Over the past couple of months I’ve noticed that many people do not have an email signature or are not taking full advantage of the space. Consider your email signature as an opportunity to remind your receiver about a special promotion or a useful give-away. You could easily change your signature every month or so to offer something new.

Here are a few ideas you could feature in your email signature:
- an interview about your company
- an upcoming event you will be leading or speaking at
- a blog post that you think could be useful
- a special offer or promotion
- a link to sign up for your newsletter

Here’s is what my email signature looks like at the moment:
_________
Nicole Graham
Bauhinia Solutions
9630 1248

www.bauhiniasolutions.com

Are you considering upgrading your website? Not sure where to start? Checkout our eReport, 7 Questions to ask yourself before spending money on a website – http://www.bauhiniasolutions.com/wordpress-blogs-websites/

Psst: Don’t forget to include your contact details and a link to your website.

If you have a website or blog or are in the process of creating one, chances are at some point you will require images for it. For those who have already put in the research, you will know that stock photographs can sometimes be expensive or alternatively, not suitable for your needs. Randomly taking images from other websites may bring with it all kinds of issues in terms of copyright and ownership rights and is something in which we highly recommend you DO NOT do.

The other option which we particularly support is Flickr. Flickr, in their own words is “almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world”. Flickr’s photographs are taken by a mixture of professional and amateur photographers who are looking to share their art with the world.

Note however that some images on Flickr are tagged as “All Rights Reserved” which means that unless you seek permission to use these photographs for your own purpose, at which point it may prove to be extremely costly, it is best to use photographs which fall under the “Creative Commons” category (http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/).

Flickr itself states that “Creative Commons is a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright.”

There are six Creative Commons licenses that images on Flickr may adhere to.

Attribution License
An Attribution License lets you use photographs of others for both commercial and non-commercial use and gives you freedom to modify the image to suit your needs, as long as credit is given to the original photographer.

Attribution-NoDerivs License
An Attribution-NoDerivs License similarly allows the use of the image for both commercial and non-commercial use however you are not able to modify the image in any way. All credit must again be given to the photographer.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
An Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License means that you are not able to modify the image in any way and it can only be used for non-commercial purposes ie non-profit purposes. Full credit must also be given to the photographer.

Attribution-NonCommercial License
An Attribution-NonCommercial License does allow for modification of the image as long as credit is given to the original photographer; however it can only be used for non-commercial purposes.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
While you can amend the image for non-commercial use with credit to the photographer under this license, the ShareAlike addition means that you only allow others to reuse or distribute your work under the same terms. Flickr recommends linking directly to their License page of which to date, the latest version is 3.0 – http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/.

Attribution-ShareAlike License
Lastly the Attribution-ShareAlike License allows you to use and amend the image for both commercial and non-commercial purposes with credit being given to the photographer. As above you can only allow others to reuse or distribute your work under a similar license. Again providing a link to the License page will make it easier for readers to understand (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).

After you have determined the license you require, you can simply search within that Creative Commons category to find your choice images. Under each license you can see at a glance how many images are stored within that particular license. If you click on “see more” next to the image number, you will be taken to the search image page.

Once you have carried out your search you will be presented with a list of photographs. Note the images can be sorted by three categories: relevant, recent and interesting. It is worthwhile browsing under each category although if you are looking for something a little out of the ordinary, then interesting may be your category of choice!

You also have the option to view them in a variety of sizes: small, medium, detail and slideshow. Browsing in “small” initially will allow you to see more images per page determining more quickly which ones may be suitable for your needs.

Now you have a basic understanding of the license which best suits your requirements, finding great images to really enhance your website is extremely easy and most importantly, free. It is a win-win for everyone – your page gets an instant makeover via the use of a superior image and the photographer gets recognition from your credited link.

Blessings in your business!

About Nicole: Nicole’s career spans 20 years in various administrative, training and management roles. She founded Bauhinia Solutions after identify that Hong Kong based solopreneurs and small businesses needed offsite/virtual administration support. Today Nicole and her team support service-based businesses in the coaching, training and facilitation industry.

Do I need a Facebook Page? Sally

This is a great question and not one that can be answered with either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.

