April 11, 2007 by AC.

Instant messaging services have become nearly as important as email for online communication.  Once regarded as something for kids, instant message services have enjoyed increased usage by adults using the service to communicate with friends, family and by workers for business purposes.  Problem is there are so many different services out there - America Online (AOL) has the popular AOL IM or AIM, Yahoo has a service, as does Microsoft and Google.

Because these services are free most people have one or more accounts on these systems.  Where your friends are is another factor to IM services, sometimes requiring multiple screen names on different services to communicate with your friends.  That usually requires a few software installations for the message services and can take up some valuable disk space & computer resources.  Also, what if you have multiple computers or have home & work machines?

There are a few aggregate services available that allow multiple connections through one service.  Easiest among these is meebo (http://www.meebo.com/) a web-based service that allows access from any browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) and connect to all the major services (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google, etc.).  Using a central meebo login you can manage all your accounts in one interface with one buddy list.  This is a huge convenience.  No additional software is required, just internet access and a web browser.  This is definitely worth a try for anyone with multiple messaging accounts.

Thanks for reading!

Posted in Internet, Web Tools & Tips | 1 Comment »

March 25, 2007 by AC.

If you have a personal or small business website chances are you are interested in increasing exposure and traffic to the site.  Besides listing your site in major search engines there are several tools & resources that a webmaster can take advantage of to optimize the site.

Google (www.google.com), Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) and Microsoft (www.live.com) are the big three when it comes to search engines.  If you have a small business it is a must to get listed in all three sites.  Beyond that you can check statistics, links & manage your sites in a variety of ways on each search engine.

Google has a comprehensive list of tools for webmasters at: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/.  You can list & manage your sites (multiple & different sites if necessary) and take a look at links & other statistics.  Yahoo offers a similar resources at: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/.  Like the Google site it allows you to manger your sites and get up-to-date statistics for your site.  Both require accounts on the respective systems but are free services. 

Microsoft does not offer the same dynamic services but has an excellent FAQ section that helps you manage & verify your site listing at: http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_webmasters.

These extra steps are helpful to managing, verifying and optimizing your presence online.

Thanks for reading!

Posted in Web Tools & Tips, Web Design | 1 Comment »