Life before & after Computers!!

Today, let's just see how our dictionary & visual imagination have evolved with the emergence of technology & computers.

Just a few terminologies with their old meanings before computers & new meanings after computers...

Memory

old: ability of your mind to remember, store, recall anything of the past

new: ability of your computer to store data

Application

old: a written piece of paper to an authority, asking permission for something

new: a software running on your computer

Program

old: a show telecasted over TV or radio

new: coded instructions of your computer

Keyboard

old: a musical instrument - piano

new: input device of your computer

Mouse

old: a cute little furry mammal (animal, in simpler words)

new: a handheld device to move the cursor across your computer screen

Monitor

old: a class representative OR watching or observing someone or something

new: the screen attached to your computer

Web

old: a spider's home

new: interconnected network of internet sites

Virus

old: a type of flu

new: a harmful piece of code that forcefully enters your computer & replicates itself, thus corrupting your data

Log

old: a piece of wood

new: systematic recordings of your computer events

 

Cut

old: a wound made from something sharp OR making slices of something using a cutter or knife

new: delete part of a text or any other thing, usually to move it elsewhere (in your computers, of course)

Paste

old: using glue to stick something OR a squishy mixture

new: moving a text or any thing by cutting it from one place to other (in your computers again)

Copy

old: a notebook

new: similar text or something at various places (yet in your computers)

Key

old: a small piece of metal to unlock a lock

new: an alphabet over your computer keyboard

Zip

old: fastener attached to your bags or clothes etc.

new: a compressed file

Window

old: a square (or rectangle) made in the wall of a house to look outside

new: an operating system

RAM

old: kind of a goat

new: computer memory

Enter

old: pass through a door

new: a key on your keyboard to submit or move to next line

Shift

old: move a little from your current position

new: a key on your keyboard

Backup

old: moving back

new: extra copy of your data

Crone

old: an evil old woman

new: a daily or weekly or monthly job to run a specific task on your computer

Home

old: a place where you live with your family

new: landing page of your computer or website

Flag

old: a piece of cloth

new: temporary variables used to switch on/off a specific part of code

Class

old: a group of students who are taught together

new: a collection of things sharing some attributes

Register

old: to book up for something

new: part of a computer processor

So, these are some things i could thing of. There are loads of other examples like the ones i've mentioned above. So, what do you think, is the change for good or bad?? Can you think of any more examples like this??

Something about PPC!!

So, let's talk about PPC (pay-per-click) today...

About PPC, it is said that if you use it wisely, you can make millions BUT if you don't, then say bye-bye to billions (ha! ha! i love how they use evil tones to create humor!!)

OK! so you think you have done your homework on how & what & where you will be putting up your ads using PPC...
I'm just here to give to some precautionary measures during your whole journey of PPC process.

To begin with, this thing is going to save you money in the long run. Make sure you avail it to the fullest; plan carefully.
So, what you need to do is to make an impressive landing page for your viewers; it is a key factor of making them stay & like. It should clearly & attractively be mentioning what are you offering & why should they choose you over others.

Most publishers are very peculiar about the things they advertise. If they find your ad to be unattractive or not very captivating for their traffic audience, they will simply remove it. Now that is a waste of efforts on your part, isn't it?? So, to avoid this thing from happening to your hard work, monitor the results of each of your campaigns & make amendments to them accordingly. Keep experimenting with the look & text of your ads to see which one gets the best response.

Some people might not consider this a very good thing but believe me, it makes a big difference. While creating your ad, do put up an action-call, like "CLICK HERE!!" or "GO NOW!!" etc. It will actually compel the person watching your ad to go click on it; rather than just reading through your ad & moving on to others.

Have a balanced sort of offers to be promoted in your ads. You will be spending a great deal of money on it, so you don't want any non-serious buyers to be the major portion of your traffic. Putting up loads of free deals will attract free-loaders only, but not putting up any discounted offers may make you loose your potential buyers. Be very very careful in your choice (just as Elmer Fudd goes, "Be vewy vewy quiet, i'm hunting wabbit...hahahaha!!").

While biding or choosing for a place to put up your ad, be among the highest bidders as being on the 1st page counts a lot. But do try to avoid the starting 2 or 3 positions, if you can; they are subjected to most accidental clicks (& you don't wanna end up paying for them now...do you??)

