I’ve recently completed a rebuild of a client’s site at www.gel-ice.com.au (http://www NULL.gel-ice NULL.com NULL.au). If you look at it you’ll see the images on the site all sport a large watermark in the middle. My client has been the subject of image theft in the last twelve months, with his images appearing (along with all his text) on someone’s else’s site. His images and text have been stolen and his copyright violated. The thief had set up a site to sell very similar if not identical products.

My client pursued the other company both with a local solicitor and one in the country where the thief’s business is located, with pretty good results. I notice one of my client’s original photos is still being used on the thief’s site, but the website copy has been changed.

My client isn’t alone. The very nature of the internet is sharing information. In my previous post I talked about content farms, which take what’s not theirs and blatantly repost it. So how do you protect what’s yours?

Putting the copyright symbol on every page, or even the word copyright on every page should theoretically protect you, however copyright laws vary slightly from country to country.

In order to protect my friend at the Gel Ice company, I decided to put a large watermark on each image using a simple action I created in Photoshop. Watermarking is probably the most effective way to stop your images being used by the unscrupulous.

I considered the following options first:

• stopping viewers from right-clicking and downloading an image. Well, yes, you can do that, but people can still click on Print Screen and grab an albeit low res copy of your image. However as I’m using WordPress, that little bit of javascript isn’t compatible with my system
• using Digimarc digital watermarking (https://www NULL.digimarc NULL.com/tech/dwm NULL.asp). Again, there’s the Print Screen option. And the truly devious out there know how to get around Digimarc should they download a Digimarc image

I could have put a watermark indiscreetly along the bottom of each image, but if anyone wanted to steal the image and use it, most of the images could be cropped without interfering with the key object in them – the gel ice pacs. So it was all guns blazing with the watermark. It ain’t pretty by any means but if it protects my client’s intellectual property, that’s a good thing.

I read on the redoubtable Mashable yesterday (http://mashable NULL.com/2011/02/25/google-content-farms/)that Google has declared war on ‘bad’ sites that are nothing more than content farms. You know the ones: you key in a search term in Google, go to a popular result and it’s a page of auto-RSSed links, content lifted blatantly from other sites without acknowledgement or simply very poorly written and questionable content. You might as well not wasted five seconds you’ll never get back clicking on the link and glancing at the page.

While the changes in Google’s algorithm will initially apply only to the US (but we’ll get it eventually), it’s great news for the rest of us who do have genuine original content on our websites. Any changes that help my clients is fine by me. We work hard to write SEO-friendly content for our client sites; when you’re tweaking content every word is vital if you want to get a good search result.

Google has been trying hard to rid spam sites (http://mashable NULL.com/2011/01/21/google-combat-search-spam/) from its search engine results, and is succeeding somewhat. If you clicked my link in the last sentence and read the article, you’ll have seen this: “Google’s new classifier is designed to detect spam on individual web pages by identifying spammy words and phrases.”

Bear this in mind if you constantly repeat keywords on your website pages. Okay, if you’re a genuine person or business you probably won’t be affected by the new anti-spam algorithm, but repeating a keyword more than a dozen times on one page won’t help you up the search engine rankings.

I use SEO Scribe to analyse my blog posts. I’ve mentioned it before (http://arionproductions NULL.com NULL.au/?p=724). Fab tool that really makes you think about what you’re writing and what your keywords are. It can help you identify keywords. And it tells you when you’ve used a particular keyword too many times. Search engines CAN penalise you if it looks like you’re rorting the system. Your keyword density should be about 5.5% of your written content, Scribe says.

What would you like to see Google do next (apart from offer a proper help service, via telephone, with real human beings on the other end to help you with misbehaving Google products?)

I read this article in the Australian (http://www NULL.theaustralian NULL.com NULL.au/business/small-business/from-business-card-to-smartphone-in-one/story-e6frg9hf-1226011919218)today about a clever new smartphone app that could make hoarding cardboard business cards a thing of the past.  This clever little chap is called CamCard. To quote The Oz,

“This app streamlines the tiresome task of taking contact information from cards and entering it into an electronic contact book. It uses a smartphone’s inbuilt camera to capture an image of each card and then applies clever character recognition algorithms to extract details and store them in the phone’s address book.

