1. Follow Twitter Users En Masse
Continuously adding Twitter users as followers will allow you to significantly increase the amount of overall followers you attain in return. In essence, if you follow 1000 new people, you are likely to gain about 200 new followers. And if you do that consistently, you can have thousands of Twitter followers in a relatively short period time. The more people you follow, the further your influence may begin to reach. However, keep in mind that this practice of mass following could put you as risk of being labeled a Twitter spammer. Additionally, following many users makes it more challenging to keep track of specific individuals. You should ultimately cut down on the amount of people you follow to make your Twitter account more legitimate.

2. Follow Twitterers Who Will Follow You Back
Following other Twitter users should not seem like a crap shoot, eternally wondering whether they will follow you in return. Be certain to follow those who share your primary field of interest. Additionally, a portion of the Twitter population will follow anyone that follows them. When looking at someone’s profile page, check the numbers in the right hand corner. If the number they follow is about the same as the number following them, then you have successfully located the realm of users that will follow anyone who follows them.

3. Follow Active and Popular Twitterers, Then Mimic Them
Identify topics of interest and find active users tweeting on similar subjects. Follow those users, and more than likely some of them will return the favor. Then, review and analyze the tweets by top Twitterers, including the content and characteristics of their tweets, to see what makes them so likeable. Comparing your product with that of more popular users, and Iearning what makes their tweets interesting, fun, or enjoyable to others, will lead to quick improvements in your personal tweeting style.

4. Make Your Tweets Useful, Interesting, or Funny
Grab the attention of the Twitter universe the old fashioned way, and please spare people the debate about whether or not you should take a nap this afternoon. Giving others the opportunity to map out your daily itinerary will not earn you many new fans, or followers. Wasting even a nanosecond of someone’s precious time could be the impetus to you being permanently stricken from the followed list. You must tweet substantive information in order for people to take you the least bit seriously. Then, tweet often to get your profile noticed. You can even provide links to interesting, controversial, or topical alerts and information. Being humorous will also help people get a sense of what kind of fun-loving, good-natured person you are, and funny statements will make others eager to follow you. However, keep your target audience in mind when posting; provide them with content you expect they will enjoy reading. You may also encourage participation and discussion by posting questions and the like, it will have the added effect of getting your name viewed by more and more people in a variety of different locations on Twitter.

5. Include Pictures or Videos In Your Tweets
A great way to garner more attention is to put fun photographs or videos within your Twitter posts. Adding more personalized media will help other users get to know you better, and perhaps even make you more seem interesting.

6. Utilize Retweeting To Your Benefit
Pick out the most worthwhile, interesting, funny, or informative tweets from other users. Not only will this succeed in grabbing the attention of the person being retweeted, but it also means that any users affiliated with the original tweetor browsing their Twitter pages will see a “retweeted” notification mentioning your name; which creates a second chance to gain new followers. Also try to tweet things that you think others may want to retweet themselves. If something is interesting, unique, motivating, newsworthy, or entertaining, others may be compelled to simply retweet your thoughts. Do not be afraid to ask your followers to retweet your tweets for you, as this is another great way to obtain more followers.

7. Create An Interesting Profile
Make a great impression on your followers and potential followers by developing a unique, interesting, and attention-grabbing profile. Upload an appealing picture of yourself, and write a brief, but memorable biography. This vital information will help you to further connect with your followers. The profile is an often overlooked facet of Twitter, but you cannot underestimate the impact it may have, and it could actually make others interested in what you have going on. Moreover, consider adding a custom background to your Twitter home page; it will stand out against the millions of other monotonous and generic Twitter profiles.

8. Use Hashtags As Often As Possible
Hashtags are a way to get more exposure, and to have your posts added to pages grouped by topic. These are groups are signified by their “hashtag.” Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context to your tweets. Hashtags are created by simply placing a hash symbol in front of a particular word (e.g. #Fox). These hashtags are then utilized by users with a common area of interest. You can track popular hashtags and hot topics by browsing TwitterGroups or TweetChat. Once you discover the popular hashtags applicable to your purpose, you can create tweets based on those topics. Hashtags provide you with the hope that interested users will subsequently check you out and follow you.

9. Sync Your Tweets With Your Blog or Website
The more exposure you have for your tweets, the greater the chances become that people will choose to follow you. If you have a blog, you may consider using a plug-in that will allow you to display your tweets on the page itself. Or, you can pull your tweets into your blog, creating new tweets on blog posts from within WordPress. Amongst your many other options, there are plug-ins you can utilize to turn any mention of the word “Twitter” within your blog or website into a link to your actual Twitter account.

10. Communicate With Your Followers
Just because you are interacting in a fairly impersonal way, you cannot forget to utilize the best of your communication skills. Reward your followers by communicating with them. Reply to interesting people, get into discussions, and make good points. Find topics of interest and join in conversations with other Twitter users. This will help make you a more well-known Twitterer. Be natural and casual when tweeting, passing on information that might be useful to your followers. This should in turn noticeably strengthen your followers count. Twitter users generally do not like it if you are blatantly using them to simply promote yourself. You need to show them that you are monitoring them as well, and prove it by engaging in conversation. Ultimately, it shows others that you are open to communication and to meeting new people.

About Dana Bashor
Dana Bashor has absolutely no formal writing credentials whatsoever, but that doesn’t stop her from writing on topics that catch her attention like Planet Antares and social media. Dana Bashor loves to write and contribute to the World Wide Web. Catch up with Dana Bashor on her blog or connect with Dana Bashor on her Twitter page.

