25 Simple Logo Designs That Doesn’t Suck

I’ve always been a fan of logo design and I always enjoy seeing designers come up with designs that are simple and very effective at the same time. I believe a well designed logo doesn’t have to be fancy in order to catch your attention, but rather unique, easy to understand, and provokes the human emotion.

10 Ways To Get Twitter Followers Without Spending a Dime

Twitter has contributed significantly to the further globalization of communication in our modern world, both on a personal and a business level. However, to successfully promote and market yourself and your business, you must have as many followers as possible. When more people starting viewing your posts, more people are likely to visit your blog, website, or otherwise patronize your company. However, if you are just starting out or if you are working with limited capital, finding ways to significantly increase your follower count on Twitter will help dramatically, if you can avoid paying an arm and a leg. As a general all-encompassing rule, first consider why someone would want to become your Twitter follower to begin with, even if they do not know you. Below are some helpful suggestions for achieving Twitter popularity with a little bit of time and effort:

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11 Content Ideas To Put On Your Website

1. Information About Your Company
Place information about your company on your company homepage, or create a page just for company information. You should let your visitors know who you are and what your business is all about. The goal is to help customers trust you and feel comfortable about doing business with you.

2. Your Company’s Products and Services
Of course, this is probably the most important part of your website. It is important to have a website to show that you are a part of a business and have the credibility in your industry, but the products are the main reason people will be visiting your site. The products are why you are doing business online. If you have a lot of products that you offer to customers, don’t try to put all of them on one page; use several pages to display them.

3. Contact Information
Make sure that you have posted information on how a customer can contact you. Have your contact information on both the homepage and on a separate page labeled contact information. On the separate page you should include the following.

• Your address for mailing
• Fax and phone numbers
• Email addresses for employees
• A map of your business location
• A picture of the building where your business is located
• Driving directions

4. Any Memberships and Associations for Your Business
Use the memberships that you belong to on your website to show your customers you are trustworthy. Associations like the Better Business Bureau and Chamber of Commerce are a wonderful way to show your potential customers that you are an upstanding member of the business community.

5. Frequently Asked Questions Page
If you regularly receive certain questions from your clients and customers, you might want to create a frequently asked questions page to answer those questions for your site visitors. Put a link to this page on your contact page so that a customer can access the frequently asked questions before they try to contact you with one of the questions.

6. Testimonials from Satisfied Customers
Ask your satisfied customers if they would be willing to add a testimonial to your testimonials page. It will give your potential customers a good feeling about trusting you when they read the comments of other customers.

7. The Benefits of Doing Business with Your Company
Give your customers reasons why they should do business with your company. Show the reasons that you are a better choice over your competition. What does a customer have to gain by selecting your company over your competitors? This is the place where you can show all of your company’s great points. Don’t be modest when you are trying to sell your company.

8. Images
Show your customers the work that your company does. Show the products you have created for your clients. If your company provides a service, you can use methods that show your potential customers how well you served other clients.

9. Employees
Show some pictures of your staff and employees. This will add a personal touch to your business that customers will love. If you have some employees on your staff who are experts in their fields, you should show their qualifications on this page.

10. Your Business Equipment
If your business uses some special equipment to perform the job, you display it for your customers here. You can also describe the equipment. Tell customers why it is the best to perform the work for them. It can give them a great reason to do business with your company, if you are using state of the art equipment.

11. Give Some Information About the Industry
If you find that your customers would benefit by knowing some of the inside information about your industry, then you should include such information on your website. They might find the information interesting and be thankful that they have gained some new knowledge from you. You will also be demonstrating that you have expert knowledge of the industry.

These are just a few of the things that you can include on your business website. You will have to let the web designer know what information needs to go on your site. When a visitor comes to your website, they are most likely looking for some information. If you can give them this information, they will be more inclined to do business with you. Don’t pass up the opportunity to give your customers what they are looking for.