“During a test, CamCard recognised a variety of business cards, including some with dark backgrounds and dominant logos. After taking a photo of a card, the software took about three seconds to process it and populate a new contact book entry. Occasionally the app struggled to differentiate between titles and company names, however its character and number recognition capabilities are excellent.

The app also allows you to dial, send a text or email a contact while viewing their card’s image. The “lite” version retains a limited number of cards, a full version is available for $11.99.”

I like a new gadget, I do. So I downloaded the CamCard Lite (http://www NULL.intsig NULL.com/home/us) version (saves three contacts in the first week and one per week thereafter) and set to work with my iPhone 3.

Everyone who has an iPhone 3 knows the worst thing about this phone is its camera. Try as I might, I couldn’t take a decent photo of a clean, clear, white background business card with my phone. One has to have the phone close enough to fill the screen with the card. The downside of this is that with the iPhone 3 it appeared to be too close to focus on the card.

CamCard told me the text on the card was unrecognisable at every attempt I made. I was taking the images in clear light, too.

So it’s back to typing in contacts manually for me.

I’d be interested in hearing from really truly users who have downloaded this app and are trying it on their smartphones. Drop me a line if you think it works just fine. Especially if you too have an iPhone 3!

A recent noshup of entrepreneurs in New York City has seen the prediction that mobile device apps have had their day, and will be superceded by simple mobile websites, according to this article by Spencer E Ante in The Wall Street Journal (http://online NULL.wsj NULL.com/article/SB10001424052748704364004576132530157431902 NULL.html).

Mark Ferdman, who runs Pushkart (http://www NULL.pushkart NULL.com/) (which offers discounts for local merchants through an application for the iPhone and other smartphones) bit a chunk out of Apple, saying “Steve Jobs has done a great job of creating a marketplace that is unnecessary.”

The dinner in question (fettuccine with duck confit anyone?) was a semi-regular movable feast called Mobile Mondays, the second MM to be held in New York. At the dinner NYC entrepreneurs chewed the fat (indeed the duck confit) about issues they have in common. They’re passionate about their geographical location and wouldn’t dream of moving to Palo Alto, California, to start up and run their high-tech businesses.

The statement about apps is interesting and thought-provoking. Apps were developed to make the smartphone experience easier. A fair percentage of them don’t rely on you, the user, having 3G access to use them. So if apps gradually fade away in favour of websites (how full circle is THAT?!), you’ll have to be connected and drawing on your data limits all the time. I wonder if Mark Ferdman has shares in a major telco?  In an ideal world 3G access would be cheap as chips and you’d never be without signal. But our world is far from ideal.

OK, over to you. Are apps dead or dying? Would you prefer to use a dedicated app on your smart device or mess around with a website?  Share your thoughts below.

The majority of my clients are small- or micro-business owners, and most of them, like me, escaped from the corporate world in search of freedom, fame, fortune or at least a decent income and the option to work in pyjamas should they feel like it.

Few of us regret our moves. Most of us drop a bundle in salary at least in the first few years; it’s a small sacrifice to pay for being your own boss.

There are cons as well as pros – for example there’s no IT department when you’re on your own and things go wrong. No hassles there, there are many computer repair places around or if your computer is new, there’s a warranty claim. Best of all, if you have a teenager in the house that may solve some of your problems. Having a friend who loves building and fixing computers can be a boon too. Just remember to back up on a daily basis (http://arionproductions NULL.com NULL.au/?p=494) in case things go horribly wrong. If you, like me, are an Apple user an appointment at the Genius Bar at your nearest Apple shop could fix your problem on the spot, depending on the problem.

If you’re a member of a business association (and I belong to Ryde Business Forum (http://www NULL.rydebusiness NULL.com NULL.au)) you’ll find there will undoubtedly be a fellow member in the IT category, either sales or repair or both. Seek this person out and get to know them. You’ll be supporting the local economy if you use them, and that’s always a good thing.

Remember placing a call to the IT department and waiting for hours or days for someone to come to your desk, spend all of 90 seconds sighing and clattering away on the keyboard and fixing your problem, then giving you a tired, knowing look that said you just didn’t ‘get’ computers? These days if you have a smallish issue – let’s say you’ve lost a printer driver – chances are you can find the answer on the internet. And if your computer has bigger issues and is not responding why not use your smart phone or iPad to try a solution before you head to the repair shop? Time is money as we know, and if it takes you an hour to sort the thing out yourself, rather than leaving your computer in a repair shop for a couple of days, that’s money saved.

