Michael Gibbs » Page 17

Author: Michael Gibbs

I'm a technologist at heart, assisting companies best utilize the Internet to market themselves and sell their products and services online. This includes organizations as large as Google and as small as one or two individuals.
At Over The Top and Exhibit A Communications, I've programmed solutions for Google as well as at least one other company that was later acquired by Google.

I've been CTO of an Internet SaaS company and spent my time pretty evenly between guiding the future technical strategy of the company, architecting software solutions for my dev teams, designing and running a data center to service our clients world-wide as well as being a technical evangalist/sales engineer to our media clients large and small.

I've also been Chief Photographer of the Daily Sun/Post newspaper back when it was a 5-day a week daily newspaper.

I also spent a great many years as a beach lifeguard for the City of San Clemente as well as Jr. Lifeguard instructor and then as it's program coordinator.
Bragging rights
Private Pilot with Instrument rating and proud husband of soon to be 25 years (and counting).

Having Problems with Microsoft or Windows Update?

I had one computer that I figured was just brain dead (I still think it is) and was never able to get to the bottom of why updates wouldn’t install on it. I was blaming the computer (and it’s previous owner). Well, I just experienced the same problem with another XP computer that prompted me to aggressively try and find an answer.

I found the following on Tech Support Forums:

I suggest you try this workaround for Windows Update issues…
How to Repair the Windows Update Files.
1. Go Start > Run.
2. In the box type REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL > Enter.
3. A message saying, "DllRegisterServer in WUAPI.DLL succeeded" will appear > OK.
4. Now it is necessary to repeat these steps for each of the following files commands:
Hit Enter after each line
REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL
Once finished; since the temporary folder of Windows Update may be corrupted, please carry out the following steps to rename the folder:
1. Go Start > Run > in the box type cmd > Enter.
Type the following command in the open panel.
net stop WuAuServ
(Please Note: the computer may need to be rebooted before the net stop command will work.)
2. Go Start > Run > type in the box %windir% > Enter.
3. In the opened folder, rename the folder ( by Right clicking) SoftwareDistribution to Sdold.
4. Go Start > Run > type in cmd > Enter. In the open command pane, please type:
net start WuAuServ
Once that’s done, Go Start > All Programs > Windows Updates and see if it will allow the downloading/installation of Windows Updates.

This seems to have resolved the problem on the newer computer that was exhibiting this problem and so I thought I would share this with the world (of people that actually read my blog). Now to go attempt this on the lame computer we are using for our postage/shipping system… Wish me luck!

What Would You Add to Enhanced Mailing Manager?

In the interest of making EMM the best tool possible for all my customers, I thought I should be working harder to get more feedback from you all on what we you would like to see the package do. You can always send me e-mails about future feature requests, but perhaps this forum would be a better way to do that? Please feel free to use the Comments at the bottom of each post here on the blog to push your ideas up, not just for me, but for other users in the community to comment on.

I was recently asked by a new customer Dan if we previewed the email addresses that a given audience would send to BEFORE you actually sent it. I’m thinking this is a great idea but am wondering how people would use it. Would having a count be more important than actually seeing the addresses? One of my early concerns was to minimize the likelihood that an unscrupulous customer service representative in your organization uses this to do some data mining or to get around the built-in restrictions to prevent email from being sent to people that have unsubscribed.

Thoughts are always welcome using the comments below!

New Features Added to Google Apps

For those of you using Google Apps, you might be interested in the following new features:

Not using Google Apps yet? Let us help you take fullest advantage of all this Googley goodness with our Google Apps Setup Service.

Enhanced Mailing Manager version 1.0.1.0 for ASPDNSF Released!

Yes, that's right, the much anticipated release of EMM v1.0.1.0  for AspDotNetStoreFront has occurred. I've finally gotten my act in gear and finished up all the features that people have been asking for.

