EPR Creations LLC

What is a QR Code?

Have you seen one of these codes lately?  Do you know what it is?

It’s called a QR Code and it’s becoming popular quickly. It’s basically a barcode that includes whatever information you would like it to contain. For instance, you can send a message or include a link within these barcodes.

So how can you read the barcode? Most smartphones have a number of apps available to read these. I just downloaded the free app ‘i-nigma 4‘ that is specific to the iPhone 4. This app turns your phone into a barcode reader using the camera. Once the barcode is read (which happens immediately), you are either shown the message or directed to the website.

Here is a simple website where you can create one of these barcodes – http://createqrcode.appspot.com/

The way you can use this is to create a barcode and then put it on your business card, promotional material, or even on your website. This is a great solution if you have a website URL that is hard to remember. Now, you can just place the image of the QR Code on promotional material and people can be led directly to the page.

Test the QR Code shown above and see where it leads you!

2011: The Year of the Video

I’ve been telling a number of my clients that 2011 needs to be the year of the video for their websites. I just heard recently that 52% of searches are now for videos. YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. I personally prefer to watch a 60 second video clip instead of reading a page of content.

So how do you begin to incorporate video into your website? Here are a few ideas:

• Home page highlight video of what your company/organization does. (keep within 30-90 seconds)
• Add a video at the top of your most popular pages. You can keep the text below it, but have a video up top. For example, have a video about you on your about page. A well-done video of you describing yourself and your business will say a lot more than static text.
• Use videos for teaching purposes. There are a number of screen capture software solutions where you can capture a video of how to do something on your computer. These can then be added as videos on your website.

Once the video has been created, how should you add it to your website? My recommendation is to use YouTube or Vimeo. If you upload your video to one of these services, you can then embed the video right on your website page. Then, the video will not only be on your website but will also be added to the millions of videos online and will be searchable within the search engines.

Additionally, YouTube is a video format that works on mobile devices such as the iPhone. Vimeo also has this capability, but you have to pay to have your videos work on mobile devices. YouTube is the better option for search engines and playability, but I like how Vimeo looks. It is much cleaner.

In the videos you make, be real. If you are the CEO of a plumbing service, don’t get in front of a video camera in a suit and tie and talk about your business. Show your plumbing crew and how they handle problems. People don’t want a CEO to fix their toilet, they want a plumber. If you can add humor, do it wisely. And in all videos, put your potential client first. Don’t make a video of what you would want to see. Make a video that would entice your potential client.

TurboTax and Mint Connection

I experienced a rude awakening when recently completing my taxes for 2010. The entire past year, I have been noticing announcements on the Mint.com website that Mint & TurboTax had teamed up. Heck, they are both owned by Intuit. So, teamed up, owned by the same company – forgive me, but I assumed that you would be able to import transactions tagged a certain way into that specific area within TurboTax.

But it turns out that is not the case. The two finance solutions don’t talk to each other. I had spent the last year notating and tagging every transaction for easy importation into TurboTax. But you can’t import relevant information from Mint into TurboTax.

I mean, how hard is this? Every blog program uses a system of tags so that you can easily find blogs about certain topics. Why can’t my tags in Mint act as the same way? Why can’t I pull up all transactions I so diligently tagged as ‘Tax Deductible’ throughout the year and import those into TurboTax? Why can’t I pull up all transactions tagged as ‘Mortgage’ related for that particular section?

In my mind, this amounts to false advertising. I’ve checked out a few other comments online and I’m not the only one who assumed by the advertising that TurboTax and Mint would be able to talk to each other. Not true.

To be fair, being diligent with my finances in Mint did allow me to pull transactions tagged under certain topics. But, I used to keep good records in Excel and could have done the same thing that way.

I do think (or at least hope) future versions of Mint and TurboTax can talk to each other. It would make tax season truly easier, as they so ardently advertise.

Simple Email Capture for Joomla

I recently had a situation come up on one of my Joomla-powered websites where I wanted to provide a code for a free month of service in exchange for the user’s name and email address. I didn’t want this solution to connect to MailChimp or Constant Contact. I just wanted a simple function that gathered a name and email address and then relayed the necessary information to the user.

I came up with the following solution:

• Download the AcyMailing extension – http://www.acyba.com/
• Install this into your Joomla website and add the module to a sidebar.
• Under module settings, choose to have a ‘Custom Redirect Link’ and create a page where you redirect users with the information you would like to provide.
• Once you have enabled this module, the user will enter their name and email and once they click submit, they will be directed to the page that you create.
• On the Joomla back end, you can see who has signed up, when they signed up, and you can even export this data.

I found this to be a better solution than having everything go to a Constant Contact account. I wanted to keep it simple yet gather the necessary information. You can see an example of it here – http://www.theentrepreneurschool.com/

Hide Address in Google Places

As a small business owner, you may be running your business out of your house. If you have set up a Google Places account, you likely don’t want to list that home address for security reasons.