There’s the pro side to no IT department, too. You can choose your own computer and the software that goes on it (paying for all this definitely falls in the con bucket, but consider leasing as everything bar the stamp duty is a tax deduction). In the corporate that I worked for, asking the company to buy you new software required a three-page Investment Proposal to be completed. Your justification had to be mighty to be allowed have anything more than Microsoft Office. As a solo flyer, if you can afford it, you can buy it. And I mean buy it. Don’t get tempted to download a pirate copy or borrow your friend’s version of Office or Photoshop. It’s not worth the risk, and pirated copies can crash your system. Once you’ve lashed out on OEM software, the upgrades are reasonably priced.

The main thing to remember as a micro business owner is that you are not alone. Whether it’s a contact from a business association or help you’ve found on an internet forum, you have an IT department you can call on. YOU don’t have to be IT.

What tips do you have for managing your IT needs? Are there websites which you have found invaluable? Sites or shops with fantastic bargains and service? Software you just can’t do without? And what are some of your horror stories? (Come on, we all have them. You can be anonymous!) Answers on a postcard please, or simply leave a comment below.

Earlier this week I had to drive from Seven Hills to Macquarie Park for an 8.30am meeting. Now this is a journey I’ve never made in peak hour before. I discarded using the M2 Hills Motorway as it’s a parking lot from 7am. I had a mix of main roads and back roads planned which I hoped would get me there in time.

Like many plans of mice and women drivers, it went wrong.

Firstly my car’s airconditioning is broken (the compressor has died but that’s another story). This wouldn’t have been an issue had I been able to continuously move at 60km/hr or more. With the windows down Gisela the Golf gets a decent airflow. It wouldn’t have been an issue either if Sydney wasn’t suffering its longest continuous heatwave.

By the time I left Seven Hills at 7am it was already nearly 30 degrees. I spent the first 30 minutes of my trip trying to get onto Old Windsor Road from Fitzwilliam Rd, Toongabbie. Maybe the traffic lights were still on a school holiday phasing, I dunno. Whatever the case, I hadn’t expected quite such a long holdup there. There were no accidents or breakdowns; just traffic.

Surprisingly traffic flowed pretty well along my chosen route of James Ruse Drive, Kissing Point Road, Marsden Road and Terry Road. Around Eastwood it started getting busy again – really, some drivers leave their brains behind when they are picking up people or dropping them off. Use your bloody wing mirrors! – and I wound my way along the back streets of Ryde until I hit another giant snag on Herring Road. By then it was 8.40, and my meeting had started at 8.30. Thankfully I had a colleague already there and getting things underway.

I didn’t get to my destination until 9am. That’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back, and at least an hour of that was stuck fast in stationary traffic. I was stressed, upset because I truly hate being late, my heart rate was up, I had a sore throat from shouting at other drivers who did daft things, and I was unbearably hot.

This is why I work from home, and ideally plan my meetings for between 10am and 3pm. Sydney peak hour is unconscionable. Some people can cope with it; I’m not so philosophical.

Why didn’t I use public transport? Because:

a) the trains from Seven Hills typically aren’t airconditioned. My car isn’t either but at least in my car I can have a seat; nor do I have a complete stranger squashed sweatily next to me;

b) it would have taken nearly as long to get there, changing at Strathfield and Epping. I had originally allowed 1.5 hours’ travel time in my car;

c) I had other meetings to go to after the 9am one, which weren’t easily accessible by public transport, especially in a heatwave.

Stuck in the mire of exhaust fumes and the doof-doof from surrounding radios, however, I blessed my good fortune that I don’t have to deal with a 2 hour drive to work five days a week. If you, on the other hand, do, tell me about it. What makes your job so enjoyable and rewarding that you put up with the drive rather than seek employment nearer home?