PPC has several advantages of marketing, you are only required to have a keen observation to notice them & make appropriate settlements for them.
So GOOD LUCK with your PPC!!

E-Commerce - Easy's & Hard's

E-Commerce is a very rapidly growing trend in today's world. Presence of a business in a well-known shopping plaza is bound to get you more customers, but add a successfully running website along with it & then you have everything you could ever wish for...let me repeat that "everything you could ever wish for"!!

Now, just from a general perspective, let's see what's so easy about this field of E-Commerce that it is growing so rapidly & what is so difficult about it that still attracts people to jump into the competition.

So, we'll begin with the "Easy" part...
Firstly, making up a website can be considered as one of the easy things to do here.
Why?
Because you can find companies doing that task for you very easily & effectively. All you have to do is to tell them you requirements, set up a budget & voila!! it will be done.

Then, the process of taking orders via the website is as easy as anything.
Why?
Because the customers will fill in the order form or send email or sign up for different packages displayed on facebook (or whatever might be the process specified over the website). You will only have to maintain a record of those orders, as they are requested.

Then comes the part of receiving payments, as easy as a pie!!
Why?
Because you have companies doing it for you. You just need to go take the cash whenever you need (a big grin on your face i suppose).

So, things like these fall under the easy side of E-Commerce!!

Now, come to the "Hard" things it has in store for you & me...
Let's go step-by-step:
So, start with getting traffic for your website...that's a tough job now. Working your way through SEO & keywords & search engines & adverts etc. is not an easy task.
Suppose you emerge victorious from this 1st struggle-battle...& there is another thing waiting for you on the other end
How to get people to visit you a 2nd time??
See, now it is not that easy, is it??

Moving on from the traffic issue, you don't just need people to visit your website, you need them to interact with it, buy things & sell things & all. You need to work on how to make them type in their credit card numbers (how to make them shop from you)..

& with all these things going on at one side, there are competitors to look out for...
I mean E-Commerce is a growing industry, isn't it? So, there are millions like you out there, striving for the very same thing as you are. You have to make your presence not only noticed but unique too.

So, you see, the hard things are as hard as the easiness of the easy things (bet you wouldn't understand this line in one go).

In short, if you're planing your future in E-Commerce...i've just got 2 words for you


GOOD LUCK!!

Why ask for Website Maintenance??

Hi,

I am the owner of a small jewellery business (& other fashion accessories). I started 5 years back from my friends' circle and in a very little time, i was famous in the local community. The next step was to give a bit more exposure to my business, so i made a fan-page over Facebook and Twitter. It helped a lot & i started getting orders online. I was very happy.

Someone suggested that i should make contracts with bigger companies & agencies. Now, that was an attractive thing to do. But it required a more professional approach...beginning with the development of a proper website.

I contacted a company to get me a website. It was a long process but i got what i wanted & it was beautiful. After deployment, they asked me if i wanted to go with their discounted maintenance package which is offered to clients along with website deployment. I was not sure what that was so i asked a friend.
"You have the website, you can manage it yourself. How hard can it be to manage? You've been managing your Facebook & Twitter pages for so long now, you can do it easily. Why waste more money?", was my friend's answer.

I took the advice & refused the offer politely (i want to mention here that i am not at all a technical person)...this was the 1st mistake i did in my business career.

For a few months, everything worked perfectly fine...& then something happened...something really bad.

My website had a login system too; i had a long list of members who received special offers based on their membership type.

After reaching a limit of 350, new members stopped getting added to my list. They were able to register, their membership payment was being deducted from their accounts but their information was not being updated in my records.

I discovered it when a client called me up. He was very angry. He said he called up to talk about his orders & my manager told him that he is not one of our members & is not allowed to have the deal he wanted. I apologized on my manger's behalf & checked the records myself but the result was the same. The client told me that he registered a week back under the golden membership category (OMG!!).


That was the 1st incident & many followed afterwards. I don't know for how long it had been going on. I tried every possible thing i could think of but still could not find what the problem was. Then someone told me to contact the website makers again. I reluctantly did (reluctant because i refused their maintenance offer back then). They agreed to look into the matter but obviously i had to pay full amount this time (bad luck!!).