As with any social media, Facebook is another marketing tool that is to be explored.  However, just because Facebook is the fastest growing website on the planet, it doesn’t meat that it’s right for you and your business.

To help you decide, let’s start by asking yourself the following questions:

• Who are my ideal customers/clients?
• Are my customers/clients or prospects on Facebook?
• Are they easy to connect with?
• Do I have good content to share?
• Can my customers/clients benefit from interaction with each other?

If you answered YES to most of those questions, then I would encourage you to create a Facebook page and get busy connecting.  However, if most of your answers were NO, then other social media sites might be more for you.  As with any marketing tool, you always need to assess if it will reach your ideal customers/clients.

To help you identify if Facebook is for you and your business, here are some scenarios:

Scenario 1: You sell children’s gifts and your target market is grandmothers in Australia, who have grandchildren between the ages of 1 and 13, then Facebook would most likely be a good investment.  Why?  The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is 55 years of age and older.

Scenario 2: You sell a gorgeous range of high-end girls dresses and your target market are high-end stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Harrods.  Due to your specific target and that you sell at wholesale, Facebook will most likely not be the right marketing avenue for you because you need to get in front of the buyers for those stores, and doing it through Facebook could be challenging.  You could try to rally people around you to help you get your dresses into those stores, however I would imagine that would be hard work.

Scenario 3: You are an executive coach and you work with high level executives who are going wanting to make a career change or are transitioning to something else.  In this scenario, your clients probably will not socialise with you out of concern that Facebook isn’t as confidential as a closed door coaching session.

Scenario 4: You are a small business coach and you work with people who are starting a business.  Facebook would probably be a good avenue to promote your services as it will allow those considering starting a business to get to know you before hiring you.

If you are thinking about starting a Facebook page, take some time to think about the questions above and then map out how you plan to gain new likers and engage with them.

Good luck!

Did you know that how your computer runs depends on more than how much RAM you have? Did you know there’s more to it than the type of software you use? Did you know that just by maintaining your computer hardware you can improve the speed and performance of your computer? It’s true, and by following the tips below, you could find you have a faster, more effective computer that could save you money in efficiency and expensive and unnecessary software.

• When making your initial computer purchase, ensure you have a good strong CPU.
• Clean the computer case every two weeks to remove dust. Left unaddressed, the dust can cause heat increases in your computer, putting the CPU and circuitry under undue stress.
• Clean your mouse every three months by removing the roller ball and cleaning the inside with a cotton tip dipped in alcohol solution. Remove any scum from the roller ball by wiping over with alcohol solution prior to reassembling the mouse.
• Ensure your computer has a high quality fan and clean fans every three months by removing the side or top of the case and vacuuming gently with a venetian brush head.
• Increase the number of fans if necessary, especially over the warmer months. Install a separate fan for your graphic card if it doesn’t already have one.
• Ensure you have adequate room around your computer system so that the air can circulate. Also ensure it is not against something that produces heat and that it isn’t against a window.
• Be extra careful with power boards, using only those boards with surge protection. Ensure you have lightning protection through your telephone line.

These few simple steps could make a big difference to your computer’s performance, in turn making your time on the computer more effective.

While reading Nicole’s blog over at nicole-graham.com, I noticed that a person who had commented had her photo next to her comment.  How can I add an image next to my comments left on blogs? Carol, Children’s Christian Ministries.

These pictures are what is known as Gravatars – Globally Recognised Avatars. Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog.

Creating a Gravatar is easier than you think, Carol! What you will need is a Gravatar account, added to an email that’s the same as the email account you use on your own self-hosted WordPress server.
Here’s how you do it:

1. Go to: www.gravatar.com

2. Create an account.

3. Link the e-mail address that you use on your WordPress blog/server to post/comment; then add your picture/logo/etc. to Gravatar. Hint: if you use multiple accounts on your own WordPress site or other sites that use Gravatar, you can simply add the e-mails for those accounts to display the same Gravatar image that you uploaded.

4. Your new Gravatar will appear once you add a comment to any blog post.
It’s that simple! You should now be able to post on blogs with your Gravatar happily displayed alongside your comments.

