The End Has Come...

I am sad to announce that I will no longer be updating the Save Me Geek Blog. It became too much to consistantly maintain and I have simply lost interest in my original project. I am going to invest my extra time in my new site jamie.d.house photography. I will continue to leave the site up, because there is some info that can be referenced here and all my social contact info. Thanks for reading!

Jamie D

Viigo and ExploreMusic.com - Raising your rock n roll IQ

Viigo announced a cool partnership this morning that gives people access to all kinds of music info.  ExploreMusic is a new venture from Corus Entertainment and features Alan Cross.  Here is a link to the full press release and below is a video demonstrating the new functionality.

Pantech Escapade WP8990VW Hitting VZW August 21st...

I don't know how excited anyone will be over the Pantech Escapade that will be launching on Verizon Wireless August 21st...  However, it is claimed to be the "affordable world phone," so I am sure someone will find a use for it.  The phone is said to support CDMA with 1x data alongside GSM with GPRS data (not all that impressive), QVGA internal display, 2-megapixel camera, 2.5mm headset jack and no support for a microSD card. Like I said, I'm not sure who will be excited about this phone, but I thought I should still share the news of the release date...

Check Out the Where 3.0 Updated iPhone App!

Where, a location based search/info app for the iPhone, was recently updated with new and improved functionality and features.  @ccmaine and crew show it all off in this new video... so check it out!

How Do You Find The Good Keywords?

We all know that the 3 most important things in business is are “location, location, location.” Why is location so important in business? Because you need to be in the right place for people to find you. And if people don’t find you, you have no traffic through your store. For example, if you have a tourist shop, you have to be near the beach or attractions, not in an industrial complex.

When you have an online business, your location isn’t your domain name (i.e. www.vegetablesarehealthy.com/) and it isn’t how nice your website looks. You can have the best website in the world, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get any business. Your location is where you are listed (called rank) in Google, Yahoo and Bing (formerly MSN). Now let’s say that www.vegetablesarehealthy.com has a rank of being #2, on the first page of Google, for the keyword “rutabaga”. WHO CARES!?!?!? How many times a month do people really search the internet for “rutabaga”? Well, actually people search for it 68,600 times. This may seem like a lot but keep in mind that this is globally. This is a bad location. But, if www.vegetablesarehealthy.com/ has a rank of being #2, on the first page of Google, for the keyword of “banana” or “lettuce”, which get 10,360,000 and 673,000 searches respectively, you would have A LOT more traffic to your website.

When advertising your business online, you need traffic to your site. You might have a great Google Rank for keywords, but if they don’t get many searches, you won’t get many clients. So what you need to do is get great keywords, then worry about the ranking.

So, to the point of this blog post, how do you find the good keywords? Well, that’s easy if you know where to look. And Google gives you the tools to do the research yourself. If you go to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, you can put in your desired keywords and Google will tell you how many searches they get per month. It will also recommend keywords that are related to yours and show how many searches those get per month.

There are many other tools that you can see if you click on the pulldown menu titled “Choose columns to display”. Through using these options, the Google Adwords Keyword Tool can show you how many searches are performed for Google Local Business as well. Use these tools in combination and you have the begining of a great Internet business!

Tim Biden owns and operates Biden PC, a computer networking company.

Viigo Twitter Integration Is Worth All The Buzz!

I might as well change my blog to everything Viigo...  With so many new updates and videos, it seems to be all I am posting about these days.  Since the release of Viigo's Tango 9 (Release 3), the social network feature has been all the buzz on, well... the social networks...  Here is a list of its offerings:

• Follow the public timeline, your friends timeline (home) or your followers timeline.    
•  Read Direct Messages, Favorite Messages and Mentions.
• Initiate a Tweet, Retweet and Retweet all.
• Perform searches on key words so you can see when people are discussing a topic of interest to you.
• See whether a person is following you, or not, by the color of the text (green being yes and red being no).
• See if a person has been validated by Twitter.
• If there is a picture added to a tweet it will appear within the post. 
• If the tweet included a hash tag the hash tag will also automatically appear in your reply.
• The reply all feature will show up automatically if more than one person was included in a tweet. 

Getting set up to use Twitter in Viigo is easy: 

From within Social Networks select add a channel. From the list of available channels select Twitter.  Then select Add Account.  Enter your Twitter username and password, then select all the options I spoke of earlier that you would like included.  To include a search select add search then type in the word you want to search on.

If that isn't enough info, here is a newly released video showing off the social network feature in Viigo...

The Value of Pageonce Integration in Viigo

The good people at Viigo continue to update and expand the excellent application that they offer.  Although Pageonce integration is not new to Viigo, the video demoing its value is.  Check it out below...

Apple TV Hacking Made Easy!