Article by: Mr. Paul Coulter
Paul Coulter is an Internet marketing professional who specializes in Toronto Web Design. For more information, or to inquire about his services, please visit: www.torontodesignwebsite.com

Data Plan on a TMobile iPhone

Checking my blog stats, I realize there’s quite a few people searching for data plans for an unlocked iPhone on the TMobile network. Often times or not, when you call TMobile, they will tell you that you need to purchase their $29.99 data plan. While this may be true of TMobile phones, it is certainly not true if you have an unlocked iPhone.

Here’s a little tip that is still fairly unknown to a lot of TMobile customers, if you have an unlocked iPhone, you can have TMobile’s data plan for only $9.99. If you are one of the lucky few who still have the $5.99 TZones plan on your account, you can also use that for internet connectivity.

So what do you need to do?

Call TMobile and let them know you have an iPhone and that you’d like to add a data plan to your account. I believe it is called the Total Internet Plan and it should cost $9.99 a month. I know some customers that have been told this plan is not available and ended up with a $29.99 data plan so make sure you specifically tell them you want the $9.99 plan. As of May 12, 2010 TMobile confirmed with me that the $9.99 plan is only available for smart-phones that are not sold by TMobile.

Once you have the plan added to your account, you should see the E (Edge icon) appear on the status bar. If you don’t see it, turn off WiFi temporarily. If you still do not see the E, try rebooting the phone. You may also have to reset your iPhone’s network and reboot.

Once you get EDGE up and running, you may want to set up your APN settings so that you can send/receive MMS.

Let me know if you were able to successfully add the $9.99 data plan, I’m pretty sure it’ll be helpful for a lot of people.

Hiring a Freelance Web Developer

image by: www.designora.com

When it comes to creating a website for your business, there are business owners who prefer hiring a freelance web developer over hiring a design firm. One of the most daunting task with working with a freelancer is finding a person who can provide exceptional work at a fraction of the cost.

Communication is also a major factor, you need somebody who can provide the right answers should any questions arise. Here are some tips which I hope will help you find a freelance web developer.

1 - If all possible, try to find somebody who is local. It will give you piece of mind knowing you’re not working with some young kid working from his parent’s basement. Set up a face to face meeting and get to know your web developer, it doesn’t have to be long, just enough time to feel the vibe and see if this is the right person for the job.

2 - If you have no choice but to work with somebody from out of state, ask about their clients and don’t hesitate to contact them for reference. If the developer is unwilling to provide you with any kind of reference, it’s a sign that this person may not be the right one and you need to move on.

3 - Check out their website. Is it appealing to you? Their website represents the kind of work that they will be devoting to their clients. Browse around their site, is it user friendly? Are you able to navigate yourself around at ease?

4 - Check out their portfolio page. A good freelance web developer should have a portfolio page showcasing their past work. You should visit the websites listed on the portfolio page and see the type of work that you might come to expect from this developer.

5 - Contact the developer via email or phone. Ask about the services they offer. Ask for a design quote. Some developers charge by the hour and others charge a flat rate. I myself charge a flat rate, this makes it easy for both myself and the client, and I always ensure them that there aren’t any hidden charges somewhere down the line.

6 - Ask if the developer has a full time job or are they doing freelance work primarily? Ask what their availabilities are. Depending on your website, you may need someone who can update your site at any time of the day.

7 - When it comes down to prices, do your research online and find out what the going rate is for creating a website. Now this rate will depend on the type of website you want. Make sure you know the difference between a static website and a dynamic website. Typically, a dynamic website will cost more because it requires some type of programming.

8 - If the developer has a blog, take time to read it. Depending on what type of blog it is, this may give you some insight on the skills or personality of the developer. Here’s a tip, drop them a comment or a question on their blog and see how fast the response time is.

9 - Ask if they offer any type of package deals. Some developers will offer webhosting and site maintenance for an entire year. If they do, I’d recommend taking advantage of that offer, it may save you some cash in the long run.