They worked on my site & figured out something wrong with the database (that was what they called it). So, they had it all sorted out in 3 days.

I had to figure out who went missing from my records & send apology messages to them. So, the reason behind telling this story was that, technical or not technical, you should never ever ever turn down the maintenance offer from the company responsible for creating your website.

I was lucky that they agreed upon working out the problem in my website; otherwise, all would have been lost.

Social Media Marketing - A Must!!

For the millionth time i argued with my brother over the social media importance. My brother is a newbie in the field of business. Now, he ain't anti-social but he sure is an anti-social-media person (he doesn't even own a Facebook account, can you believe it!!).

The day he announced that he'll begin with his own business, i kept on poking him to create pages and links over social media channels. He was of the view that they are a total waste of time. "Who would have time to look up for my name over Facebook & see how many fans i have? Or how many people are following my tweets? People are too busy updating & commenting on their own posts & pictures", he would say.

"It's the youth we are targeting here bro. How can you expect the younger generation to use any other means of information when they spend 95% of their times sitting in front of their screens?", i would ask.

"It's useless..", he would conclude & walk off.

Then, one day, it happened; an event that changed his life & his negativity against the social media. He had a friend (a very good friend, in fact) who moved somewhere abroad. He came to know about my brother's business & promised him a very heavy budgeted project. My brother was very excited about it. He spent days & nights gathering enough resources to make himself impressive & eligible for his upcoming clients. And, of course, he had even bigger plans for the money he'll soon be earning (I had a long list of things too that i'd ask him to get me).

In short, we were waiting anxiously for the clients' call...a week passed...then another week...& another week...& the whole month passed...no sign of the good friend or the heavy budgeted project.

One day, he caught his friend online. Upon inquiry, it was revealed to him that the clients thought a company having no social presence is not strong enough to handle such a big project (having a website was not enough in their view).
& CRASH!! came down my brother's big dreams.

When i came back home that night. I found him waiting for me (it was enough for me to guess that something was not right). A few moments of fumbling & mumbling & finally the truth was revealed to me.

I felt like laughing out loud, pointing to him & say "See, i told yaaa!!", but the dejected look on his face stopped me from doing so.
"So, what do you want from me??", despite feeling sad for him, i asked firmly (I can still get a few items out of the list i made....hahahahaha *evil laugh*).
"Please make accounts for me over the social media channels... I don't know what to do with them. Please manage them on my behalf", he pleaded.

"What?? I don't have that much time... It's a very difficult task", i lied to him.
"Please, i'll pay you...promise", he was near to tears.
"OK OK!! but i'll decide my salary myself", i grabbed the opportunity.
& it was settled.

I created the accounts for him & started managing his business & clients over them...posting new things he added...introducing new clients & projects...answering queries etc.
It took time to make him get noticed but finally we succeeded.
In the end, he got his accounts & a strong base for flourishing his business & i got my greens!!

Importance of User Interface

I was feeling very bored...nothing to do...didn't feel like working either...
So, i decided to explore some random websites (maybe i'll get some ideas for my next design).
www.google.com >>> good websites >>> *Enter*
& a whole list of links was displayed in front of me...
Thus, i began exploring...
Liked a few!!
Few were OK!!
Some were great!!
Some were a disaster!!
....
I came across a very eye-catching site & my mind drifted off somewhere else.
I am a designer myself (a bit self-obsessed), what was so special in this site that even i got attracted?? I started noting down the things that were creating the whole impact.

1) the color combination used was very appealing...they matched so well with one another that the whole screen looked alive & in harmony (you can achieve the color sense with practice)

2) the arrangement of text & other stuff was very neat. All had separate sections but yet the screen wasn't looking crowded (it's a difficult task putting so much on a single screen without creating a mesh)


3) the navigation was pretty smooth (i bet my 7-year nephew can operate this very well)

I assumed that it would have been an expensive project...the design was, for sure, a custom design & not a simple design template copy (my experience told me that). I was really impressed with the insight of both the client & the designer. Usually, what happens is that when we sit down to design or instruct a designer to design something for us, we tend to follow something that we have seen somewhere (not very innovative). Later, we wonder why don't the viewers are impressed.

