Since AdAge launched its daily ranking of marketing blogs, there have been over 1,000 marketing blogs added to it. In the spirit of Scott Weisbrod listing the Top 30 Canadian Marketing blogs based on the AdAge rankings, here is a quick update of the current Top 50 Canadian marketing blogs for 2010. I am definitely honoured to be part of such a distinguished list and a big congrats to my fellow bloggers! Don’t forget to grab your badge at the bottom of this post if you are on this list. And for those who want to re-publish the list, raw HTML codes are also below. Scroll down, copy and paste. >> Read the rest…
Apple’s Home Sharing is a pretty powerful setup to share media on your home network; when it works that is. Unfortunately though, sometimes clients like an Apple TV would just lose connection and then complains that Home Sharing is not turned on. Sure enough, when you check iTunes, Home Sharing is not enabled. Here is a method that worked for me to keep Home Sharing on iTunes always enabled. This is meant for Windows 7 users.
1. Go to the Windows/Start Menu, type “Windows Firewall With Advanced Security” into the search box. Launch this application.
2. On the left menu bar, click on “Inbound Rules”. In the center area, look for all “Bonjour Services”. Then find Advanced >> Profiles. Make sure all 3 checkboxes (Domain, Private and Public) are checked off. Make sure Private is checked in both windows. Click apply. Note, if you don’t run Domain or you don’t know what Domain is, then make sure BOTH Public and Private are checked.
Hopefully, this will help you maintain a stable Home Sharing connection to iTunes. It did for me thank goodness.
For all Blackberry owners who are having issues with Desktop Manager syncing properly with Outlook, you may be getting this or a similar message “Cannot log on to Exchange Server error. Please check server access or provide a valid password.”
Here is a quick fix that might help you get back on track.
1. Connect Blackberry to your computer’s Desktop Manager
2. Click “Organizer” on left side of Desktop Manager
3. Click “Reset Settings”
4. Run the set up process again
5. Sync your Blackberry
With any luck, this may help to fix that dreaded Exchange Server error.
Recently, I ran into a major road block trying to record a few news clips from an HD DVR / PVR to a PC. A ton of research pointed me to try using firewire to download videos from the DVR to a PC. Unfortunately, there were no drivers available from Motorola for the DVR in question. There were, however, third party drivers available but they were not supported in a Windows 7 64-bit environment. Even if they were, I would not have installed them regardless since it was not supported by Motorola. My only option was to find a cost effective way to capture directly from the HDMI or component out of the DVR. Here is how to download and capture video from an HD DVR; see final video below. >> Read the rest…
This morning, a client noticed a malware warning from Google Chrome when they tried to edit an article in Drupal. It turned out to be a domain (svc.spellchecker.net) from CKEditor (a WYSIWYG editor) was the cause. After some digging around, here are 2 ways to disable CKEditor spell checker from running. Both methods solved the malware warning from Chrome for Drupal 6:
Method 1:
1. Go to /admin/settings/ckeditor
2. Select the profile that you use or go through all of them if you wish:
3. Click on “Advanced options”
4. Set Spell checker: No
5. Click Save
6. Clear cache just in case
Method 2:
1. Go to /admin/settings/ckeditor
2. Select the profile that you use or go through all of them if you wish:
3. Click on “Advanced options”
4. Add “config.scayt_autoStartup = false;” without quotes to “Custom javascript configuration” section
5. Click Save
6. Clear cache just in case
Based on the Chrome warning, spellchecker.net has been notified of the malware warning. Hopefully, there is a fix sooner rather than later so we can enable the spell checker for CKEditor once again.
As a long time publisher in the digital realm, it’s always great to be able to shoot images myself that we use in articles, but most of the time, it just makes sense to buy an image. This frees up time so I can concentrate on the creation and publishing of the actual content instead. Over the years, I have been using iStockPhoto.com to purchase images for a publisher client. Recent policy and pricing changes at this royalty-free stock image site has encouraged me to look elsewhere for images.
