also don’t have a branded email address. This looks rather unprofessional.
Limited or nonexistent help for setup. Confused when you’re trying to set up your site? You’d better hope there’s a good support forum. Support staff are expensive so free site providers often don’t hire them.
Limited or nonexistent help when you have problems. For the same reasons, don’t bother looking for a number to call when your website is down. You’ll just have to wait for it to come back up (if it ever does).
You could lose your domain name. If you opt for a package that comes with a free domain name, you may think this is a good deal as it looks more professional. That’s fine until the time comes when you want to move your site and realize you don’t own your domain. You’ll usually have the option of buying it back at a premium price.
You can’t make money from your website. Thinking about making a bit of extra cash by putting adverts on your website? Check the site rules and you’ll probably find this is forbidden – if there’s any money to be made off your site, it certainly won’t be coming to you.
Other websites will look the same. The problem with having a free template website is that there are hundreds of other people all using the same design. Don’t expect your site to look any different from all the rest.
Backups are difficult. When you have a self-hosted website it’s easy to backup your files by making sure they’re saved to your computer or by using a backup service. With free websites this is less easy and it’s often impossible to backup properly at all.
Someone could steal your website. I already mentioned that security is often lacking on free services. As well as making your site vulnerable from hacking attacks, this also means it’s easy for people to steal your whole website. If you let your user account expire, it’s usually the case that someone else can register it again straight away, stealing all your traffic in the process.
They make you look like a cheapskate. As well as just looking unprofessional in general, using a free site shows you aren’t willing to invest any money in your business. Who wants to work with someone who scrimps on the basic business essentials?
Free sites are ugly. Those free templates aren’t only incredibly common, they’re also not usually the best example of great design. Stick a few advertising banners on top and you end up with one ugly website.
They’re difficult to delete. The internet never forgets and there are many hundreds of people haunted by a free website they set up in their teens and now can’t get rid of. Don’t be one of them.
They look childish. If you’re 12, this is fine. If you’re not, get a real website.
You can’t use custom error pages. With WordPress and other self-hosted websites, it’s possible to set up custom error messages so you can direct lost visitors to files they may be looking for and other useful things. With free websites you’re stuck with the default error messages.
Analytics are limited or nonexistent. In order to grow your website, it’s important to know how many people are visiting your site and where they are coming from. With free websites it’s common for this information to be limited or for there to be no analytics available at all.
You can’t move your template to a new platform. Even if you like your common, ugly, free theme, you can’t take it with you when you move. If you want to move your website, you’ll have to create a new design.
There’s no guaranteed uptime. You’re not paying for anything so the provider owes you nothing. If they’re unreliable and your website is down every 10 minutes, there’s no point in even trying to complain.
Your details may be insecure. As well as your site being vulnerable to attack, your personal details may well also be at risk. There have been a number of high-profile cases where hackers have gained access to lists of users from free services including names, emails, dates of birth, addresses and even credit card numbers.
You may be bothered with emails and upsells. It’s a common practice in online marketing to give away something free in order to get your email. They’ll then continue to bombard you with emails trying to sell you products and other services. Often unsubscribing means that you’ll lose your website.
The owners may sell your contact details. As well as using your email for their own purposes, it’s not unheard of for companies to sell lists to other marketing companies. Make sure you read the small print and that your details aren’t being sold on.
They encourage you to be lazy. Free website builders may be easy to use but learning how to do something yourself is rarely a bad thing. Self hosted websites and platforms like WordPress are great to help you learn how to build your own websites so you can make changes yourself and fix things when they go wrong.

ARE YOU READY FOR THE FUTURE?
The Internet…
Series 1, Article 1

The Internet……

eBooks may never replace the feeling of curling up in an overstuffed chair on a rainy day with the latest best seller still smelling of fresh ink off the press. Online shopping may never replace the thrill of the hustle and bustle of romping through store after store at the mall at Christmas time. And an email may never replace the excitement of receiving a hand written letter in the mail. And there will be those who, like my own dad, enjoy thumbing through their 1980's World Book Encyclopedia rather than Googling.