Like many people, I own an Apple TV (ATV). And like many people, I am pretty bored by the standard functionality of my ATV. So to fix that, like many people, I hacked my ATV... It is tough not to quickly love having apps like Boxee and XBMC on the ATV to enhance your media library and expand it with internet content. So the first time I did this, I used the very popular atvusb-creator. It is easy to use (via usb patchstick) and installs Boxee, XBMC and ssh tools onto your ATV. From there, there are also installers for other apps like Couch Surfer. However, after a while I wanted more! I was really searching for something that would allow me to stream Netflix movies on my ATV (Boxee supports Netflix streaming on Mac, PC & Linux, but not ATV due to hardware restrictions). A simple Google search opened up a whole new world of possibilities!

I quickly became aware of all the other apps that can be hacked onto the ATV... and many sites had directions on how to install them one-by-one. However, one specific site really caught my attention. The product is called ATV Flash by Fire Core, LLC. ATV Flash is a product that has all these individual application hacks compiled into on patchstick. It doesn't get much more easier than that! Here is a list of everything you get:

• Enables playback of media not typically supported by iTunes, such as DivX, Xvid, AVI, WMV, RMVB & more.
• Allows you to play DVD files in their native format.
• Installs Couch Surfer (a Safari based web browser) for searching the web.
• Allows you to easily create and manage video playlists for all your newly accessible media. Includes loop and shuffle support.
• Allows you to expand the storage capacity of the AppleTV by attaching an external USB hard drive. Supports OSX and FAT32 drive formats.
• Eliminates the need for iTunes. Drag and drop media onto the AppleTV, or stream directly from most NAS devices. Includes support for FTP, SFTP, SSH and SMB.
• Expands the functionality even further by adding additional applications such as Firefox (with support for a USB mouse and keyboard), EyeTV and Google Earth.
• Allows you to watch and preview a mix of international movies, indie films, and trailers from Jaman.com.
• Allows you to keep track of your favorite RSS news feeds.
• Also installs XBMC, Boxee and Sapphire (a great movie and tv show organizer that taps into the IMDB for information).
• To learn more, here's a link to the ATV Flash screencast.
  

That is a pretty large list of features! But I have to say that all of this does come with a price, which is $49.95. Also, the ATV Flash download is available for Mac or PC to create the USB patchstick.

I am loving the fact that I can now have a USB External HD that I can SSH to and also a wireless keyboard and mouse for surfing on Firefox. Sapphire is also a great app for organizing my movies and getting the IMDB data. But back to my original reason for the search, Netflix streaming. You will be glad to know that I got it to work... kinda... I installed the Silverlight 3 Beta for developers (ATV Flash said Silverlight 2 was too bulky for the ATV, but they had high hopes for version 3) by SSH using instructions found here. I then used Firefox (which you should stick with Firefox 2 that ATV Flash installs, I tried 3.5 and it was a resource hog!) to access the Netflix site and start a streaming movie in full-screen. The movie played! However, the video was a little choppy at the beginning but eventually smoothed out (audio was great). It did better when I paused it and let it buffer a bit more. All-in-all, I cant complain too much.

Overall, I am very happy with ATV Flash and I think it is a good purchase. Especially if you don't have the time or patience to install everything one-by-one. Have fun!

~ Jamie D & Save Me Geek are in no way affiliated with ATV Flash or Fire Core, LLC. All comments come from my own positive personal experience. Thanks for reading!

Newly Released Videos Help Users w/ Viigo's Podcast and Facebook Services

Being the friendly company they are, Viigo released a couple of follow-up videos to last week's update. The videos are intended to help users understand how to better use the new Podcast and Facebook services. Here they are for your viewing pleasure...

Use Google to Bring in the Business... the Free & Easy Way!

If you own a small business as I do, you know the pain and cost of advertising and marketing to bring in new clients. No doubt you know (and probably use) Google. You’ve probably also heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but have you ever heard of Search Engine Marketing (SEM)? This is typically things like Pay Per Click (PPC) but it also includes Google Local Business. What is Google Local Business you ask? Please allow me to explain…

Have you ever done a Google search for a term such as “Computer Repair” or “Computer Repair city-name” and a map came up with links to local businesses? Have you ever clicked on one of those links? If so, you already know Google Local Business and the power of it. Now what you need to know is how to get your business and website listed on it. That isn’t hard. Just follow a few easy steps with me and you’ll soon be a Google Local Business pro. Oh, and did I mention that its FREE?

1. Go to www.google.com/local/add
2. Sign to your existing account or create one if you don’t already have a Google account.
3. Once you’re in the Google Local Business Center click on “Add new listing”.
4. Here you input all the requested information about your business and click next. Be sure to use your real phone number and address.
5. On the next page, you can put in what really matters… Keywords that people search for.
6. Under categories, you enter your keywords. Be sure to research your keywords to see what people actually search for. Keyword research will be in a later blog post.
7. Put in any more desired information and click “Submit”.
8. You will now be taken to a page that requires you to verify either by mail or by phone. Choose which is better for you. Phone is quicker.
9. Once you choose, either your phone will ring or a postcard will be sent to you. These communications will include a 5 digit code that you must return to Google Local Business Center and input to verify your listing.
10. After you have verified the listing, it will start showing about 2 days later.


I hope your business grows from this knowledge! Good luck!

~ Tim Biden owns and operates Biden PC, a computer networking company.