Before I share my new source of stock images, let me share some thoughts on why we are looking for a supplement to iStockPhoto. When we first joined iStockPhoto, images used to cost about $1 USD / image for the lowest resolution size (which was higher resolution at the time than currently I might add). We mainly publish online so most of our needs are met by choosing the lowest web version. With increasing image prices and decreasing resolution size, it was time for me to find another source for royalty-free images. >> Read the rest…
Mobile carriers that allow internet tethering gave iPhone users the ability to share their mobile internet connection with notebooks and tablets. This is game changing technology and has been proven very useful for users not near a Wifi hotspot or those who choose not to use a free hotspot connection. Currently, not many mobile carriers allow internet tethering so when Apple launched the latest iPhone 4 and recent iOS’s with the new Wifi hotspot feature, it was warmly welcomed as it allowed iPhone 4 users to set up their own mini Wifi hotspots to share internet connectivity. The bad news for 3G and 3GS users was that this Wifi hotspot feature was only available for the iPhone 4. So unless you jailbreak your older iPhone, there is no way for an iPad or iPad 2 to use the mobile internet connection from a 3G or 3GS iPhone…. until today that is. Well, not exactly today, but it is only now that I found out that iOS 4.2.1 has enabled Bluetooth tethering for iPhones (even 3G and 3GS). This means I can now share my 3G mobile internet connection with an iPad without having to jailbreak. This let’s an iPad 2 grab and share the internet connection from my iPhone; although I have not tested this with other devices, I assume this would work with other Bluetooth enabled tablets like the iPad 1 as well. Of course, this only works if your mobile carrier allow your specific data plan to tether. Read on for detailed instructions on how to tether your iPad to your iPhone 3G or 3GS. >> Read the rest…
Recently, because a client’s Facebook Share count disappeared, I decided to replace the Share button with the newer Like button. The Like button works but sometimes, the count was still defaulting to zero even though many users have Liked a specific article. To try and fix this, I wanted to add meta info to each Like button. Meta info will allow posts to Facebook to be associated with a pre-specified image, URL and other article properties. Without this info, sometimes the system picks the correct image but most of the time it does not. I was hoping adding meta info will resolve the zero count issue for the Like button. The solution was to implement Opengraph Tags to add meat info to the Facebook Like button. Essensially, Opengraph tags will tell Facebook’s that a Like button is specifically linked to a particular article along with it’s title, description, image, article type, URL and site name. The site in question is powered by Drupal so I decided to give the Opengraph module a try. The only problem was, during installation, I received a server error like so:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function mb_substr() in path/sites/all/modules/opengraph_meta/opengraph_meta.common.inc on line 127 >> Read the rest…
For those who have waited patiently for the Cisco Linksys E4200 Gigabit, Wireless-N, Dual-Band router to arrive in Canadian retail stores, your wait is over. Cisco officially launched the E4200 on March 27, 2011 in Canada. Before I publish a more detailed article about putting the unit through its paces in a real world environment, here is a quick tweak to speed up slow uploads through the E4200. Setup was easy and most settings can be left at the default level. But one particular setting at default resulted in a slow internet upload speed. The E4200 is currently the highest consumer grade wireless router made by Cisco Linksys so take advantage of the new options available in the latest Linksys firmware. Log in to the unit and under Applications & Games >> QoS ,there is a setting for “Upstream Bandwidth“. Default for this is “Auto“. Linksys has an online UI setup so you can see this setting here. When in Auto mode, I was only getting about 60% (1.6 mbps) of my maximum upload speed. Once I manually set Upstream Bandwidth to 10 mbps, I was able to reach my maximum upload speed of 2.5 mbps. If you are experiencing a slow upload speed with the Linksys E4200, try setting Upstream Bandwidth at 2-3 times your maximum upload speed and you may just speed up slow internet upload speeds.
It came time for me to purchase a new SDHC card and the requirement was that it had to be fast enough to cope with the high demands of dSLR burst-shooting and HD video recording. Given the current price point in Canada, the biggest bang for the buck for a branded SDHC card at this moment is a Kingston 32GB SDHC Class 10 card. For me, this card (including 12% tax) works out to be $2.66 / GB. Kingston is a reputable brand and their memory cards are significantly less expensive than the professional Sandisk Extreme line of memory cards. So after checking a few reviews and speed charts, I decided to buy the Kingston card and noticed Canadian retailers carried 2 SKU’s for this product; SD10/32GB versus SD10/32GBCR. In general, the CR version was about 10-20% lower in cost. Kingston’s website does not show any references for the lower cost CR version. The good news is Kingston support has confirmed that these two versions are identical products. The CR designation is “an international part number which is used for marketing purposes only. There is no physical difference as far as the actual product is concerned.” This was good enough for me. Once I receive card, I will post back about its capabilities for use in a newer dSLR. So if you are considering a Kingston 32GB Class 10 card for your photography and video needs, be sure to check and see if your retailer carries the lower cost SD10/32GBCR version.
***UPDATE*** November 17, 2010
So after receiving the product, I can confirm that although the UPC code says SD10/32GBCR, the actual SD card shows SD10/32GB (just like the image in this post). Looks like these 2 SKU’s are indeed used for the same product. Just find the lower cost version and purchase that one instead. ************
Those of you who utilize Google AdSense to generate revenue are going to love the new AdSense interface. It’s clean, easy-to-use and most importantly, allows you access important information quickly. There are too many new and positive things to discuss here. You should go try it yourself. Just log in to your AdSense account as you normally do. You will be asked to try the new AdSense interface. If you do not get this prompt, there will be a “Try the new AdSense interface” link at the top of your screen after you log in. Happy AdSensing!
This is a review post of Panasonic’s higher end, consumer level HD camcorder, the HDC-TM700 or what most owners just call the TM700. As a detailed write-up has already been published by Camcorderinfo.com, this review will not be getting into the nitty gritty but only discuss issues from a first-hand perspective of using this camera for a few months. Hopefully, anyone considering the purchase of this HD camcorder will find some real world user insights helpful.
Companies often pay top dollar to PR and media agencies for help to gain exposure and increase brand awareness. With so many self-proclaimed social media gurus and experts tweeting and connecting in Facebook, you would think there are more successful campaigns out there. This is just not the case. When a campaign is truly successful, it deserves a nod. So this post is dedicated to a highly successful brand awareness campaign of 2010 – The Anywhere Challenge by Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG).