Watch our Geek TV

We are now broadcasting a live show from our World Headquarters on S King St.  Join us every Wednesday at 10 am.  The show is done by real SuperGeeks and will touch on current events, how-to tricks, etc.  It’s light, informal and – hopefully – useful. You can enjoy the live broadcast here:  http://supergeeks.net/geek-tv-podcast/

Why ‘jailbreak’ your iPhone?

It’s official now.  You can legally jailbreak your iPhone.  This means you can run the apps you want and use the carrier of your choice.  It’s the right move.  Read more about why people jailbreak their iPhones. What about the warranty?  Read what happens to your iPhone’s warranty.  Watch a video on how to unlock your phone.

We now fix computers remotely

This is a big deal.  If your computer can get online, there’s a good chance we can do our magic remotely via the internet.  This means we can install software, find missing files, setup email accounts, even remove viruses and spyware remotely.  No need to pack up your computer and lug it down to one of our service centers.  No more waiting for a SuperGeek stuck in traffic.  It’s win/win for everyone.  Quick, painless and professional.  Right now, we offer this service Mon-Sat 10am-5pm.  All of our techs are based here in Hawaii, so you can enjoy quality local service.  And no need for an appointment.  Just go to the website, click on the Connect Now button, and you will be connected to a SuperGeeks right away.  Take a look at our new website for remote computer support:  SuperGeeks911.com.  Rate is $99 flat fee.  No charge if we cannot fix it.

Webinar: How to use LinkedIn for business

• Date:  Wed, Jul 28, 2010 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM HST
• Description: LinkedIn is the new mixer.  Remember how you used to go to those after-hours events to mingle and network?  Well, now you can do it online using LinkedIn.  Success is all about connections and LinkedIn is perfect for that.
• Level: Beginning
• Cost:  $35, includes a take-home, step-by-step list of action items for getting your organization started with LinkedIn.

Webinar: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 101

• Date: Fri, Aug 6, 2010 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM HST
• Description:  Anyone can create a website.  But getting it noticed is an entirely different animal.  High rankings is good.  Low rankings is bad.  Learn what you can do.
• Level: Beginning
• Cost:  $39, includes free SEO Scorecard for your website and detailed report.

Questions?  Call (808) 531-4335 or email us.

The following comes from: http://www.stores.org/

Very interesting:

More than seven in 10 customers that create an online shopping cart fail to complete a transaction, according to Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy.

Why do website visitors abandon shopping carts so frequently? The answers might surprise even some veteran e-commerce executives. Research indicates that it has very little to do with the actual checkout process and a heck of a lot to do with shopper behavior.

A recent Forrester Research study shows that the cost associated with shipping and handling is the No. 1 cause of shopping cart abandonment; some 44 percent of consumers terminate their session when shipping fees are revealed. Nearly as many (41 percent) say they were not ready to purchase the product. Other reasons for shopping cart abandonment included the desire to compare prices on other sites (27 percent), product prices that were higher than they were willing to pay (25 percent) and wanting to save products in the cart for later consideration (24 percent).

Determining what causes shoppers to abandon their online carts solves only part of the problem. E-commerce executives need to figure out what they can do to recover abandoned shopping carts.

Nicholls recommends what he terms “remarketing.”

The key, he says, is to reconnect and “remarket” to the shopper in a way that keeps the store brand top of mind. “What continues to amaze me is that so few currently remarket to their site visitors (fewer than 20 percent, according to a recent survey), despite this being so well proven as a technique in driving sales,” Nicholls says, suggesting that others steal a page from Amazon’s book. “Amazon … is one of the biggest proponents of remarketing, yet it is done so subtly than many don’t realize that they are being remarketed to.”

If you are 40, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning…. Uphill… Barefoot… BOTH ways… yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!

But now that I’m over the ripe old age of forty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a darn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3s or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We’d play our favorite tape and “eject” it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that’s how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that’s it!

There weren’t any freakin’ cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn’t make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your “friends”. OH MY!!! Think of the horror… not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there’s TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, the collection agent… you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn’t have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen… Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel! NO REMOTES! Oh, no, what’s the world coming to?

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks!

And we didn’t have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play… all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside… you were doing chores! And car seats – oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the “safety arm” across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling “shot gun” in the first place! See! That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!

Regards, The Over 40 Crowd

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth a million.  And with free online tools like YouTube and cheap video cameras like the Flip camera,  it’s not surprising video is becoming powerful tool for business.

Unfortunately, Craigslist does not yet support embedded video.  Sure, you can include a link in your post, but people are generally reluctant to click on them.

There is a neat workaround, though.  Here’s what you can do:

1.  Go to your YouTube page and take a screenshot of the video

2.  Edit the screenshot so it’s just the video screen – nothing else

3.  Host that image somewhere online.  Example: Flickr.com

4.  Create a Craigslist ad using this HTML code:

<a href=”http://www.YourYoutubeLink.com” rel=”nofollow”>
<img border=”0″ src=”http://www.YourImageLink.jpg” width=”480″
height=”295″>
</a>

5.  Post your ad

Using the above workaround, your ad will look like a video screenshot, but will actually by an image of a video which is linked to your YouTube video.  The user sees your ad, is enticed by the video pic, clicks on it to watch it, and voila!  The video plays.

Use this technique for all sorts of Craigs ads, including employment ads.

Here’s an example of a Craigslist ad I was playing with last Friday night: http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/com/1787869451.html