Occasionally I come across articles with helpful information that I like to share. Here are two great articles that were written on the SEO.com blog. I have been working on SEO for an eCommerce site and I found the quick tips listed in the articles below were super helpful.

The first article is: SEO for eCommerce Part One: Content Woes

The second articles is: SEO for eCommerce Part Two: Poor Site Structure

Thanks to Thara of Punflay iPhone & iPad apps for the following post…..

Frog Dissection iPad App

My 5-year old excitedly ripped open the sturdy package that held a live frog egg. I had just bought him a grow-your-own-frog kit. Knowing my son, I was a bit skeptical about the whole thing. But I relented and let him have it. It sat on our porch in a glass jar waiting to be fed and cared for. My son’s initial enthusiasm soon wore off and the poor amphibian breathed its last one day when we were out of town. He had forgotten to appoint a pet-sitter in his absence. Tears were shed and promises were made that he would never let such a thing happen again.

Looking back, my almost 13-year old says, “Mom, I guess I forgot to feed it.” There is definitely remorse in that statement. No denying that. But even that childish recklessness is inadmissible to many of us who cannot bear to hurt, let alone dissect a frog.

I am sure there are many of you who feel just like I do.  You buy organic, go vegan and use products that were not tested on animals, but you could have forgotten that there is this other beast out there called animal dissections.  Many schools, universities and research organizations are still relying on live dissections for teaching purposes. There are clearly many instances where this can be avoided and I am not sure why it’s not being implemented everywhere.

My guess- there aren’t enough voices in support of alternatives. And if there are, maybe there aren’t many choices. I have to admit though, that with the advent of cool gadgets such as the iPhone, iPod and tablet devices, developers are exploring ways to teach using the digital medium. This is where folks like us (Punflay) come into the picture. We are interested in designing unique educational apps that can supplement or even act as stand-alone teaching aids. That’s how Frog Dissection for the iPad was conceptualized. From the looks of it, I think we got it right. Those involved in science and education like what we have created. So, we are on the right track.

Have you downloaded the app as yet? It would come very handy especially if you have a child in middle or high school. The new version has more features, so you have to add it to your apps library. Give it a shot and tell us what you think.

lilypond Magnolia Hand Bag in Bitterroot Green & Spring Leaf

I am always on the lookout for great new bags to carry all of my “mom-stuff” and then some. I am pretty picky when it comes to finding that perfect bag that I can carry everywhere. I prefer bags that make my life simple. I loathe having to dig for my keys when I have a 3 year old who may just take off across the parking lot at any moment!

Well, I found a great, well-made handbag made by a Colorado company called lilypond. I purchased lilypond’s small Magnolia handbag and I take this bag with me everywhere; meetings, shopping, and chauffeuring the kids. The space inside this “not-so-huge” handbag  is efficiently organized. I can easily store my kid’s water bottles, my water bottle, snacks, extra clothes for my son, wipes, keys, wallet, and  i-Phone with room to spare.  The feature I like the most about the handbag are the large side pockets that automatically “snap” close with a small built-in magnet, really convenient! I have already had compliments about my new bag, and I love showing it off!

Lilypond  has an appealing collection of women’s handbags, luggage and more with unique colors and style.  I was recently so excited to learn that lilypond will carry a women’s laptop bag which will be available next Spring 2011! Yeah, something for the “Techie-Girls” too!  To learn more about lilypond, check them out at  lilypondusa.com or fan their Facebook Page.

Lately I have been teaching myself  a lot about keywording and why it is important for a website. One very important thing to remember for a website is that CONTENT IS KING. This means that when Google or other search engines come along to index your website for search engine results, Google bots or sometimes called Spiders, look for relevant words, not pictures, to send to the  Search Engines and say, “Hey, here’s a website that fits the keyword searched!”.  Therefore it is super important to have well written content on the front page of your website and throughout your website. Within the well written content, keywords must be used. Keywords are words that relate to your products sold or the topic of your website.  However, several times it is harder for small companies to compete against larger companies who target the most popular keywords. This is where it is important to learn about Long Tail Keywords.  Long Tail Keywords are a group of words or a phrase of keywords. For example if you sell bike shorts. There is lots of competition for bike shorts. Creating a long tail keyword for bike shorts like, womens purple padded bike shorts, will help the website reach those people who are searching for that particular keyword phrase, womens purple padded bike shorts.

Online customers are becoming more savvy about how they are searching Google. They want to see the most relevant websites that sell a particular product. For instance, if  I am only looking for purple women’s bikeshorts, I would type in “purple women’s bikeshorts” .  More than likely I would only see results for website that sell womens purple bike shorts.

When determining which keywords to target for a website, a very helpful resource is Google Keyword Tool. You can type in any keyword/keyword phrase and see how many people searched the keyword/keywordphrase per month and how many other website are competing for that same keyword.