But, whether you consider it friend or foe, there is one thing that has to be agreed upon….it's here to stay. The same parents who once said, regarding the answering machine I bought for them, "We don't need to know who calls when we're not home," now will not leave the house without their cell phone, won't watch TV unless it's High Definition and they have 250 channels to choose from, and can't live without their High Speed Internet (they've long forgotten the sound of the dial-up they said was "just fine for retired people like us").

It's a whole new world out there, and it's growing and changing exponentially. If you're not keeping up with at least the basics, you're going to find yourself completely lost in the future. What I will do in the articles to come will be to explain in layman’s terms how to use your computer in order to simplify your life.

What I would like to present in these new articles entitled "Web Chat by Robyn" is:

1. An explanation of Computers and the Internet that removes the scary and overwhelming feeling for beginners.
2. How to organize your computer files. And how to organize your life using different programs on the computer.
3. Step by step procedures for the basics of how to use Facebook, Blogging, Craigslist, eBay, Google, Etc.
4. How to decide which Browser to use, which Internet Provider and Email Service is best for you, which Search Engine is best, what virus software to choose, and which computer operating system is best for you (Mac or PC).
5. How to research anything… anything on any subject you can think of.
6. I'll introduce you to free computer tools and programs that help you in your day to day life.
7. I'll show you ways to maximize the growth of your business using the internet.

It really is fun, and it can make your life so much easier if you'll give it a chance.

For complete beginners who are just starting to use a computer and want to learn the most basic steps, type this website address into the address bar on your internet: http://tech.tln.lib.mi.us/tutor/
You will find this 10 minute step-by-step tutorial will show you the basics of how to get around on your computer with your mouse.

Here is just one of the free websites that will teach you the basics of how to use Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It also has free step by step courses for advanced web “masters” to learn Web Design and Coding. http://www.homeandlearn.co.uk/

And for you curious types, here’s a simplified explanation of how a computer works, go to:
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computerbasics

ARE YOU READY FOR THE FUTURE?
Interesting Facts About The Internet…
Series 1, Article 2

The technology behind the Internet began back in the 1960’s at MIT. The first message ever to be transmitted was LOG.... The user had attempted to type LOGIN, but the network crashed after the enormous load of data of the letter G.
The first webcam was deployed at Cambridge University - its purpose was to monitor a coffee maker, avoiding wasted trips to an empty pot.
The computer in your cell phone is a million times cheaper, a thousand times more powerful, and a hundred thousand times smaller than the one computer at MIT in 1965. What used to fit in a building now fits in your pocket, what fits in your pocket now will fit inside a blood cell in the years to come.
Although the MP3 filetype was invented in 1991, it wouldn't be until 1998 that the first music file-sharing service, Napster, would go live and change the way the Internet was used forever.
247 Billion emails are sent every day. That's 90 Trillion every year. 81% are Spam.
According to the Internet Society, the term “Spam” is derived from the 1970 spam sketch of the BBC television comedy series "Monty Python's Flying Circus", set in a cafe where every menu item includes Spam canned luncheon meat. As the waiter recites the menu, a chorus of Vikings drown out all conversations with a song repeating "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam... Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!", hence "Spamming" the dialogue. Then in the early 1980's, companies that bulked-mailed unsolicited advertising material referred to it as "SPAM" - "Sales-Promotion-And-Marketing"... otherwise known as "Stupid-Pointless-Annoying-Messages".
The first ever YouTube video was uploaded on April 23rd 2005 and was a boring 18 seconds long, entitled "Me at the Zoo".
One in five of the world's Internet users visit YouTube every day.
20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. That's comparable to Hollywood releasing 86,000 new films every week. Over 12 Billion videos are viewed each month on YouTube.
In North America, 70 out of 100 people surf the Internet….and the numbers are growing. Americans make out 76.2% of the world's Internet-Population.
Google estimates the internet at about 5 million terabytes of data. That is 5 billion gigabytes or 5 trillion megabytes. Google claims it has only indexed a paltry .04% of it all!
The human brain can hold an estimated 1 to 10 terabytes of information. Using an average of 5 billion terabytes per brain, it would take one million human brains to store the internet. You could fit the whole Internet on 200 million Blu-Ray disks.
According to Cyber Atlas, it took just 5 years for the Internet to reach 50 million users. This same milestone took television 13 years and took radio 38 years.
10 million people are watching ABC, NBC and CBS collectively every month. These businesses have been around for a combined 200 years. Yet 250 million people are going to YouTube, Facebook and MySpace collectively every month …..and none of these sites even existed 6 years ago.
More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months than if ABC, NBC and CBS have been airing new content 24/7/365 since 1948.
Social networking is the fastest growing part of the Internet. There are 70 million active users on Facebook, and more than 14 million photos are uploaded daily.
Technorati tracks over 133 million blogs on the Internet.
Nielsen Net Ratings indicates that the average Internet user will, in one month, spend 25 hours, visiting 59 domains / viewing 1,050 pages.
Americans has access to 1,000,000,000,000 web pages and 65,000 iPhone apps. And yet we have only 10,500 radio stations, 5500 magazines, and approximately 200 cable TV networks. In the past 5 years, newspapers are down 18.7%, magazines down 14.8%, radio down 11.7% and TV down 10.1%.
According to ComStore, in 2008, the United States spent $214.4 billion online. Internet purchasing is increasing at a rate of 7% per year.