The reason is that whatever we have put up there for them is nothing new,; they've already seen part of it somewhere & the other part somewhere else. So, the basic point for getting a good UI is to think about the look yourself.
Picture how you want it to look like...
User friendliness is not the only thing (though it is very important), but there are other things that need to be combined together with it to get a proper, attractive interface.
Only a brilliant mind can live up to the innovation level of the designing phase of a website.

Curses upon QA Analyst

What!! I told him thrice to get rid of this line... How on Earth can i make him understand??


My mind was racing at 120 mph...My temper reaching to a limit of 220 degree Fahrenheit (i was a volcano, about to erupt).
Sometimes, i think they do this on purpose...just to annoy me...make my life more miserable
& why
Because i find mistakes with their work.

Yes, i am a QA Analyst!!
I don't know why i ended up being one...well no, i think it was what i always wanted to be...but this was not how i imagined life (it was a fairytale).

Back when i was a student, i used to hear so much about QA vs. Developers & i used to think that i won't follow their footsteps...i'll be nice to everyone...& friendly...my development team won't hate me...they'd love the way i'll help them...i'll deal with the issues nicely......(blah!! blah!! big dreams)

But once i began my work, i found that when they say "Life is not a Bed of Roses" they really LITERALLY mean it. No doubt i enjoy my work, but it can get on your nerves when you have to check the same thing for over a thousand times (not really thousand, but you feel like it's that much).

Let's take my current situation for example, this developer...i don't know what language he understands....i asked him to remove a line, a single line from a page...once...twice...thrice...but he, somehow, keeps on forgetting. I've tried everything, reminders, messages, to-dos, alarms...nothing can make him remember (i even thought about tying a string to his finger..or maybe around his neck so he remembers it with every single breath he takes).

And this other project, is nothing but a nightmare (that i encounter during the day). I found a particular mistake, i highlighted it on one the pages and asked it to be modified, assuming that all the other pages will be corrected too...but the next time i re-checked it, i realized that maybe i was expecting the other person to be a bit too much intelligent to figure out my assumption on his own.

So, here i am checking & re-checking & re-checking again for the same things I've checked a million times before & I've pointed a billion times before..
But
All i get in return is not the corrections but curses from the developers for not appreciating their days of hard work and finding lists and lists of errors and bugs and mistakes and faults!!
They can never see the days of hard work I've spent to make their days of hard work look and function perfectly.....

Story of a Logo

Hi bloggers,

I am a Logo...a logo that was designed!!
Now the story of my making might be very interesting for you, so i thought i might share it (oh come on!! please read my story).

Once there was a very brilliant mind (I'll tell you later why it was brilliant). One day that mind devised a plan to start with a new business. It worked out the details, sorted out permissions etc. etc. & then it began on how to best represent its marvelous idea. So, it started thinking...

It explored the basics of geometry...focusing on each type of shapes, lines, dimensions...twisting it here & tilting it there...
It went deep into the whirl pool of colors, looking at each shade, mixing up tones, creating combos...
&
Finally,
I was born as an idea (see, if "I" was the creation, it has to be a brilliant mind).

The mind then searched for another brilliant mind to transfer me into, so i can be made real (yes, a designer). It was hard for the mind to explain me in words or images as to how i looked (of course, i was so beautiful, no words or drawings can possibly match up to my beauty).
& so the poor mind tried & tried & tried...

Finally, the other mind got a glimpse of my beauty too. It agreed to work on making me a reality & sat down to work.

Boy, did i drive it crazy or what!!
It lost its sleep...it forgot the sense of hunger/thirst...the meaning of "fun" was lost for it.
All it could think was ME & only ME.
My beauty possessed it so bad that the sole reason of its life was to give life to me (yeah, i was like the Frankenstein...just more beautiful).

Then one day, its hard work paid off & my beauty was revealed completely to it...it was successful in giving me a final form.

My original creator (the brilliant mind i referred to in the beginning) had bursts of happiness inside it...it was so happy that tears ran out of the eyes of the person possessing it (ahh, silly fans!!).

As soon as i got linked up to the business, it bloomed & blossomed so quickly that everybody was shocked. My magic was so captivating that anyone who looked at me instantly felt the urge to make deals with the business i was representing.
So, i turned out to be lucky, as well as, very important for the business i was meant to represent.

I am a Logo...a logo that was designed!!