Project: Website Design and Development

Yoga With Kathy is the site of Yoga Teacher, Kathy Cook. The purpose of her website is to share her learnings as well as promote her retreats and workshops across Asia. As an Iyenga yoga teacher, she has included information on the Iyenga practice and images of poses.

Kathy selected a Bauhinia theme. The project involved:

• Designing a mock home page based on the client’s business card colours
• Customising the chosen theme based on the approved mock, ensuring the site had a clean, open feeling to it
• Creating a new logo/header image that reflected Kathy’s services
• Adding all content and images
• Adding a contact form

Visit her website: www.yogawithkathy.com.

All our WordPress sites are search engine optimised, secured as much as possible to avoid hackers and spammers. We provide our clients with a User Manual for easy reference when updating their sites.

For more information about WordPress Website Packages, visit our WordPress Blogs and Websites page.

Due to this, it is very important to make sure your software is regularly updated with the latest version of WordPress.  In addition, it is also important to change your password on a regular basis.

Other reasons to update your WordPress software are:

1. Security and Bug Fixes

Hackers seem to get great enjoyment out of finding the weak points of a website, particularly WordPress websites. Therefore, when WordPress is updated there will be fixes to those weak points and additional security features added. If you do not upgrade your site, you are providing an opportunity for those hackers who wish to create a little chaos.

2. Improving Performance

WordPress intentionally created a user-friendly, well-architectured web publishing software that focuses on user experience and web standards. It’s not always perfect, however they are always finding ways to improve the software and the service they provide.

When you upgrade your WordPress software, you are also ensuring that your website is running as smoothly as possible due to performance upgrades.

3. New Features

In post cases, minor upgrades do not include new features however when there is a major upgrade, you will find there are new features to WordPress and you may even find the Dashboard looks a little differently. When there are new features added, you also need to check whether your plugins (additional features) work properly as such changes can cause glitches.

It’s a little Overwhelming

Upgrading might be a little scary or overwhelming… it was the first time I did it.  Let’s just say this… if you don’t, you may find yourself regretting it later down the track.

For our WordPress Website Clients, you will be sent an email notice to let you know when you need to upgrade (along with how to instructions).

If you prefer, we can update your site for you.  Please contact us if you would like such support.

Do you have hundreds, if not thousands, of e-mails sitting in your Inbox, perhaps with tens, scores, or even hundreds of them unread?  Does opening your Inbox make you cringe with the thought of what might descend into it?  Well this month’s computer tip is for you.  We’re going to look at a few simple but effective tips to tame your Inbox and make your e-mail experience less stressful and more enjoyable.

Set up rules, filters and labels

All e-mail programs and services have a rules, filter and labels system that will allow you to organise your incoming mail.  This is a highly effective way to sort and organise your mail so that you can deal with what’s important first.   You can move important/unimportant e-mails to their own folder, you can choose an action to take for a certain addressee, if you have multiple incoming e-mail accounts you can chose for each of these to go into individual folders, filter out spam words, and in some programs that support the function, you can set up a rule to have messages that are not important marked as read.

Delete unwanted and ‘dealt with’ messages

Always action an e-mail once you have opened it.  If you are unable to do so immediately, delegate it to someone if you can, or mark it as ‘Unread’ so that it doesn’t get forgotten.  Once it has been actioned, or if no action is required, delete it immediately.

Subfolders

Keep your subfolder system simple.  Use your rules to automatically sort your mail into your subfolders to save you time.  ONLY store those e-mails that are one hundred percent necessary to keep.  Remember to delete the rest.

Unsubscribe from newsletters

Remove unwanted clutter from your Inbox by unsubscribing to any newsletters that you do not read.  Also unsubscribe from automatic notifications from social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

A good rule of thumb is that anything older than a month (at the outside) should be filed or deleted, and don’t use your Inbox as a calendar or ‘To Do’ list. Depending on the volume of e-mails you receive, you should check your Inbox at least daily, or up to hourly, but don’t let it take over your day.