Resources: www.makeuseof.com; www.jelecos.com; www.labnol.org

How to Create a PayPal Account
Series 2, Article 2

The reason PayPal is the preferred payment method and safe option of choice for transactions for many on-line buyers and sellers (including large and small retailers from eBay to your neighborhood shops) is that it allows you to send payments securely online using a credit card or bank account without the recipient ever seeing your credit card or bank account information.

A PayPal account will make it possible for you to quickly and easily make and receive payments without having to repeatedly enter credit card or banking information, or without having to wait for the sending or receiving of checks or money orders.

It is also free to sign up! When paying with Paypal, you have no transaction fees. When selling on-line and accepting PayPal as a method of payment, you simply pay a 2.9% + $0.30 fee on any item you sell up to $3,000, which is comparable to a credit card fee.

To sign up for a Paypal account, simply go to www.Paypal.com and fill out the registration form. Follow these steps:

Enter your email address in the first box. The email address that you provide here will be both your PayPal ID (you'll use it to log into PayPal and to receive payments from PayPal) and the email address on which you'll receive PayPal notifications. WRITE THIS EMAIL ADDRESS DOWN (since it is your PayPal ID) AND KEEP IT SOMEWHERE WHERE YOU WILL NEVER LOSE IT.
Enter the password you'd like to use for PayPal into the next two boxes, again taking care that both of the passwords that you enter match. WRITE THIS PASSWORD DOWN AND KEEP IT SOMEWHERE WHERE YOU WILL NEVER LOSE IT.
Enter your first and last names where indicated. It is imperative that your names as supplied here be real, since they must match the payment information on your checking and credit card accounts in order for PayPal to conduct transactions for you.
Select your country of residence from the drop-down list.
Enter your street address, city, state or province, and zip or postal code address in the relevant areas, taking care once again to ensure that the data you enter here matches the data your bank/account holders have on file for you.
Enter your complete phone number.
Do your best to read the unusual text provided to you near the bottom of the form and enter it into the code box to verify to PayPal that you are a human and not an Internet bot/robot.

Carefully read PayPal's user agreement and privacy policy by clicking on their respective links.

When you're done with the form, click the "Agree and Sign Up" button to proceed with your PayPal registration.

Once you've successfully submitted your PayPal registration form, you'll see another welcome page confirming the creation of your account. At this point you should link one of your bank accounts to your PayPal account to enable you to send and receive payments easily and conveniently.