10 - Lastly, do not settle. Be particular with who you want developing your website. Work with someone you feel comfortable with. Someone who has the knowledge and experience to perform the job you are looking for. If you do decide to hire a freelance web developer and 1 week into the project, you start noticing their poor work ethic, it’s a good sign that it’s probably not going to work out in the long run.

There you have it, 10 simple tips which I hope you’ll find useful in searching and working with a freelance web developer. Working with a freelancer doesn’t have to be hard if you follow these simple tips.

About the author:

My name is Jon and JBWEBDEV is my web design & development side project. I work full time as a web developer in Houston, TX and I also do many freelance web development work.

Interested in hiring me? Contact me today.

Avoid Malware Infection and Keep PC Errors at Bay

Malware programs have turned out to be the single most deadly cause of different types of problems with computers today. Malware basically is a broad term that is used to address a collection of different types of malicious programs, such as virus, trojans, spyware, adware, harmful scripts, and so on.

A system infected with malware loses its performance drastically and ends up causing a lot of errors, such as:

• The smss.exe error, which is otherwise a normal system process for session management, but can be used by a virus to hide itself
• The csrss.exe error, which is again caused by the hijacking of a system process
• The iexplore.exe application error, which happens when Internet Explorer crashes, mostly due to corrupt and missing DLLs or when a malicious iexplore.exe file is planted on your system.

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Best Ways to Solve Internet Issues on Your PC

The internet has been one of the greatest technological advances of our time, but it has also brought with it a plethora of problems. The rise of the internet has opened the floodgates to viruses, hackings, phishing, and what not. Therefore, it is always a good idea to learn about the various types of recurring errors that are common to most Windows systems, and are related to internet issues, and how we can solve them on our own.

Common errors that you might come across are, the iexplore.exe application error, which is caused when Internet Explorer crashes due to some reason; the npswf32.dll error, which is related to the Shockwave plugin for browsers; and the icfgnt.dll error, which is a DLL associated with the Internet Explorer.
Listed below are some tips to follow in order to avoid these problems:

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Free WordPress Template from JBWEBDEV

I’ve been meaning to put out my very own WordPress theme but haven’t had much time to fully devote to it.

Well at long last, here it is…a free WordPress template which I titled “OceanicFlight”, because I’m a big Lost fan!

Do what you want with it, it’s all yours free of charge. I do have a link at the footer of the template, I ask that you do not remove it, but if you really must remove it, then at least add my site to your blog roll.

This theme is widget ready, has 2 sidebars and it is easily customizable.

[ Download ]

CSS Tooltip That Works With IE6

A tooltipThis is a pure CSS tooltip window is a great way to present the user with a small popup when they hover over a link or an image. Some designers even use tooltip instead of a javascript popup window to ensure their message is read in case the user has javascript turned off in their browser.

I’ve used many different types of tooltips in the past and they all shared the same problem, they do not work with Internet Explorer 6. After many trial and error, I finally have a pure CSS tooltip that works in IE6.

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5 Web Design Tips for Beginners

1. Layout
In web design, the first step is to choose the layout which best suites your needs. Layout is basically the placement of your content, images and information in your web page. Normally layout is designed in Adobe Photoshop or any other graphic editing software. Please consider these few things while designing your layouts.

• Width and height of design screen (What resolution to design?)
• Height of header and footer content
• Where to place the content so it can be useful or readable
• Keep white spaces (gaps) within your text content and images
• Keep it simple and clean, don’t make too much information stuck on just one page
• You can also draw the layout on simple paper by your hand

2. Color Scheme
Second step in web design is to choose the right color scheme. Your color scheme may be comprised of two or three colors. But don’t use more than 3 colors, it will be difficult to control more than 3 colors. There are some websites where you can pick up the color schemes like kuler.com or you can find amazing color schemes at www.colorlovers.com.

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