These tips should help bring your Inbox back into check and your stress levels down significantly.  And if you want to work on your Inbox some more, do some more deleting!  Don’t hang on to those old emails, get rid of them and see how much lighter you’ll feel and how much more welcoming your Inbox will be.  I’ll look forward to hearing how you went.

Project: Website Design and Development

Our Wedding Consultant provides professional and supportive wedding planning advice to brides and grooms. With over 12 years in event management and 6 of those years in the wedding industry, Michelle Brodie has the skills and experience to assist newly engaged couples in creating their dream wedding.

Michelle selected a Bauhinia theme. The project involved:

• Designing a mock home page based on the client’s ideas and colour scheme
• Customising the chosen theme based on the approved mock, ensuring the site had a clean, open feeling to it
• Creating a new logo/header image based on the client’s ideas
• Adding all content and images
• Adding a contact form
• Setup of a newsletter system along with setting up signup form
• Creating an image for her newsletter signup and

Visit her website: www.yogawithkathy.com.

Our client’s feedback:

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the site!!!!!!!!

Visit her website: www.ourweddingconsultant.com.

For more information about WordPress Website Packages, visit our WordPress Blogs and Websites page.

With the recent security incident over at WordPress.com and hack attack at Distribute.IT, an Australian domain registrar and hosting company, I feel it is important to address the three reasons to have an external backup of your website.

1. Your Website is Hacked

Having experienced this recently and my previous backup system not working properly, I was lucky it wasn’t more serious.  My personal travel blog was attacked and this prompted my developers to re-evaluate at our WordPress security procedures.  We had been securing our sites, however with WordPress being OpenSource software and hacking classes being taught in China and other parts of the world, it was very clear to us that we need to be constantly reviewing and improving our WordPress security procedures.

This is particularly important for us because we develop WordPress websites and blogs, therefore security for our clients is a priority.  We improved the security of our sites and offered a special package for clients that included increased security and new backup procedures.

We use Backup Buddy for our new backup procedure.  By using a quality backup solution and having clear guidelines, you will be able to re-install your website in no time.

2. Your Hosting Company Disappears

This is not uncommon… particularly with smaller hosting companies, however medium sized hosting companies are not at risk either. With the recent Distribute.IT attack more than 4,000 Australian websites have been lost with no chance of recovery. The hack attack caused so much damage that four of the company’s servers were “unrecoverable” and they had no offsite back up. OUCH!

A couple of years ago there was a small web design firm in Australia that created and hosted their client’s websites. Their target market were mainly work-at-home mums. One day the design firm closed their doors without prior warning and those that had their websites hosted with them lost everything. This example is one of the reasons why I recommend not hosting your site with your web developer.

If you have an external backup, you can find yourself a new web developer and hosting company, and be back online fairly quickly.

3. You Delete the Files by Accident

If you’ve created your site yourself using HTML software such as Dreamweaver, RapidWeave etc and your original files are stored on your own computer, deleting files on your computer and hosting is fairly easy – especially if you’re not really technical.

It is easy to delete files.  Another way that your files could be deleted is if you were having computer problems and someone reformatted your whole computer without copying all your important files.  Eeek… just thinking about it is scary!

With an external backup being sent to a web-based email account you’ll definitely avoid losing your website files.

Recommended Procedures

We recommending backing up your site up on a weekly and monthly basis.  Firstly check that your web host is running a nightly back up – if not, then a daily backup is required if your site is updated on an almost daily basis.

Have your backups being sent to you via email as well as being saved to your hosting site.  Ideally an external, web-based email so it is not stored on your computer OR copy the backups onto a removable disk drive.

When saving your backups make sure you save them with the date of the backup and once you’ve got a monthly backup, you can delete the oldest backups, making sure you have a fortnight (of weekly) backed up.  If you are backing up daily yourself, make sure you have at least three daily backups because if one does not work, the others are their as back up.

Special Promotion

If you have a WordPress site and would like to increase your security and have Backup Buddy implemented, we are offering a special promotion!  For $1000 HKD we will install security plugins as well as make changes to the backend of your site PLUS install Backup Buddy and implement a backup procedure for you.

Our promotion ends 30th June 2011.  Regular price is $1500 HKD. Contact Nicole to find out more.