Click on the "Add Bank Account" link to link a checking or savings account to your PayPal account (recommended). Or click on the "Add Credit/Debit Card" link to link a credit card account to your PayPal account. Linking a checking or savings account will make it possible for you to receive payments via PayPal for any items that you sell on eBay and to have these payments quickly and easily transferred to the bank account in question. (Whichever you choose to add now, you can always add additional checking, savings, or credit card accounts later by visiting PayPal directly at www.paypal.com, logging in, and adding the accounts in question to your profile.)
A checking or savings account is likely the first type of account you'll want to link to your PayPal account. This form simply collects information about your bank account so that it can be linked to your PayPal account. Here's how to complete the form:
Enter your bank's branch or official name, as it appears on your checks or bank statements, in the "Bank Name" box.
Tell PayPal whether the account you're linking is a checking account or a savings account.
Enter the routing number for the bank or branch where your account is housed in the box labeled "Routing Number." If you don't know this number, you can find it on the checks you have for the account in question; it is the 10-digit number at the lower-left.
Enter the account number for this account in the boxes labeled "Account Number." Once again you're asked for the same information twice so that PayPal can be sure you've typed it correctly; be sure to enter it carefully and correctly each time.
Click the "Continue" button to confirm your account and proceed to the next step.
Follow any additional directions from PayPal
Once you've entered your account information and clicked on the "Continue" button, PayPal will provide you with a simple set of instructions for confirming that the account you've supplied is indeed yours, steps that vary with from case to case and with the type of account provided.

Most of the time, PayPal will make one or several small deposits to your account in the days following your registration. Your job in such cases is to record the amounts of these deposits, return to PayPal directly, log in using your email address and password, and enter the amounts of these deposits to prove to PayPal that the account in question is indeed yours, is active, and that you currently have access to it.

Whatever the directions supplied, follow them carefully to confirm the linking of your checking, savings, or credit card account to your PayPal account, so that you can send and receive payments on eBay quickly and easily.

Congratulations! You're done!

That's all there is to it. Once you've completed each of the steps above, you're ready to begin life as an eBay trader, buying and selling with ease. As a final note, take care not to forget the eBay nickname/user ID you chose, the email address that you supplied to PayPal, or the password(s) that you supplied to both eBay and PayPal in order to protect your accounts. Should you forget any of these (as many, many have over the years), you may find it difficult or impossible ever to resume trading on eBay/PayPal.

Best "How To" Websites
Series 2, Article 3

Remember when you had to
...take classes to learn to Hula?
...buy a cookbook to get a recipe for lasagna?
...look at a map to figure out how to get somewhere?
...buy a new lamp because you couldn’t fix the old one?

There have always been millions of people who know how to do millions of things.....and now, because of the World Wide Web, millions of people have shared their knowledge on a million subjects in easy step-by-step instructions. The possibilities of what you can learn for FREE is endless if you just know where to look.

1. CNET.com
For you Techy-types, CNET has information on everything from car technology to digital photography. They are the Electronic How-To Wizards regarding Phones, Computers, Tablets, iPods, Home Theaters, Cameras, Cars, etc.

2. eHow.com
eHow is a treasure trove of “How To” information. Look up any Recipe, get Party Tips and learn about Wines. Learn how to Landscape, Grow a Garden or Decorate your House. Get step-by-step instructions on how to Repair any Appliance or how to become Energy Efficient. Receive Fashion, Makeup, Hair and Skin Tips. Learn about Budgeting, getting a Loan, getting Insurance or Selling a House. Get Career Tips, Financial Advice or Advice on how to Start a Business. And get Parenting Tips, Health Tips and Exercise Routines.

3. wikiHow.com
WikiHow is “The World’s Colla-borative How-To Manual”. These “How-To’s” cover everything from Hobbies, Pets, Relationships and even “How to Call in Sick when you just Need a Day Off.”

4. Instructables.com
Instructables is also a community driven How-To site. There are hundreds of catagories like, Sports and Survival, Magic Tricks and Guitar Lessons, How to Make a Robot, Program your Cell Phone or Make a Compost Bin.

