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New Clients, How Does Web Presense Help Me With That?

"What’s the most important piece of your business’s web presence? Your website, of course." - Mashable

I agree with Mashable, an important piece of a business' web presence is "your" website.  It allows opportunity of customer conversion, provides: contact information, what your business is about, and products.

However, a website does not gaurantee increase customer conversion if all your website becomes is a "sitting duck", work with your web developer or designer to define a method to how your website viewers can potentially be converted to potential customers.


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2012 DTech Outlook

With the beginning of this 2012 year, The DTechs will truly be put up for the test of longevity. The closing of the past 2011 quarter has granted us invaluable information that we will utilize towards our next goals. Being a division of the San Diego Futures Foundation has inspired new works methods and philosophy, such as the ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) system; which enables our staff to work from home, have more freedom to complete the work and more importantly emphasizes the qualities of Communication and Results.

For the entirety of the year we have an over-arching goal of generating $100,000 Dollars in Revenue. We have brainstormed and developed our goals to coincide with this huge benchmark year. Armed with more resources and experience the DTechs are looking forward to a more organized and productive year giving the term "Quality over Quantity" a run for its money. Here at Diversecity Tech, we strive to provide you both.

Until the next Update, remember us as your Local San Diego One-Stop Shop for Web, Social, Video and Media Services.

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Watching out for Black Hat SEO

As we all know, Black Hat SEO should be watched out for. We need to be wary of the kinds of SEO strategies that we use– which eventually can end up becoming a Black Hat spamdexing. The last thing we want to do on our website, is ruin it after all that hard work and SEO we gone through.

There are many spamdexing strategies being used now, today. And the only way to watch out for them is not to use such strategies at all. They're the main reason for search engines to be less useful today.

Black Hat spamdexing can cause your website to be penalized by the search engines and that is the last thing any webmaster wants.

Spamdexing Strategies to Avoid and watch out for:

Keyword Stuffing – Keywording too much in a web page, in the hopes of ranking high in the search engines. This technique works very little and will cause your website’s ranking to go down in the long run. This strategy makes it even harder for the search engine spiders to read your page.

Meta-tag stuffing – Once you have chosen your official targeted keywords, you start to take advantage of them and put them into the meta-tags of your website. But taking over advantage of those keywords is another thing. This, I mean by repeating those keywords in every meta-tag of each of your web page – especially when they aren’t relative to the website content.

Link Farming – There are many kinds of directories out there in the internet. Some are there to make money; others are there to be useful. One of ways to get your website penalized is gaining extra traffic – those that are not related to your business. These links usually end up becoming very poor quality links.

Hidden to Invisible text – Yes there is such thing as “invisible text” and what is it caused by? - you. There are some people who edit the text of their content to match the color of their web page background or using the hidden HTML coding. This strategy being used can block an entire website for having translucent invisible text.

Article Spinning – Copyright – belonging to the original creator but given permission by the owner to be shared by others. That’s one thing, the other is plagiarism. It happens everywhere, even on the internet. People steal and claim things of their own. Just like with an art painting: that painting can easily be stolen to be claimed by anyone – even worse by another artist. People do this to be on top of the competition. On the internet, your content can easily be rewritten or plagiarized on another website. This is another Black Hat spamdexing to avoid.

During the 1990s, spamdexing had been formed and is now overly used by many people in the internet. This is again, what causes SEO to be less useful today. If spamdexing were to never exist, how would the internet be like? Would it be easier for the search engines? Who knows? One thing’s for sure is that we can prevent spamdexing by not doing it ourselves.

With constant research, we make sure that every SEO strategy is safe to use. We are always aware of what is going on around the internet and preventing spamdexing from happening. Questions or comments? Feel free to contact us and we’ll be more than happy to assist you.

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Before you start editing in Final Cut pro

Before any editor start editing his film, there are always steps to be taken so that nothing becomes unorganized. There is nothing more frustrating for an editor than being unorganized and all of sudden having all of their media go offline because some files were not where they were suppose to be.

This article is mainly about my version of how I work before I start editing. Not everyone is the same and some will have other preferences.

So before I start editing I like to create a master folder. This master folder will be the title of the project and will hold everything I will or might use in the project. From video footage to b-roll to any music I might use. And in the master folder, I will have different categories and these categories will have sub categories of their own. For example,

Master Folder > Video > Interview > interview Video clip

I think you get the idea. I will do this for every type of media that I plan on using. And we'er finally ready to open up Final Cut pro, but we'er not ready to start editing yet. After Final Cut is open, you have to set the scratch disk. To set the scratch disk go to Final Cut pro in the top left hand corner and choose system set up. And there you can set your scratch disk. The scratch disk is the folder where you will save into. After you started editing, I'm sure you are going to want to save you project. Set the scratch disk to your master folder and it'll always be there.

Once you have that set up, you can move all you files into Final Cut pro from Your master and You're ready to start editing.