Want to try out EMM without having to buy it first? You've got it! You can now download a copy of the current version of EMM. We've enabled a key system that allows anyone to download and try the product in their environment and the only thing that they won't be able to do is send emails to the non-test target audiences.

image Looking for WYSIWYG editing of HTML version of a campaign? Done! This is one we previewed in an earlier posting but it is certainly worth crowing about here as well! We've integrated ASPDNSF's WYSIWYG editor into our tool to make it easier for non-coders to make good looking newsletters and emails. Say you don't like that editor and have it turned off in AppConfig variables? No problem, we honor that flag!

image Do you want simple, one-click newsletter sign ups? We've listened to you and integrated what we think is the best system for doing this. No longer will you need to require that potential newsletter subscribers create an entire profile in ASPDNSF in order to send them emails. We provide you with the tools to no only define Double and Single Opt In email collection, but you can also force the potential subscriber to provide their first and last names on the jump if you'd prefer! Even better, you can keep these individuals separate from your normal customers by posting them into EMM External Customer database. Say you want to insert them into your standard ASPDNSF customer database? No problem as we can handle that as well!

Note: The proposed defaults discussed in this earlier post have been modified. We are still defaulting to Double Opt-In email collection (the smart way to do things) but the default behavior of data collection is to only require email addresses rather than forcing first and last name as indicated previously. That post also indicated that we would be defaulting the insertion of newly subscribed users to the ASPDNSF Customer table. After much consideration, we've decided that our customers might need access to adding customers to both customer tables within the same website so we've placed the controlling logic in the forms that subscribers will use to sign up from.

Of course, you still get all of this for a mere $100! If you aren't currently using this application with your ASPDNSF storefront, you owe it to yourself to download the evaluation version to give it a shot!

Have any comments or questions? Please feel free to comment or contact us using the Comment feature below.

EMMv1.0.1.0.zip (55.13 kb)

Add PDFs to Your Google Docs under Google Apps

image Looking to extend the Docs portion of Google Apps to act as a repository? Google has heard your cries!

You can now upload and share PDF files into your docs repository. While you can’t search the PDFs (I’ve got to believe they are going to fix this given that they are a SEARCH company) you can at least cut and paste from these PDF files.

You’ll find more about this on the Google Docs blog posting here: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/06/upload-your-pdfs.html

Got Mac? Get Apps!

Here is a great case study on an all-Mac shop moving their email and groupware solution over to Google Apps:

Just a reminder, if you are looking to do this, Mac or otherwise, we can help with our Google Apps Setup Service.

And while we are talking about Macs, Mac )X X 10.5.3 update has slipped in Address Book <-> Google Contacts synchronization using the iSync subsystem. This also enables, it appears, iCal to sync with Google calendar as well. Learn more about it here: mac-os-x-1053-sync-google-conta

Securing Your Google Apps Email Connection

Looking to make your Google Apps Email more secure? Tired of worrying about keeping the content of your business and personal emails private when using Google Apps web-based interface (aka Gmail)? Well, you are in luck!

If you connect to your mail account using the URL https://mail.google.com/a/domain.com/ (where domain.com is your domain name), the SSL connection will stay up for the duration of your session  as opposed to just during the login side!

Enjoy your privacy folks!

How Well Does Google Apps Scale?

If you've been debating whether or not to jump ship on your internal email (and groupware) infrastructure, check out this video and see how the University of North Carolina Greensboro has benefited by outsourcing email and other applications to Google Apps! Learn more here:


!

If you are nervous about making the jump, or just have questions, give us a shout and we'll do what we can to help. If you are ready to go but you want some help setting up Google Apps for your small business, we can help there too!

Why Does Your Business Need A Blog?

Well, if you. listen to Bjorn Brant in Site Pro News, magazine there are 6 reasons why you should add a blog to your website…
1. You don’t have to be a tech geek to start a blog.

2. Blogs can boost your search engine ranking.

3. Blogs offer multiple ways to deliver your message. If you’re not the best writer, you can start an audio or video blog and can therefore still reach your customers in a personal way.

4. Blog posts encourage immediate responses from your customers.

5. Blogs help you expand your reach online.

6. Blogs increase transparency and help you establish credibility.

…

There are a variety of ways you can use your blog to communicate with your readers and promote your business, while unobtrusively going after the sale. You can use your blog to:

  • Write product reviews and link to product pages (consider signing up to be an affiliate)
  • Write insightful articles or tips relevant to your audience
  • Recommend products and services (yours or someone else’s)
  • Post and archive company newsletters
  • Share company news and product updates
  • Offer special incentives and promotions
  • Ask customers to complete surveys and provide feedback