5. HowStuffWorks.com
HowStuffWorks is owned by Discovery Communications, who also owns the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and Consumer Guide. This site gives you great explanations of a wide variety of subjects.

6. Makezine.com
Make Magazine is a fascinating site full of handy DIY projects and How-To guides from “important” technology to eclectic subjects like How to make a Catapult or a Giant Bubble Generator.

7. Lifehacker.com
Whether you're looking for help on how to reformat a hard drive, organize your notes, stop procrastinating so much, you can probably find it at Lifehacker. There are fascinating articles on things like Which Items you should always Buy Generic, Should you use Premium Gas in your Car, or How to Ask for a Raise.

8. Howto.wired.com
The Wired How To Wiki is a site full of technology tutorials that help you figure out how to do it yourself.
Blend In in a Foreign Country, Earthquake-Proof your Wine Cellar, Survive a Kidnapping, Make your Blog Popular, or Pick a Lock.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

IS YOUR PC RUNNING SLOW?
How to get the hitch outta yer giddy-up!
Series 2, Articles 4 & 5

Keeping your PC free of clutter can help performance and can also maximize valuable disk space. Here are a few simple tips for maintaining the performance of your PC.

1. Regularly run "Windows Update". This is on your Start menu. If it isn't, then click on "All Programs", then "Accessories", then "System Tools". This will take you to the proper page. Alternatively, try windowsupdate.microsoft.com (not necessary available with Windows Vista). It is very important that you install all available security related updates, Without updates, you are on the mercy of hackers. Always make sure that you have latest security loophole covered. Other updates are less critical, but some are still recommended.

2. Set Windows to Update Automatically. Open System: click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System. Then click the Automatic Updates tab.

3. Get Rid of Cookies. These are the little crumbs that are left behind on your computer after you visit a website. You can use any good system & privacy cleaner such as Reginout etc for this. This step may wipe out passwords for sites you visit. Be sure you know your password to these sites as you may be asked to enter it the next time you visit a site. Click on Start>Control Panel>Internet Options. The second row down will say Delete Cookies, click on that. Click on Delete Temporary file; when the little box comes up that says "delete offline," you don't have to click on that. Click on Delete temporary Files.

4. Complete Disk Cleanup. After clicking on "Start", move your cursor on "All Programs", then up to "Accessories", then "System Tools". Click on "Disk Cleanup" from the list that appears. Click the "More Options" tab at the top of the page, and select all three of the following: "Windows Components," "Installed Programs," and "System Restore". Clean up all three by clicking on their respective tabs. You may want to delete all but your most recent system restore point as you probably don't need the others. (If you have Windows Live OneCare in your programs, you can run the clean up scanner to automatically check your hard disk for any unnecessary files and it gives you the option to delete them. You can run the clean up scan if you're only interested in performing a disk cleanup—or you can run the comprehensive full service scan to check for other PC issues as well.)

5. Defragment your computer. Defragmenting your computer moves all your files to where they are supposed to be. You may want to download an independent defragmenter (e.g. Defraggler by Piriform). It is small, concise, and more powerful, than the one distributed with Windows.

6. Remove adware, malware, and spyware. Use a search engine to find "Lavasoft AdAware 2010". This will take you to a site to download the software. Download and install this program. You can also use "SpeedingUpMyPC." / "Spybot Search & Destroy." All have easy-to-follow instructions. SUPERAnti-Spyware is yet another option. For malware, MBAM is yet another option.

7. Install anti-virus software. There are free products available for personal use, such as AVG, Bitdefender and avast! Anti-Virus. You might also like to purchase such a product; the anti-virus market is fairly competitive, leading to many reasonably-priced products such as McAfee VirusScan, etc. Beware, Norton Antivirus slows down a computer more than help take out viruses.

8. Go to My Computer. Now go to tools at the top. Folder Options... View, then check the box "Show Hidden Files and Folders" then go to Local Disk, Documents & Settings, Your Account, and delete everything in: My Recent Documents, Local Settings History (Do not delete everything in local settings, just delete everything in the history folder of local settings) (and while in Local Settings) Delete everything in temporary internet files.