I hope this helps in any way. And remember this is just how I like to work. Every has their own way of doing things. Good Luck and Have fun editing.


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How To Change "Welcome To The Frontpage" In Joomla 1.5.x

After installing a Joomla template on your web domain, you get the "Welcome To The Frontpage" title as your home page. Sometimes you can't find where to change it in the administrator side of the website.

  • Log in to the Administrator side of your website and go to the tab Menu and locate Main Menu*
  • Now that you are in the Menu Item Manager: mainmenu, Click into the Home link
  • Click on Parameters System and change or delete the Page title.
  • Don't forget to save changes.

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How To Keep Up With Your SEO

Everything is a process, including SEO. The process to a good website takes a lot of work. But if you lack the process to optimizing your website, your web rankings will go down. Just like anywhere else, business on the internet is very competitive. That’s why you need to be consistent upon your website’s SEO performance.

Here are a few SEO strategies to well optimize your website.

Plan – Plan out what you need to do to market yourself. Whether it starts off with a campaign or passing down flyers, you need to plan out what you need to get your company selling. Not only do you need to market in person but online also.

Monitor your SEO performance - Analyze your website consistently. It’s important to make sure your SEO performance goes well because this will determine whether your SEO performance is really paying off.

Keeping track of your competitors - The Internet is a very competitive world out there. You may find your website to be on the top three search listings and then the next day, your website moves to the top ten. What happened is that your competitors had researched you and beat their way to your spot. It’s important to research your competitors so that you can keep an update to date on what they are doing and what you may need to work on.

Updating your web content - Everyday, there will be new technologies and new ideas growing. You need to catch up with new ideas coming along the way and the way to do that is to update your web content consistently. If you don’t update your website and its content, you’re putting your money and design to waste. The success of your website depends on all the attention you give to it.

Looking up your SERPs - SERPs is defined as search engine results page. This strategy is used by webmasters who keeps track of their search engine optimization progress. This will help you determine what you need to work on with your SEO and website.

So be sure to keep up with your SEO performance. SEO is like a child. You need to keep it up in order to let it grow.

We perform SEO on our websites everyday, making sure we are on the top three listings on search engines. If you have any questions or comments, you may contact us. We’ll be more than happy to help you.

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Sennheiser EW 100 G3-G omni-directional EW system

Welcome to another equipment review. Today we'll be taking a look at our Sennheiser EW 100 G3-G omni-directional EW system. This Mic is everything I thought it was going to be and more. When doing interviews, the audio is clean and almost static and noise free. Sure some editing can be done to clean it up more but the mic is great. My experiences with audio is new, but I can say I have never gotten audio like this. A more in depth review will be coming soon, but for now I'm still trying to learn how to use the mics to its full capabilities.

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The importance of Pre production

Being an ambitious film maker, I tend to jump the gun and want to start production right away and try to make it work as I go. Total disregard for Pre and post production. Because of that, I tend to mess up as do most people who are like me, due to the lack of preparation. I now definitely know that to be a successful videographer is to be a well planned and organized videographer. And pre production means writing the script, planning, story boarding, and making sure you are ready to start production. The steps of of Pre production... coming soon.

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3 Mistakes Made by Joomla Beginners

NUMBER ONE Mistake: Copying Content from Word Document to Joomla HTML Editor (WYSIWYG)

A common mistake made by Joomla beginners is copying content from Word to Joomla HTML editor. What happens is the style code from Word will be copy/pasted to Joomla HTML editor, which would affect your content's font style. Most important GOOGLE HATES THIS and we should do what Google likes, code bloat is a NO NO!.

YOUR SOLUTION:

When copying content from Word document, copy & paste to a plain text editor (i.e. Notepad - PC or Text Editor - Mac) then copy & paste to Joomla HTML editor. This should avoid the occurrence of code bloat.


NUMBER TWO Mistake: Not Changing Joomla Login Username from Admin to Something Else

The default username for Joomla is "admin", most designers do not change the username while the site is being developed, once completed, the last thing on their mind is changing the username from admin to something else. What is the importance of this is, the user name is generally well known, 50% of the security of the username/password combination is already exposed if the the username is not changed. Now all anyone needs to do is guess the password and they're in./>

YOUR SOLUTION:

Change your username from "admin" to something else!


NUMBER THREE Mistake: NOT Resizing Images to Correct Size Prior to Upload

Everyone tends to upload large images to scale them down inside the article or upload small images and stretch them out inside the articles. Large images, even if scaled to a smaller width and height is still the same in file size, which can make for longer loading time. Small images, when resized to a larger width and length than it was originally will create pixelation in the image.

ADDITIONAL MISTAKES AND SOLUTIONS COMING SOON.

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Cinevate DSLR Shoulder Rig

Before my experiences with the San Diego Futures Foundation and joining the Diversecity Tech team, I was a student and a struggling videographer.  Video equipment was hard to come by and very expensive. 

