Review: Flux 4 Web creation software

How green is your computing; does green mean low power

So, this has been something I have thought about for a long time; and especially more so now with rising energy costs.

A few years ago or so I remember watching an episode of The Dragons Den  ( I won't explain program to those that know, best to go and look up but consists of people trying to get money) on which a guy/company came to the den trying to get funding for his brand of green PC computers.

These days doing a search for green pc will bring you back many pages in your search and there are indeed many solutions out there - many seeming to run things like Intel Atom processors.

Now, the second reason I was thinking green was because of my purchase of the Mac Mini as on the Apple website it has the following; and I quote;


"Mac mini is the world’s most energy-efficient desktop computer. It’s also highly recyclable and has a tiny package for efficient shipping. All in all, that’s no small thing."

This seems like a bit of a statement from what my investigation has seen but could be true? But what I can say is this; that the Mac Mini is certainly far superior in computing power compared to the other green computers I have seen.

If this statement is trye it means that green computing doesn't have to mean lower computing power as I have first hand experience in the speed and power of the new Mac Mini (I'm very impressed with me 2.5Ghz i5 Mac Mini) but have to say that I have no experience of one of these others.

Infact, I am still waiting on my chance to be able to buy a Raspberry Pi. This I believe would certainly be very low in power consumption; although this I would need to validate when I had one. But again I don't believe this would have the same level of computing power.

So; moral is. If looking for green computing then check out Apple Mini's. If looking for sheer power; well green would not be a thought...

Anyone have any experience in a green PC? Leave a comment.

If you build it, they will come... Or not? How do you get more traffic in google

I read a great whitepaper yesterday on Google Panda and getting your page noticed. The title (that can be associated with a 90's or there about movie - well half of the title) reflects a number of peoples thoughts on if they build a webpage then people will come and view it; but which tends not to be the usual case without a lot of post built work.

So, when I first went on the internet back in 1994 there were not so many webpages out there and a lot of those I visited were from word of mouth.I remember creating my first webpage as part of my degree course back in early 95 - it was to do with user interfaces. Quite funny as was basically like 3 or 4 pages; top page had my picture and bit of text and then hyper links to other pages. O the complex pages back then hehe.

Anyhow, progression from those days has happens and probably billions of more pages have now appeared. I still probably go word of mouth on a lot of pages I visit but I do; like others; use those wonderful search engines out there like Google, Yahoo, etc.

So... Phew... this brings me to the point of the post and title. Creating a great webpage is good but you need to get it index on search engines to get any visitors at all. Now it used to be that SEO was about getting the right combination of keywords and text on page plus backlinks; however with Panda this has now changed. Now; to raise you page ranking they take into consideration thinks like bounce percentage and time on site, etc.

So now it seems that its more important to get both your keywords perfect for the content of your site and to have good content on your first page to draw people in. I'd still say its important to get backlinks in because they are the advertising for you site - people could come across them while browsing another but the emphasis has to be on content of webpage and correct keywords if to rank high in Google.

So there be the break down of this white paper - 26 pages into 2 paragraphs. Obviously there is more to it than this but; and I'm going to repeat myself here; as long as you have good quality keywords (and making them as precise as possible) an a good quality page then once submitted and page been crawled you should in time get people visiting...

Thanks for reading this far and if you like and would see more please click that +1   and share ;-)

So I've just bought a new Mac Mini - The Video :-)

As I was saying in my blog yesterday, I bought a new Mac Mini and decided to share this with you all :-)

Maybe I should make it into a music video hehe.

Mac Mini up and running, but doesn't like the virtual driver for window 7

So now for something a bit more techie based - Ya you all say. (Just to note; I will be cutting a video using iMovie - reason why later - an posting on YouTube and blog later, so be warned :-) )

So, not sure if I said but I sold my old Mac Pro I had as it took up a bit of space I needed and I found that software I was running such as Final Cut Pro 7 was only multi-core aware so wasn't using to capability. I opted  to use the cash to buy a new Mac Mini - went for the new 2011 model i5 2.5Ghz one with the ATI graphics. Specs are standard so go check out on Apple site if curious. Though as a side note I will be getting 8Gb of crucial memory and changing next month - vastly cheaper than getting with machine.