9. Clear your Internet browser cache. This may clean up automatically in one of the previous steps, but always good to check it. The clean up scanner handles most common types of temporary files, but your Internet browser automatically caches, or stores, another type of temporary file whenever you surf the Internet. Browsers such as Internet Explorer save copies of the Web pages you visit in order to load these pages faster the next time you visit those sites. Outside of speeding up browsing, however, your browser does not need this cache of temporary files in order to operate properly. Since many Web sites have large graphics, clearing out your browser's cache can save valuable hard disk space.

To clear your cache in Internet Explorer:

a. Click the Tools menu, then click Internet Options.
b. Select the General tab, then click Delete Files… in the Temporary Internet files section.
c. In the Delete Files dialog box that appears, select Delete all offline content, then click OK.

If it's the first time you've ever cleared your cache, or it's been a long while since you've dumped the cache and the file accumulation is large, deleting these files could take several minutes. Once the cache is cleared, click OK to close the Internet Options dialog box.

10. Remove unused programs. Just because you aren't using a program doesn't mean it isn't consuming resources and affecting your PC's performance. Removing unused programs from your hard disk is an easy way to maintain your system and maximize your available hard disk space.
To remove programs you don't need anymore:

a. Click Start, then click Control Panel.
b. In Category View, click Add or Remove Programs, then click Remove a program.
c. Scroll through the list and examine each program. Windows XP lists how often you use a program and what day you last started it. (Note: Don't remove anything labeled "Update" or "Hotfix." These things improve the security of your computer. )
d. Click a program you no longer need, click Change/Remove, and then follow the prompts to uninstall it. (In some cases, a program may be removed without prompting you further.)

You may have to restart your computer after removing a program. After your computer restarts, repeat this procedure to remove more programs.
Note: You must be logged in as an administrator in order to complete these steps.

11. Remove optional Windows components. (Don’t attempt this procedure unless you feel that you know what you are doing.) You can remove optional Windows components from your PC to free up space. Many components come standard with Windows, but you may not use them frequently. You can reinstall these components from your Windows CD if you need them later.

To add or remove a Windows component:

a. Click Start, then click Control Panel.
b. In Category View, click Add or Remove Programs, then click Add a program.
c. On the left side of the menu, click Add/Remove Windows Components.
d. Follow the instructions in the Windows Components Wizard.

Note: You must be logged in as an administrator in order to complete these steps.

12. Modify System Restore data. (Don’t attempt this procedure unless you feel that you know what you are doing.) Windows XP provides the option to restore your PC to a previous state by automatically saving restore information. System Restore continuously monitors your PC for changes, such as file changes, application changes, or installations. System Restore takes a "snapshot" of your PC at a given point in time and then stores each of these snapshots so that you can roll back any changes to a period before you experienced problems. As you can imagine, these snapshots of your whole system take up memory space. You can delete older snapshots that you're sure you won't need in order to clean up your hard disk.

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW HOW TO GOOGLE?!!!
Series 2, Article 6

Google.com is pretty self-explanatory. Right? If you said yes, there's a good chance you're not using Google to its full potential.
Recently, I found that there's this complete underground world of mind-blowing search tools for Google, never before mentioned to me.

EXAMPLE 1:
If you are looking for: New York Times articles about test scores in college, but not the SATs, written between 2008 and 2010
This is how you Google it: site:nytimes.com ~college "test scores" -SATs 2008...2010 (Type these terms into the search bar with one space between each term.)
Here's the breakdown:
site: When you use the word site with a colon, Google will only search the pages of that particular site. (You can also use the word author with a colon to search for a particular author.)
~ This little squiggly line is called a tilde. This is used before a word when you want Google to search for that word’s synonym. In this case Google will search for the word college, but also the words university and higher education.
" " Using quote marks searches for the exact phrase, not each word separately.
- The minus excludes these words from the search.
... Three periods in between time ranges, date ranges, prices ranges, etc., will show all results within the designated range.