Luckily, Google Places allows you to enter your address for location purposes, but hide it to the general viewing public. That way, you can tell Google Places that you would like your page to show within a 50 mile radius of your address without showing your exact address.

The way to do this is to sign into your Google Places account. Click to edit that account. Under ‘Service Areas and Location Settings, there is a box in the grey area that looks like the image below.  Make sure to check that box and click submit. That’s it!

How to add an image next to blog comments

Have you ever left a comment on a blog and had a random image (avatar) show up that looks something like the image to your right? Do you want to place your photo there instead?

These photos are called Gravatars and you can easily connect an image to an email address. Every time you leave a comment using that email address, this image will be used instead of the default blank image.

You can sign up for a Gravatar for free at – http://en.gravatar.com/

My suggestion would be to choose one image that is your signature image. For personal branding purposes, this image should be the same as your main Facebook photo, personal website image, and Twitter image. Keep a consistent image so that people begin to recognize you throughout the web.

Five New WordPress Plugins I’ve Recently Used

Here is a list of 5 plugins I’ve used on recently-designed websites. They are not new as in just released, but rather are new for me.

Events Manager Extended
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/events-manager-extended/
I’ve been looking for a good WP Calendar function for a while and think this one does a good job of allowing the client to easily update events while providing multiple display options.

Dave’s WordPress Live Search
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/daves-wordpress-live-search/
This plugin adds a live drop-down menu under your theme’s search bar that shows search results as the user types.

Multiple Category Selection Widget
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/multiple-category-selection-widget/
Great way to provide additional options for your user to search by category. Great plugin if your blog utilizes multiple categories.

Simple Google Map
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-google-map/
If you’ve ever tried to add a Google Map to a sidebar widget as a text addition, you find that it is near impossible. Either the bubble is too big or some other problem occurs. This widget alleviates that and makes it very simple to add a Google Map to your sidebar.

Vimeo Sidebar Widget
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/vimeo-sidebar-widget/
This one is rather straightforward. It allows you to add a Vimeo video to the sidebar. All you need to do is add the Video ID. Place a video you have created or one that is relevant to your website.

How to set up a WordPress website in GoDaddy

Here is a video I put together walking you through the process of setting up a WordPress website using GoDaddy.com.

This video takes you through the following steps:

• Searching for an unused domain name.
• Purchasing that domain name.
• Purchasing WordPress-specific hosting.
• Setting up the hosting plan and connecting it to the purchased domain name.
• Signing into the administration area of your new WordPress website or blog.

This is a small selection from a longer video. The full video takes you through the basic functions within WordPress. Learn how to edit a page or a post and learn how to create a new page.

If you would like to see the full video, please email me – erik@eprcreations.com. Or, you can subscribe to The Entrepreneur School and watch Lecture 6.6 where this entire video is posted.

The eOrchestra

The NY Times had a great article this morning about a string quartet that has adapted to modern technology in a very intriguing way. The Borromeo String Quartet uses music stands like any other group. The only difference is that physical sheets of paper are not on the music stands. Instead, MacBook Pros adorn the stands and foot pedals are used to turn the digital pages of the score.

For anyone who plays music or has been to a concert, you know how distracting turning that page can be. In fact, most pianists have a page turner sitting next to them so as not to disrupt the flow of the music. This is no longer a problem if you are using a foot pedal that takes you to the next page.

The other benefit to the digital sheet music is that you can have the entire score in front of you to be able to see what the other instruments are doing. Typically, if you were playing the violin part, you would only want that part on your music stand so as to have the lease amount of page turns. But if you can turn the pages with your foot, space doesn’t become as big of an issue.

Here is a video of the Borromeo Quartet performing in front of their MacBooks:

The Borromeo Quartet also uses technology to record most of their performances and sell those recordings online. This is a big pull for concert goers who often have an emotional experience at a concert and wish to take that home with them in order to remember the experience. A number of music bands do this as well as a way to make additional income as cd sales and concert ticket revenues are down.

I love following these types of stories as music and technology are two of my biggest passions. I remember seeing the video of Lang Lang playing ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ for the first time on his iPad. Here is one of the best up and coming pianists in the world and he showed some versatility in playing a very difficult piece on his iPad. Here is the video:

Another video including a fascinating mix of music and technology is North Point’s iBand where an entire music group used either iPhones or iPads to play some Christmas music:

If you are interested in the foot pedal for turning pages, you can find more information here. They also have a solution for the iPad. The foot pedal works by plugging into a MacBook through a USB cord. The way you can use this on the iPad is by purchasing a camera connection kit that plugs into the bottom of the iPad. This also contains a USB input so you could use the foot pedal on the iPad.

PHP Code to Insert cForms in Page Template

If you would like to insert a cForms form into your WordPress website without using the TinyMCE or Widget function, you can do so by inserting this code in your template:

<?php insert_cform('Default'); ?>

Replace ‘Default’ with the name given to your form.