Anyhow, so.. A single i5 at 2.5Ghz should be faster than a Xeon 3Ghz from 2006 in my believe (and I presume in facts too) so I will be looking to get quicker renders in FCP7... That is, when I get it installed. Which brings me to the title of this blog update.

So, following the instructions from Apple I downloaded the share utility and ran on my Windows7 PC.. Ok, removed the ask permission button to make easier. So I go back to my Mac and see drive in the virtual drive list - perfect so far.

Next step, I put in my FCP7 (first DVD of FCS3) and can see update on disk list with name. Double click icon to open it, wait..wait..wait.. and then I get error basically saying can't read. Typical. Anyhow; prompted  me to go onto ebay and buy a USB External drive (not an Apple one) and I managed to get a USB combo bluray and dvd writer for like 30GBP which was excellent. So just waiting for that now.

Anyhow, this doesn't excuse the issue that I have had with this virtual drive. I haven't checked my other software like MS Office and AE CS3 but has anyone experienced the last of being able to use their PC as a virtual drive?

Anyhow, look out for video that will be done in iMovie hehe..

As a P.S. note - I have to say that I am impressed so far with this little powerhorse of a machine. OK, most of last night was spent with update but its quite and seemed to be performing well in the things I was doing. One of which is in the P.S.S next..

P.S.S. Not going to keep secret here. So those of you that have seen my video reviews saw that some time ago I did a review on Flux3. Flux4 has now come out and I have now as a first item install on my Mac Mini a review copy of this. so look out for this coming in the next few weeks.

Review : Honestech nScreen Deluxe

When starting out you need multiple business opportunities

Many years ago now I said "I want my own business". Infact; when I was about 21 I applied to the Princes Trust here in the UK and went along for an interview. What came out of that meeting was that I needed to put together a business model, plan, etc and that they helped with that - giving the info an knowledge.

As it was the idea I had, although was good at the time, would have not worked long term - especially with the Internet; but was my first delve into this idea.

What did come out of that through thinking about the idea was my realization that you need to have more than one business. Why so you may ask... Well, not all but many businesses are seasonal - lets take holiday lets for example.. During the winter there would be a considerable reduction in the bookings (although many hotels in UK fine). This can be seen in places such as Ayia Napa in Cyprus where most of the town shuts down (certainly the hotels I tried to book) from around November to February.

So, getting back to at hand.. Many businesses are seasonal. So if we take this as a fact we know that at certain times of the year we would not be making any money... bad bad bad. However, if we had, say, a second seasonal business THAT had its peak season during the slump in the other business season then we have money flow.

Now this could be expanded to do 4 or 5 (I always imagined 5 businesses myself) businesses depending on the seasonality of your ideas but you can get the idea.

Now; when your business is large and having a great cashflow then having multiple businesses is not manageable so we're talking starting out or small businesses in this mail. However, if you have a large business that is self contained and being managed by say .. a manager   then you as an individual may want that challenge of starting a second.

I am following my own advice to this end. Having recently started up TechnologistPR I have now also started up Technologist-Consultancy (although website is currently pending as only just registered - so currently going there won't display anything).

So, as currently waiting for backlinks I have put in for TechnologistPR to become active I get to work on my second idea (and something I can honestly say I have a great experience in). Is this the end? Nope, there are more I have in my head but 2 at a time...

So, I refer you back to the title. If you want to start a business then do so; but at the same time think if there is any seasonality to it and if so start two.

Review Magix MP3 DeluxeMX Review

First Raspberry Pi's to be delivered

UK, 13th April 2012
The first batch of the Raspberry Pi's computers are to be issued to buyers. The cheap bare bones tiny computer is finally; after production issues; to be sent out to early buyers of the system.

Those eager fans that were first to order; it has been reported that they should receive their Raspberry Pi by 20th April. This first production batch has been delayed twice now; firstly due to a wrong component being soldered to the circuits and second time over confusion about electromagnetic testing.