EXAMPLE 2:
If you are looking for: A report on the different air speed velocities of common swallows.
(HINT: Don't ask Google questions. Think about how an answer would be phrased, and search for that. For instance, never search for "What is the air speed velocity of a common swallow?")
This is how you Google it: filetype:pdf “air speed” intitle:velocity of *swallow
Here's the breakdown:
filetype: When you use the word filetype with a colon, Google will only search for that type of file. You can also search for: filetype:jpg or filetype:excel, etc.
intitle: The words intitle with a colon shows results with that specific word in the title of the document.
* The asterisk replaces itself with common terms in your search In this case Google will search for Red Rumped Swallow, Striped Swallow, etc.

OTHER SHORTCUTS:
Don’t bother with a calculator, simply type the equation into the Google search bar using these symbols:
+ plus
- minus
* multiply
/ divide

Resource: DailyInfoGraphic.com

Lesser Known Facts about Google, ‘The Search Engine King’
Series 2, Articles 7 & 8

1. In 1997, Google’s prototype was named “BackRub”.
2. The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’.
3. Google.com – The domain was registered on September 15, 1997.
4. Google celebrates Halloween every year in the office. The funniest dress-up was lava lamp in 2007.
5. The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface.
6. In the beginning, there was no submit button so users had to hit the Return key to get Google to work.
7. Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests people would just sit looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘What’s up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.
8. One of the biggest leap in search usage came about when Google introduced their much improved spell checker giving birth to the “Did you mean…” feature. This instantly doubled their traffic.
9. The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button. I’m Feeling Lucky Costs Google $110 Million a Year.
11. There are no restrictions on Googler’s dress code in the office, in which pajama, ugly sweater and even super hero costume were on the records.
12. Google started off its first operations in a rented Garage.
13. Gmail was used internally for nearly 2 years prior to launch to the public. They discovered there was approximately 6 types of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these 6.
14. Google publishes variety of logos commemorating holidays and events. The first one on the books being a self-made “Burning Man” logo by the founders themselves.
16. Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News is an example of a project that grew from this working model.
17. Google products appear in 117 type of languages, including 5 “fake” languages like Elmer Fudd and Swedish Chef. Spanish, German, French and Japanese are the most used search language besides English.
18. Google won the prestigious award for Technical Achievement in 2000. In the nominees list there were no search engines at all.
19. Thinking of working in Google? Well, think again if you can’t answer their mysterious and challenging puzzles. Google setup a billboard in Silicon Valley by 2004, stating “First 10 digit prime in consecutive digits of e”. Geeks who got the hint would have visited http://www.7427466391.com/ (which is not available now) with further puzzles to be solved before they were recruited.
20. Google’s first ever April Fool’s joke went online on April 1st, 2000 and was called “MentalPlex” – Google’s ability to read your mind.
21. The Google logo was never centered (as it appears today). It only appeared centered in March 2001. It was aligned to the left earlier.
22. Google’s first employee is Craig Silverstein. Craig is the man behind “exact search” (where you get pages containing the exact search term within quotes.)
23. In 1999, when Google moved to their Paolo Alto office, there were only 19 employees in the company. Today there are 0ver 2,700.
24. It will take Google 300 years to put the entire world’s information online. Google reckons only 10% of the world’s information is online.
26. Google believes up to 20% of the online content changes every month.
28. According to Google, 20-25% of the search queries are unique.
29. The index of Google is 3 times larger than Yahoo’s index or MSN’s index.
30. In Google, thousands of computers are involved in processing a single search query.
31. 70% of Google engineers are working on search-related problems.
32. Google uses over 300 factors to rank websites. Google uses over 200 signals for Pagerank.
33. Google has the largest network of translators in the world.
34. “Teaching is like learning again”. Since 2000, Google encourage teaching and learning activities among its employees, from the subject of learning Chinese to Ulysses from Greek mythology.

Source: techchunks