Alberta Business Marketing

I find myself these days with three Apple products at the ready at all times and with our team at Ulistic growing, collaborating and sharing of information amongst our team members is crucial to our success.  Our MacBooks, iPhones and IPADs travel with us everywhere we go and this allows for keeping in touch with our clients when they need us.   Having instant access to our client data is crucial to our success but having this luxury within our budget is especially critical.

The Internet Cloud allows Ulistic to operate in a manner that meets all of our needs for access, security and affordability.

Enter another robust, secure and free/nearly free solution for business

I stumbled upon a great “free” application over the weekend and what is even more impressive is how seamless it works with all of our computers and mobile devices.  For me personally, one of my biggest challenges throughout my business career has been taking accurate notes of things that happen or are said in a meeting.  I just wasn’t one of those guys who took notes on everything that was said in a meeting.  But I think I just found a solution that can cure me of this challenge.  Sure I tried Microsoft OneNote but it didn’t have a solution (when I was using it) that worked when I didn’t have my laptop.  With this new application I learned about over the weekend I may have just finally found a cure for my challenges with keeping track of what happens in our meetings.

Notetaking Software that just works

Enter Evernote! Evernote is simply one fantastic service!  Evernote offers free and “nearly free” services to a busy guy like me who doesn’t have countless hours in a day to wrestle with technology.  Evernote’s simply interface and synchronization allows our team at Ulistic to have our notes with us whereever we go.  MacBook, iPhone or iPAD they all work like a charm.  Synchronization works virtually without any user interference to all of our devices without any headaches at all.  Need to start taking notes for an idea that pops into your head, no problem, just open Evernote wherever you are a make a quick note.

This includes pictures, movies, typed in notes and audio recordings.  Can you say SLICK!

The free version of Evernote allows for 40 MB of data transfer each month, not bad as a starter. Go Premium with 500 MB of synchronization traffic for only $5 per month or $45 per year – less than the cost of that memory stick you just bought.  When you combine Evernote with other great online services such as Dropbox and Google/Microsoft hosted email, why would you ever need a server or complex information technology solution for your small business?  It just makes technical and economic sense to choose robust, secure and efficient services such as Evernote and the others if are simply sharing files and sending emails.

Evernote also works on the Microsoft Windows platform and Android, Palm Pre and Blackberry mobile phone services.  I am giving Evernote two thumbs up and placement on my home screen of both my iPhone and iPAD.  Great tool for any size of business.

Something else that is cool, Evernote can also track where you were when you worked on a file and bring up that location on a Google map.

Tags: android, Apple Inc., blackberry, Business IT, cellular telephone, Computing, Dropbox, Evernote, free solution, Google Inc., Google/Microsoft, information technology, information technology solution, iPad, iphone, Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Windows, mobile devices, mobile phone services, notetaking, Notetaking software, onenote, Palm Pre Smartphone, secure and efficient services, Technology/Internet
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Now it is time to forget about those expense, complex and perhaps unreliable network servers for simply sharing information amongst members of your team!  Small Business now has a robust, easy to manage, pain-free solution to manage their day-to-day sharing of information across team members everyday.  During a recent trip to Tampa, my partner David stumbled upon a fantastic solution that solves most of our file sharing challenges and at a price that fits our business budget.

Have you heard of Dropbox?

Dropbox is a web-based file storage, online backup and synchronization platform for small business and also can scale to support larger teams.  Dropbox was easy to install and flexible enough to support our small business needs.  No complex setups, no super high IT costs for a simple service like sharing information and we have the peace of mind knowing our business information is safe and sound, accessable wherever our travels take us and our overall cost of ownership is next to nothing.

At Ulistic we run a number of different platforms.  David and I both run Apples Macintosh systems of some flavour, we have the odd Windows machine kicking around the office and David runs Linux when he is on the road.  For a small business we have a wide variety of business systems.  Dropbox provides us the flexibility to run our business and access our information on all of these robust platforms.  Did I mention…with no headaches and no super high IT bills each month.

In addition, with its synchronization abilities when a file stored our team Dropbox account changes we have the ability to be notified.  Great when you are working and collaborating on a project together.

Are you ready for the price?

2 GB of storage and under is FREE! That’s right, it doesn’t cost you a cent to set up your own Dropbox account and copy your critical files to your account and off of your computer system.  Dropbox once installed shows up as a resource in Finder and also in your Windows Explorer.  It was so simple, even I installed it without the help of anyone.

For those concerned about security.  Dropbox allows you to lock down who has access to what.  All access is encrypted using AES-256 encryption and they claim that Dropbox employees do not have access to your information.  That is pretty good security in my eyes and especially for the information we work with daily.

Web and Mobility is also looked after.  Dropbox has applications for the iPad, iPhone and Android operating systems plus is fully accessible via a web browser.

Give it a try.  Pricing for storage is pretty reasonable after 2 GB.  For 100 GB of storage…$20 a month.  Wow, pretty reasonable!

