Monthly Archives: June 2009

The Green Printing Checklist: 5 Questions to ask your print provider.

0
Posted by Administrator on June 5, 2009 – 2:55 pm
Filed under Eco Friendly

No more excuses!

Twenty years ago, all printing companies were the bane of the environment. They
were Mother Nature’s public enemy #1 and there wasn’t much anyone could do about
it. Degrading the planet was simply a cost of doing business.

Today things have changed.

Technology, coupled with a new level of awareness, has changed the relationship
between print providers and the environment.

Despite the increase in both popularity and practicality, many printers are yet
to get on board the green printing wagon.

So how exactly is the responsible consumer to know whether they are a friend or
foe to our planet? Consider starting by asking your print provider these five
questions:

1. Do they use digital printing, or more traditional (and more harmful)
methods?

2. Are they using harmful, chemical based inks?

3. Where are they getting their materials from? Are their vendors certified by
the Forest Stewardship Council?

4. Are they adamant about recycling their unused products and by-products?

5. Do they use exclusively post-consumer paper?

As green printing continues to grow in sophistication, the list of questions may
grow longer and longer. Nevertheless, if your printer can give positive answers
to these five questions they you can be sure that you are doing business with a
responsible, eco-friendly company.

Once you go Gmail Shorcuts, You never go back.

0
Posted by Bizcare on June 4, 2009 – 6:14 pm
Filed under Uncategorized

Earlier this week we shared a few search operators we use daily to help filter our Google search results. Google gives us useful tools and for each one little nice tricks to make them more interesting. For example Gmail is a great email application. The minute I started to use it, I never went back. You probably will have a hard time imagining emailing without using your mouse somehow to compose, delete etc….It turns out that not using your mouse can give you a better experience. With Gmail Shortcuts you can actually forget about that mouse, and make use of your keyboard only. Here is what you need to do: start by going to Settings, click on Keyboard Shortcuts on, Save your changes and that’s it.
Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts

Now, you are ready to go. Here are the keys I use the most:

j to move the cursor down the list.
k to move the cursor up the list.
x to select a message.
g + i takes me to my Inbox.
g + t shows messages sent.
c opens a new message panel.
r to reply and a to reply all.
Shift + # sends a thread to the Trash.
Shift + u marks a conversation as unread.
Shift + l to label a message.
And finally / places the cursor into the search box.

There are a few more shortcuts you can make use of. These are just the ones I use to the point where I barely use my mouse. To find all the others simply use Shift + ? .

Little old fashion marketing for realtors and brokers

0
Posted by Bizcare on June 3, 2009 – 10:10 am
Filed under Uncategorized

As a former Realtor and Broker I remember going through all of the training courses, in which you where constantly reminded to build a strong referral system. Realtors generally try to use every avenue available to them to build a customer base, with the holy grail being customer referrals. By the time you attain a level of reputation in which you no longer need to walk the neighborhoods to get your listings, you almost don’t want to stop.

The process of trying to attain referrals creates bonds and relationships that can last a long time. It also creates a work ethic and a new sphere of influence that will grow with you and support you when you need them. Case in point, I had a mortgage client call me four years after I had refinanced his loan. He called primarily because he remembered that I didn’t rip him off. I gave this client the best rate on the market and only charged .75 points with no fees.

I know most brokers would be screaming at their agent for charging such a small commission. “We are not working for free” is the standard response I get. The other response I would get is we have to feed our families as well – while this may be true it’s worth noting that ¾ of a percent of a $600,000 loan amount is still a decent pay check for a single transaction.

My typical response in these situations was to remind my broker that the process does not necessarily end with the completion of a single transaction. While some agents were busy squeezing every penny out of their clients, I was building lasting relationships that would continue to pay dividends far down the road.

In the real estate business it’s relationships that make the difference, not the immediate check you get from a transaction here and there (though that is what pays the bills). It will not build future clients for times such as the one we are in now. When I first started in Real Estate I was ridiculed for not charging as much others in the office, but now those others are out of business and I have a database of 300 clients that I can call to generate business immediately when I need it.

So to all the realtors out there who are trying to create more stable business that will be profitable over the long term, here’s my advice to you: be ethical, participate in as many community events as possible and don’t forget to keep handing out your business cards. A small investment today can create a huge return later.

14 ways to help Google find better results.

1
Posted by Bizcare on June 1, 2009 – 9:44 pm
Filed under Uncategorized

Google does a neat task at returning good links for our search queries. But if you heavily depend on the search engine for your day job, then far too often you find yourself refining your queries to get better results. Here are a few strings you can use daily to help Google filter your results and display the most relevant links.

in:blogs displays better results from blogs than Google Blogsearch does. That is if you are not searching for trends or recent posts.

allinurl:term returns web pages with all keywords included in the URL.

inurl:term returns results with some or all the keywords included in the URL.

filetype: pdf flv mp3..or any document type returns document of the specified file type.

allintitle:term returns results with all the keywords included in the page title.

intitle:term returns results with some or all the keywords included in the title.

allinanchor:term returns results with all the keywords as anchor text on web pages.

inanchor:term will serve results with one or all the keywords as anchor text on web pages.

site:url lets you searched the specified website.

site:.edu only serves results from sites with .edu in their domain name.

site:.gov returns results from sites with .gov in their domain name.

location:state narrows your search by state.

-term will exclude all results where the term is included on the web page.

+term allows you to search only for pages with the specified term.

What search operators do you use daily?