With these first batch of Raspberry Pi's about to go out; hopefully they will be able to start selling to the public again soon.

QR Codes, am I late to the party or still in with the flow

So, above you can see a QR code (or Quick Response code) which basically is our new website encoded into the image.So, not sure if I need to explain in detail about QR codes but to be honest if have any questions its better to go to the wiki here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code as that has the details.

So we can see they have been around for a while and are now being more widely used; pepsi have had them on their cans for a while for example. But do we really need one? I mean, people are still going to see you text, webpage, etc without but to be honest they look kewl AND the inquisitive like myself will scan everyone they come across which may get more of your content viewed -although doesn't mean that your going to sell any service(s) or goods.

But to my title a little; am I late (are you late). Simple answer is no; this is I believe in the early flow as more and more people take up QR Codes. However,  do you need one? Well yes is a short answer as it doesn't hurt generating one (and on the web takes just a few seconds). However, your lively hood is not going to take a hit without one..

If wanting to generate just go type QR Code generate in that google search bar...  Enjoy

Those illusive quality high PageRanked sites for backlinks, where are they

So my hunt continues to improve the search ranking of our new site http://www.technologistpr.com in that finding some good quality backlinks.

So I've had a good chuckle to myself over the last 12-24 hours after seeing some quality (being sarcastic) backlink sales stuff on ebay. Now I do see some people selling backlinks on PR7 etc sites and not sure if this is just that they post on a PR7 site forum with your link (which constitutes to spam) or if legit and their site. But on the other side of the spectrum I saw a few selling 40000 backlinks for a fiver.. Maybe ten pound for another.

OK, so lets put this into perspective. 40000 backlinks.. So, it sounds to me that this is firstly a bot that will be putting those links up and its going to be 40000 PR0 or similar backlinks. Just to quantify this a little, I have another site http://www.plasmation.co.uk that I have had up for around a year now (just going through a change).. On the original site I put a open forum. Now; I have left this open and i don't admin it as its been a point of interest and reference for me. This now gets around 600 posts a day from similar link bots - probably from people (and companies) selling a promise of 40000 links.

So, I wanted to shout out, say no.. 40000 PR0 backlinks are quantity but not quality. Give me 10 PR7 backlinks any day over 40000 spam to forums.

So, I'm now on the lookout for some PR4 and above sites for backlink. Putting together a links page at TechnologistPR website because I believe if I can get a good ranking myself then its time to share. And if you have any suggested sites please do let me know.

The right SEO can make or break your site, and its a tricky fine line

Really the title says it all but I will spend a little time waffling on in here to expand on this comment.. So, this comment comes from two recent things I have worked on. First one is our new trading website http://www.technologistpr.com which I have mentioned before. We are offering quite a wide variety of services which we have between us and so have quite a wide keyword catchment.

Second reference is a recent (in the last few days) review I have done on Link-Assistant SEO PowerSuite software package. This package is a collection of four SEO applications to help you with your SEO (although no magic buttons). SEO is made easier with the tools; well if you use the tools right; but your end production is only as good as your beginning.

So, keywords, backlinks, these are words you will need to become familiar with if you are to get good SEO. But what is a good keyword? Answer is one with a good KEI (keyword efficiency index) which basically is a calculation using number you give in relation to your site content, number of searches for keyword per month and number of competitors. Well actually is number of searches*number of searches/competitors. But by adding your own weight to it allows you to define keywords important to your site.

Backlinks are a little more simple to define but more difficult to do. Basically a backlink is a link to your website from another website. So for example; if you have setup a forum user name for X forum and you put in your web address. If a search engine like say google comes across that link while crawling this X forum then that is a backlink for you. The more backlinks, the higher page rating, the higher you appear in the search engine results. Simple see, though this requires lots of work putting in backlinks on all these other pages. Also takes time and energy finding sites for backlinks.

So, that's my waffle to expand on my title. Maybe I'll do a bigger explanation on this in future. This in its self is the most simplex example I could do as for SEO there is more involved than just this. However, these small tips will help increase that all important page ranking.

Review : Link-Assistant SEO PowerSuite Review