Another really helpful resource is HubSpot which sells inbound marketing software, however, their website has some very useful Marketing Webinars and free e-Books, the e-Book I particularly like is  Learning SEO From The Experts, A Step By Step Guide.

Another extremely helpful article to read: 5 Secrets to Selecting Highly Effective SEO Keywords

Hope this helps, if you are an SEO person and have some extra advice to share on Long Tail Keywords I would love to hear your ideas to help those entrepreneurs who are just starting off  and trying to develop a well thought out website.

WordPress Plugins are applications that enhance a WordPress blog’s capabilities. For instance, the small Share button that is at the bottom of this blog post is a plugin. The Add to Any Share plugin adds a feature that allows blog readers to share blog posts on social media. Here are some basic plugins that are essential to have on a self hosted WordPress blog.

Askimet

Google Analytics for WordPress

Link Within

Add to Any

Google XML sitemaps

To add plugins to a blog,  go to the backend of your blog, on the left hand side, scroll down until you see Plugins, click add new, you will then be prompted to type in a keyword which will help you search for the type of plugin you would like to add. For instance, if you want to add a contact page to your blog,  type in contact and several different plugins for contact forms will appear.

I wanted to share a neat FireFox extension called WiseStamp. This fun extension allows you to create an email signature on any webmail service. On WiseStamp.com you can customize your email signature to include your IM, Social Media profiles, website links and more. You have a choice of creating a personal signature or a business signature. It is lots of fun! Get creative and create a WiseStamp email signature!

As more and more young people grow up using some sort of electronic communication, an increasing number resort to abbreviated “chat speak.” Though often bemoaned as a destroyer of proper English, this jargon is no active attempt to corrode the language. Rather, it is an attempt to simplify it for use on limited cell phone keyboards or to bring texting or instant messaging (IMing) up to normal conversation speed. Here are a few basic terms you can learn to acquaint yourself with some popular texting and chat-room lingo.
Asl: Lit. “Age sex location.” Used most often in chat rooms to get to know others. It’s often advisable to be nonspecific regarding location when speaking to strangers. If you’re ever concerned about safety, feel free to lie, but most chat users will accept it if you say you aren’t comfortable giving your location.

Bff/bf/gf: Lit. “Best friend forever/boyfriend/girlfriend.” Used as they would be in regular conversation to refer to the aforementioned individuals.

Brb: Lit. “Be right back.” Used to inform others that you’re unavailable to respond. Not generally considered interchangeable with Bbl (“Be back later”) as it implies a much shorter absence from the conversation.

Btw: Lit. “By the way.” Used as in regular conversation or writing to add on additional information to something just brought up.

Convo: Lit. “Conversation.” Used as in ordinary conversation.

Cyber/sexting: This refers to sexually explicit conversations (that most often describe some sort of act of intercourse) via text message or private chat room (Ex. “Want 2 cyber?” or “ just “Cyber?”). This is a good term to know to protect yourself and others (especially minors) from unwanted sexual attentions. Most websites with chat-rooms have a policy about this and many will ban or otherwise punish users who request such activity.
Fail: This expresses any sort of failure or unhappy occurrence and is not necessarily used to insult anyone involved in the “fail.” Ex. A cake that is accidentally burned would be called a “cake fail.” Also: “I burned the cake.” “Fail.”

Gtg/g2g: “Got to go.” Either version works to convey your soon departure from a conversation. Unlike “Brb” or “Bbl,” this means you’re logging off the chat or ceasing texting for an indefinite period of time. Typically followed by some sort of expression of good-bye.

Idk: Lit. “I don’t know.” Used as a stand alone answer or as part of a sentence such as, “Idk what they’re doing.”

K thx bye: Lit. “Okay thanks, bye.” This is a typically a very abrupt way to dismiss someone and end a conversation after receiving some desired information. It’s also considered very impolite and insincere.

Jk: Lit. “Just kidding.” Often used as in normal context, but also frequently repeated in use following some false statement, which is often obviously so (Ex. “I live on the moon! Jk jk”). Can also be used following a sincere harsh statement or insult that one individual wants to say while seeming to cover themselves by implying that they weren’t serious.

Lol: Lit. “Laughing out loud.” An expression of mirth often used as a stand-alone statement. Ex. “The dog walked around in my socks.” “Lol.”

Omg/omfg: Lit. “Oh my gosh” or “Oh my god”/”Oh my f***ing gosh/god.” This is an expression of surprise, the expletive adding particular emphasis to the feelings conveyed. Used to express positive and negative reactions.

Pos: Lit. “Parent(s) over shoulder.” Intended to warn friends of a nearby parent, this signals all conversation to cease, turn to a more benign topic or to avoid another. This can mean the undesirable topic is very personal or likely to get them into trouble.