(http://arionproductions NULL.com NULL.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/some-1 NULL.jpg)I’m a voracious reader; anyone who knows me knows that. But sitting gathering dust in our garage are books we don’t even unwrap any more until it’s time to throw them away – our telephone directories the White Pages (http://www NULL.whitepages NULL.com NULL.au/) and Yellow Pages (http://www NULL.yellowpages NULL.com NULL.au/). We never read them; never need them.  We moved them to the garage a few years back as they were cluttering up our miniscule living room, and there they have remained. At first we consulted them, but once they had a pile of gardening stuff on top of them it was easier to just go online than unpack the phone books.

So these days if I want to find a specific person or business, I search online through the White Pages. I don’t ring Telstra’s 1234 service as it’s too expensive. However, people, 1223 is a free directory assistance number (http://www NULL.telstra NULL.com NULL.au/help/contact/directory-assistance NULL.html?red=/contact/directory_assist NULL.htm)from residential landlines on the Telstra network. Remember that and use it. Telstra doesn’t promote this free service as they’d rather make money from you.

If I’m searching for a non-specific business in a particular industry, I’ll use Google. If I want a local handyman I’ll firstly ask the neighbours who they used and were they happy with the result, or try the local newspapers. Re the newspapers, I’ll then research the handyman on the internet to see what people are saying about him, if anything, or if he has a website I’ll read it. If all else fails I’ll use the Yellow Pages online.

The one thing I don’t do any more is read the print versions of the telephone directories. In an effort to win me back to these wonderful tomes that do duty in countless houses holding up broken bookshelves and other pieces of furniture, Telstra has issued our house with a mini Yellow Pages aimed at our section of Sydney. “Glovebox-sized,” it markets itself hopefully. Poor thing, it gets no trips in our cars. My husband’s glovebox is full of CDs and my old Golf doesn’t even have one. Just some door pockets filled with rural maps and umbrellas. I did carry a “Glovebox-sized” Yellow Pages in the back of my car for while, and threw it out when:

• I discovered it was three years out of date
• I’d never used it
• It was covered in oil as my spare oil bottle had leaked

My husband and I both own iPhones, so we have access to the White and Yellow Pages online when we’re out and about. We don’t need another bit of stuff in our cars which we won’t use.

My mother is in her 80s and relies on the print version of the directories, albeit with good lighting, spectacles and a magnifying glass. When each new directory arrives she compares old friends’ entries with last year. If she hasn’t heard from them in a while and they’re not in the directory, she presumes they’re in the hereafter instead. For her, home delivery of the directories is a must as she doesn’t use a computer or smart phone.

[pullquote_left]Why is there not an opt-out service for people who don’t want the hard copy directories?[/pullquote_left]I suspect there are thousands of if not at least a million people like me, who use technology to find who and what we need. People who chuck their unread (but hopefully unwrapped) directories in the recycle bin each year. It’s got me wondering how many trees are felled needlessly for people who just don’t need their directories? And how much of the production and print cost is taken up in our account fees. Telephone directories are delivered automatically to every household and business. Why is there not an opt-out service for people who don’t want the directories?

Now to the big questions for those of you reading this who own your own business:

• If you’re a business, do you spend your advertising budget on the Yellow Pages?
• Online and/or print?
• If so, do you believe you’re getting value for money and the number of customers you want from that ad spend?
• Would you buy, at enormous expense, a large display ad if you’re not one of the major players in your industry? (ie if you’re competing against Canon Australia, or Harvey Norman, do you match their ad size?)
• Or do you use only Google adwords or a split between Adwords and the Yellow Pages?
• Perhaps you’re promoting your business using a targetted Facebook ad campaign?
• Is the Yellow Pages actually relevant to your business?

I’d be interested to know what small to medium businesses are up to when it comes to using the Yellow Pages to market their businesses. Is it a dinosaur, or is there still a need for your business to use it?

As for me, I don’t advertise in the Yellow Pages; much of my business comes from referrals or my own website. Would I advertise in the YP? No; I’m in an industry where I believe people who want to find me will go online rather than open a phone book.

Still on equine thoughts (http://arionproductions NULL.com NULL.au/?p=807), I grinned at James Jeffrey’s Strewth column (http://www NULL.theaustralian NULL.com NULL.au/news/opinion/bitter-pill/story-e6frgdk6-1225997037351) in yesterday’s Australian suggesting that Labor go out in NSW with a bang and bring a horse into the upper house a la Caligula.

If nothing else, it would raise the IQ in there.

That’s all.