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

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.

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.

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.

The good thing is that you can deal with all these errors on your own, and it is possible to avoid them in the future as well, by following the steps listed below:

• Registry cleanup – The registry is the most important component of your Windows system, and houses all the possible settings for every type of program and process. But if the information inside the registry is not indexed correctly, it can open door for malware to exploit it. In the worst of cases, the registry might itself get infected, and there is no solution but to go for a complete system reinstall.To save yourself from such situations, you should invest in a good-quality registry cleaner, making sure that you purchase it only from a trusted vendor. This will pay off in the long run, because such software will take only a few minutes to fix everything related to the registry. You will be surprised at how easy all this actually is, and what huge gains you achieve in terms of improved PC performance.

• Anti-malware – You need to have a gamut of protective programs installed on your system to effectively deal with the different types of malware. For instance, it is no longer enough to have just an antivirus on your PC; you need to also have a good anti-spyware, anti-adware, and an email-scanner program, as well other tools to ensure maximum protection.A single program that deals with all these is usually recommended. However, you may also opt for separate tools for a much better and focused protection. Do not forget, however, to regularly update these programs by connecting to the internet.

• Firewall – A firewall is a protective software that safeguards your computer against network attacks, and can save you from many hacking and phishing attempts. It is recommended that for more robust protection, you go for a popular third-party firewall, rather than the default Windows firewall. It might turn out to be a little difficult to set up a firewall, but the rewards are worth it.

It is true that malware programs have become a very serious threat, but it is also true that it is actually quite easy to deal with them, provided you have the right tools and the right guidance. Now that you know what needs to be done, we urge to go ahead and try it out.

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:

• Registry cleanup – You might be wondering, “What’s the connection between the registry and internet problems?” Well, let’s not forget that the registry contains settings for almost every type of program, and this includes internet programs as well. It is entirely possible that two conflicting registry entries will vie for the same system resource, resulting in possibly the Shockwave error message.To keep the registry in good shape, it is very important that you invest in a good registry-cleaner downloaded from a reliable source. Once that is done, scanning and fixing the registry only takes a matter of minutes. You will not only see a reduction in error messages, but you will also see a marked improvement in system performance as well.

• Use alternative Web browser – We somehow tend to shirk away from experimentation, choosing instead to suffer because of our old ways. Far too many people never bother to read software reviews, and hence never come to realize how unstable software like Internet Explorer can be. Even after the eighth release, Internet Explorer remains the most unstable and slowest of all browsers, and also doesn’t have that much functionality.So, if you’ve been getting frequent error messages related to Internet Explorer, it makes a lot of sense to switch to other better browsers like Opera, Firefox, Safari, or Chrome.

• Firewall – Network hacks and attacks have become very common, and so you need to have a good firewall installed on your system. A good firewall filters all the outgoing and incoming data-packets and blocks those it suspects, asking for your decision. However, don’t rely on the default Windows firewall; there are far more effective alternatives available both freeware as well as paid versions. It might take a while to install and configure it properly, but once set up, the firewall will make your internet experience enjoyable.

Even though the internet is a source of all types of problems, it has many advantages as well. By following the steps outlined above, you can make sure that you are protected from any malicious programs, and that your internet experience is always rewarding.

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 ]

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.

HTML Code:

<a href="#" class="tooltip">Your Link Here
<span> Tooltip message you want to appear. </span></a>

Here’s the CSS code:

a.tooltip {
	color: #7C98AE;
	text-decoration: none
	}
 
a.tooltip:hover {
	position: relative;
	text-decoration: none
	}
 
a.tooltip span {
	display: none
	}
 
a.tooltip:hover span {
	display: block;
   	position: absolute; 
	top: 0px; left: 40px;
	width: 200px;
        padding: 5px; 
	margin: 10px; 
	z-index: 100;
        background: #f0f2f6; 
	border: 1px solid #955F1F;
	opacity: 0.9;
	text-align: center
	}

This CSS tooltip works with IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox, Chrome, Flock and Opera. If you have your own CSS tooltip solution please share them here.

• 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.

Tips on color choices:

• Choose at least 2 colors or 3 colors, like black, dark brown and dull green.
• Keep your text in a readable color like white text on dark brown background.
• Keep your links a little bit more sharp in colors than your text
• Keep the balance in colors like light colors on dark backgrounds
• Don’t make a fruity effect by using too many colors in one place
• Try to use Web 2.0 sleek and clean color schemes

3. Content Positioning (Balancing)

Third step is to position and maintain your contents so that the user feels like all the pages of the site are in balance. It is a very crucial step in web design. You also have to keep in mind to view your web pages in multiple major browsers.

4. Optimization

First three steps were purely design based; now when you have built your page a bit, you must not overlook the page size and how it is going to load in the browser. Web page optimization means a very broad term. It may also include Search engine friendly coding.

• Keep the usage of images at minimum, loading time will suffer due to heavy images
• Minimize the usage of too many scripts and Flash content
• Use CSS and div based layout and eliminate any unnecessary CSS and HTML codes
• Words in the title of page and headings and your meta tags all count towards Search Engine optimization
• Check your web page in different browsers, cross browser compatibility is a must

5. Design Exposure

Your exposure to new and latest technologies, design patterns and layouts will also improve your web design overall sense.

• Search for latest trends in web design and latest web design techniques
• View portfolio websites of other great designers
• View art related websites like Deviantart.com to get some good exposure
• Try learning new tutorials on Photoshop, CSS, HTML

Article By: Ahsan Idrisi