Pwn: Popular more with gamers or individuals referring to something in a video game. The original term used is, “owned” which, while also still in used, ended up being misspelled so often (given the “o” and “p” are next to each other on the standard keyboard), “pwned” has become more popular to express utter defeat.

Rofl: Lit. “Rolling on the floor laughing.” This expresses extreme delight in something funny, used in the same way as “lol”. It does not necessarily mean that you need to be rolling around to have a right to say this; it just expresses more hilarity than “lol.”

Srsly: Lit. “Seriously.” Used as in normal conversation, though some will use it repeatedly in conversation to preface statements they wish to add extra importance to.

U/ur: Abbr. “You”/”Your” or “You’re.” Used as unabbreviated forms would be in normal conversation. These are popular terms and are frequently by individuals who use little to no other chat/text terms.

Win: The opposite of a “fail”, this conveys that something was a success or was good. Ex. A cake that turns out well would be a “cake win.” Also: “She surprised us with cake!” “Win.”

Wtf: Lit. “What the f***.” This is another expression of surprise, similar to “omg” but much more emphatic and more often used in negative reactions.

Nina Estep is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on online degrees from accredited colleges for Guide to Online Schools.

So you want to start a business and have a website. Now a-days you just can’t have a website out there and think that people are going to automatically find it. It takes a lot of “behind the scenes” work to get your website/business noticed. So before you head to a web designer, educate yourself about Search Engine Optimization. You won’t need to know how to do it, but know enough to check in with your web designer that the proper coding was done to your site to attract Google Bots.

Below are 2 really great resources that can serve as a checklist to use when you are meeting with your web designer. On the lists in the links below there are important basic things that should be done to a website.

18 Simple SEO Items Commonly Missed In Web Development

The SEO Fundmental Pyramid

Interesting Twitter tweets have an art to them.  There are some specific ways to make a great tweet to get the attention of your followers.

For instance, when shipping products to stores try to make tweets about the product you are sending…..

Example of a tweet: Shipping shirts today to @(name of company u are shipping to )http://www.bruzwear.com/shop/Shred/index.html #fitnesswear #children’s clothing

Why this works…..

The @sign above will put the tweet into the mentions of the store you are shipping to, (that works if the store has a twitter account), the store may then see the tweet  and RT it to their followers.

I added a link to show the product shipping. The link will need to be shrunk down to fit into the tweet. The tweet cannot be longer than 140 characters long.  There are twitter tools that can shrink the links for you, I use Power Twitter and Hootsuite.

I also added a hashtag sign # at the end of the tweet , the hashtag will put the tweet into a category. I used fitnesswear  because if you notice the word fitnesswear is not in the tweet itself, so I add it at the end so it will show up in the steam of twitter on tweets related to fitnesswear. There is a website called  Twitter Seach, where tweets on specific categories/topics can be searched.

In addition to making tweets about products, it is always good practice to also make tweets about interesting things other than just promoting your business. Helpful online articles and interesting stories make good tweets for retweets.

Hope this helps! How do you make your tweets interesting?

Some really great tips about keeping your PC safe…..

Keeping anti-virus software updated is essential to keeping your computer safe and virus-free. An important thing to do is to enable the firewall on your computer. Make sure the operating system and all third party desktop applications are fully updated. Sometimes, when you buy a new computer, it comes with security software pre-installed for free, but after the trial-period expires, the software doesn’t get updated and you’re only protected from last year’s threats. It’s important to keep an eye on the software to make sure it has not expired and you are being adequately protected. The same goes with all computers, a software security license typically expires after a year or so, and you have to renew in order to stay protected.

THE Web is a fount of information, a busy marketplace, a thriving social scene — and a den of criminal activity.

Criminals have found abundant opportunities to undertake stealthy attacks on ordinary Web users that can be hard to stop, experts say. Hackers are lacing Web sites — often legitimate ones — with so-called malware, which can silently infiltrate visiting PCs to steal sensitive personal information and then turn the computers into “zombies” that can be used to spew spam and more malware onto the Internet.

At one time, virus attacks were obvious to users, said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a training organization for computer security professionals. He explained that now, the attacks were more silent. “Now it’s much, much easier infecting trusted Web sites,” he said, “and getting your zombies that way.”

And there are myriad lures aimed at conning people into installing nefarious programs, buying fake antivirus software or turning over personal information that can be used in identity fraud.

“The Web opened up a lot more opportunities for attacking” computer users and making money, said Maxim Weinstein, executive director of StopBadware, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that receives funding from Google, PayPal, Mozilla and others.