Tags: android, business systems, Cloud storage, Computing, Data synchronization, David, Dropbox, fantastic solution, File hosting, File sharing, iPad, iphone, Linux, Microsoft Windows, online backup, Online backup services, Online Solutions, operating systems, pain-free solution, tampa, Technology/Internet, Ubuntu One, USD, using AES-256 encryption, web browser, web-based file storage
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Apple has approved a Paypal mobile payment solution that works across different applications on iPhone. What this will mean is travelers will soon be able to pay for goods and services from within a wide variety of applications on iPhone within Paypal. Ditto for Android phones.

The next phase of development for tourism business apps will be to integrate Paypal payments; making it easy for mobile phone users to pay for tourism services from the palm of their hand.

Frankly, I’m not sure why more restaurants haven’t offered diners the option of paying their tab using the existing Paypal app. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Tags: android, apps, iphone, paypal
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In less than a day you can have a great mobile-ready Website that delivers all the content you need to satisfy the needs of your iPhone and other smartphone carrying guests before, during and after their visit to your region.

Why ensure your content looks good on a handheld?

• 60% of the world’s population have a cell phone. (3.1 Billion cell phone contracts)
• Cell phone users replace their phones every 18 months; the vast majority of new phones are smartphones.
• 91% of cell phone users have their phone within arms reach 24/7; providing users with impulse access to Web content during the “in-between moments” in a day.
• listen to podcast episode with Hilton VP on the explosive growth in handheld sales for the hotel chain.

Wordpress.com blogs are automatically optimized for iPhone and Google Android phones; another reason why it’s time you started blogging with Wordpress.

Make your Wordpress blog a fully functioning  iPhone-ready and Android phone-ready Website without worrying at all about being a code monkey.

Create an account at Wordpress.com and add a blog.  Treat your blogsite as a free iPhone-ready and Android-ready Web site.  Both phones use the Webkit engine that powers Safari Web browsers and these phones will co-rule the handheld landscape along with Blackberry.  Soon Blackberry is expected to join the Webkit/Safari browser handheld crowd too.

Get your mobile site started with the right content on a Wordpress blog

Choose a Theme and Banner

It doesn’t matter what theme you choose, just pick one that has space for a banner image.

Banner Image: In the theme settings for your blog choose a banner image.  Give your Blog your Business Name as it’s title and include your main phone number in the Tagline setting on the General Settings tab for your blog.  Remember viewers may be looking at your site on their phone. Your phone number will automatically be a link, allowing your iPhone/Android site user to click the number to dial you with their phone!

Create Permanent Pages you think handheld device users and blog readers will appreciate:

• About us:  Include Contact Info.
• Check Availability: Consider using a page with a Google Webform.
• Link to your TripAdvisor page:  Encourage guests to write a review from the road when they check out.
• Map: Embed a Google Map on this page. (iPhone users can click on the map to link out of the blog to iPhone Maps app)
• Seasonal Rates: iPhone or handheld specials?
• FAQ’s:  Include things to do en route
• Media: On iPhone, Audio Podcasts can play in iTunes app, Youtube Videos open in the Youtube app and photo libraries on Flickr or Picasaweb can open in their handheld media format.  Be sure to link to your favourite picture folder on Flickr.com or Picasaweb.com

Flickr Photo Page looks great on iPhone:

Turn on the Mobile Theme for your Wordpress Blog

By default, the mobile version of your site is on, but check just to make sure.

On the Appearance tab click on Extras.

On the Extras page, Display a mobile theme box should be checked.

What happens now?

When viewing your Wordpress.com blog on iPhone or Google Android device your new Wordpress blog site automatically renders beautifully with WPtouch theme by BraveNewCode. W0rdpress.org (self-hosted blog) users can choose from a few plug-ins to render your site for iPhone (WPTouch among them).  A nice feature of WPtouch is that users can choose to turn it off and access the full version of your website simply by switching the mobile on/off switch at the bottom of each page.

Publicize your iPhone Page

As with the regular Wordpress view of your blog, the site home page of your site shows the most recent posts first.  The permanent pages-list at http://YourURL.wordpress.com/?pages-list is a great page to link to from your existing Web site as the iPhone or mobile version of your Web site.   Consider treating this pages-list page as your mobile home page.

Ask your guests to bookmark the iPhone blog version of your Website on their iPhone.

Pages list view of your blog on iPhone:

The Drop Down list in the upper right corner of the iPhone site brings up:

• a search box,
• home page
• links to permanent pages,
• post archives.

Special Pages for YOUR Ideal Guests:

No one knows the needs of your guest better than you (except your guests themselves).  Create pages you know your ideal guest will appreciate. Imagine for instance that bus tours are a key market segment for you. Consider a page dedicated to the guests traveling on the bus. Give the link to travel trade and have them include it in literature to your bus-traveling mobile phone toting guest so that they can view your content en route.

Get Blogging!

There you have it: A free iPhone-ready, Android-ready version of your Website; another great reason to have a free Wordpress.com blog for your tourism business.

Links

• Screenshots taken from Todd Whyte’s blog at Ocean View Hotel in Rocky Harbour, NL, Canada.
• Mashable’s Guide to Mobile Design
• Smashing Magazines’s Mobile Design Showcase

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Tags: android, blog, handheld, iphone, iphone-ready, website, wordpress
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