Google says its automated scans of the Internet recently turned up malware on roughly 300,000 Web sites, double the number it recorded two years ago. Each site can contain many infected pages. Meanwhile, Malware doubled last year, to 240 million unique attacks, according to Symantec, a maker of security software. And that does not count the scourge of fake antivirus software and other scams.

So it is more important than ever to protect yourself. Here are some basic tips for thwarting them.

Protect the Browser

The most direct line of attack is the browser, said Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec Security Response. Online criminals can use programming flaws in browsers to get malware onto PCs in “drive-by” downloads without users ever noticing.

Internet Explorer and Firefox are the most targeted browsers because they are the most popular. If you use current versions, and download security updates as they become available, you can surf safely. But there can still be exposure between when a vulnerability is discovered and an update becomes available, so you will need up-to-date security software as well to try to block any attacks that may emerge, especially if you have a Windows PC.

It can help to use a more obscure browser like Chrome from Google, which also happens to be the newest browser on the market and, as such, includes some security advances that make attacks more difficult.

Get Adobe Updates

Most consumers are familiar with Adobe Reader, for PDF files, and Adobe’s Flash Player. In the last year, a virtual epidemic of attacks has exploited their flaws; almost half of all attacks now come hidden in PDF files, Mr. Weafer said. “No matter what browser you’re using,” he said, “you’re using the PDF Reader, you’re using the Adobe Flash Player.”

Part of the problem is that many computers run old, vulnerable versions. But as of April, it has become easier to get automatic updates from Adobe, if you follow certain steps.

To update Reader, open the application and then select “Help” and “Check for Updates” from the menu bar. Since April, Windows users have been able to choose to get future updates automatically without additional prompts by clicking “Edit” and “Preferences,” then choosing “Updater” from the list and selecting “Automatically install updates.” Mac users can arrange updates using a similar procedure, though Apple requires that they enter their password each time an update is installed.

Adobe said it did not make silent automatic updates available previously because many users, especially at companies, were averse to them. To get the latest version of Flash Player, visit Abobe’s Web site.

Any software can be vulnerable. Windows PC users can identify vulnerable or out-of-date software using Secunia PSI, a free tool that scans machines and alerts users to potential problems.

Beware Malicious Ads

An increasingly popular way to get attacks onto Web sites people trust is to slip them into advertisements, usually by duping small-time ad networks. Malvertising, as this practice is known, can exploit software vulnerabilities or dispatch deceptive pop-up messages.

A particularly popular swindle involves an alert that a virus was found on the computer, followed by urgent messages to buy software to remove it. Of course, there is no virus and the security software, known as scareware, is fake. It is a ploy to get credit card numbers and $40 or $50. Scareware accounts for half of all malware delivered in ads, up fivefold from a year ago, Google said.

Closing the pop-up or killing the browser will usually end the episode. But if you encounter this scam, check your PC with trusted security software or Microsoft’s free Malicious Software Removal Tool. If you have picked up something nasty, you are in good company; Microsoft cleaned scareware from 7.8 million PCs in the second half of 2009, up 47 percent from the 5.3 million in the first half, the company said.

Another tool that can defend against malvertising, among other Web threats, is K9 Web Protection, free from Blue Coat Systems. Though it is marketed as parental-control software, K9 can be configured to look only for security threats like malware, spyware and phishing attacks — and to bark each time it stops one.

Poisoned Search Results

Online criminals are also trying to manipulate search engines into placing malicious sites toward the top of results pages for popular keywords. According to a recent Google study, 60 percent of malicious sites that embed hot keywords try to distribute scareware to the computers of visitors.

Google and search engines like Microsoft’s Bing are working to detect malicious sites and remove them from their indexes. Free tools like McAfee’s SiteAdvisor and the Firefox add-on Web of Trust can also help — warning about potentially dangerous links.

Antisocial Media

Attackers also use e-mail, instant messaging, blog comments and social networks like Facebook and Twitter to induce people to visit their sites.

It’s best to accept “friend” requests only from people you know, and to guard your passwords. Phishers are trying to filch login information so they can infiltrate accounts, impersonate you to try to scam others out of money and gather personal information about you and your friends.

Also beware the Koobface worm, variants of which have been taking aim at users of Facebook and other social sites for more than a year. It typically promises a video of some kind and asks you to download a fake multimedia-player codec to view the video. If you do so, your PC is infected with malware that turns it into a zombie (making it part of a botnet, or group of computers, that can spew spam and malware across the Internet).

But most important, you need to keep your wits about you. Criminals are using increasingly sophisticated ploys, and your best defense on the Web may be a healthy level of suspicion.

Here is an article with more reasons WHY you need antivirus software: http://windows.about.com/od/securityprivacy/qt/youneedprotect.htm

Here is another article on Safety 101 with some other great information: http://antivirus.about.com/library/weekly/aa071101a.htm