But with the support of the San Diego Futures Foundation and the DiverseCity Tech social enterprise program, I have been given the opportunity to utilize  new equipment that could change the dynamics of production for this company and improve productivity.

We have many new toys but one that I was most excited about was the Cinevate DSLR shoulder rig for my Canon 5D Mark II. The rig was smaller then I had expected but when adjustments were made to the shoulder pad and railings, it felt exactly like I thought it would.

The handles were very durable and had excellent gripping. And it was very light, so it wasn't a burden to carry around.  Once my camera was mounted on top with the special quick release plate, it was a whole new experience. The test shots I took with it were absolutely amazing and very stable.  As a videographer I felt I had evolved, in fact I had.

For many new cinematographers video equipment can be very expensive and extremely hard to come by, forcing most to settle for 3rd party lower quality equipment that has a short life span.  It's true what they say, "you get what you paid for", and for about $1000 plus, I have a reliable piece of equipment that has yet to fail me.

Is it the person that makes the videographer or is the the equipment that makes the videographer?


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Editing Your Keyword List with SEO

Developing SEO strategies is essential to improving your SEO rankings. One of those strategies is keyword researching and editing.

First things first, research keywords that best describes your company. Take a pen and paper to make a list of those keywords.

You want to define your company in a few bold terms. This is important because this helps represent your company. This technique will also help gain more rankings on search engines. These keywords are known as targeted keywords.

One example: Restaurants. You would go for the word “dining”. What kind of restaurant is it? Italian. You’d go for keywords such as “dining, Italian, pasta” – etc.

The second step is defining keywords for every page of your website. You don’t want to use the same set of keywords on every page of your website because that’s like using the same number for every week in a lottery game.

Every page of your website focuses on different subjects. So every page of your website needs to have a different set of keywords describing that page.

For example, a restaurant website would have a menus and beverage page. For the menus page, you would list keywords such as “pasta, spaghetti, pizza, lasagna” – the likes.

And for the beverages page, you would have the common, “soda, water, juice,” down to “wine, red wine, beer, margaritas,” keywords and so on.

With keyword researching, you don’t want to get too carried away. Make sure the keywords you target are relative to your business and the web page itself.

Having too many keywords will flag your website: search engines can penalize you and disable your website for that.

Lastly, be sure to check for any common misspellings of words, case sensitivity and any plural/singular words.

With that being said, take precaution and do your keyword research and editing thorough fully.

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Get Connected! Imperial Valley Technology Fair

On Saturday March 19th, Calvin and I (Kevin Tran) got the chance to film and document the Get Connected Technology Fair At Frank Wright Middle School in Imperial, California, hosted by Family Tree House.  What an event it was.

It was nothing like I had expect it to be. The fair consisted of booths from many different organizations, games and televisions sets provided by Game Stop, contests with prizes, rides for the kids, and even a live band to entertain the guest. Everyone was having fun. And never have I seen so many prizes given away. San Diego futures foundation donated laptops, xbox 360, and so many other great prizes to be raffled off.

It was good to see that this fair was really making a difference. As I sat at the SDFF booth, many attendees came to the booth and took our survey, and I noticed that many people put down they don't have any internet access at their home. And the thought of not being connected to world through the internet is like living in the stone ages, well to me that is. 

Internet makes a difference, and I feel the fair made a difference to these people. Pictures will be uploaded soon, and thanks to everyone who made this event possible especially Family Tree House for hosting the event and allowing San Diego Futures Foundation to participate. A video highlighting the event will be upload soon.  Stay tuned so we could share the fun times with you.


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HOW TO: Manage Social Media Tools

Hootsuite

Too many social media tools to manage all at once? Social media can become a full time job, but there are free tools out there to help you. HOOTSUITE!


Hootsuite is a social web tool, you can preset when to make updates to all your social media accounts, Twitter, Facebook, Facebook page, Linkin, Myspace and more all at once. Hootsuit also manages results from your social media accounts.

Check back soon for tutorial on how to set up Hootsuite.


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How a Fan Page Can Like Another Fan Page

Yesterday I was asked,"How do you like another fan page on your fan page?". My mind came to a blank, I realized I did not have an answer to this. Time to do research!

This is what I found, I hope it's helpful to someone out in the world wide web.

Step 1: Log-in to your Facebook account.
Facebook Login

Step 2: Search for the fan page you would like to "like". undefined.
Step 2: Search for fan page.Searching Fanpage

Step 3: Final step, once your on the page you'd like to "like", go to the far bottom left and click "Add to my Page's Favorite", save and okay. And your finished!
Fanpage Added

And you are done, your fan page has liked another fan page.
fanpage added

Check back for other tips and tricks on Social Media, if you have another question, ask me and lets see how I can help.


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Are You Tired at Work or Class?

It's a Monday and you just had a nice relaxing weekend. Your tired and don't feel like working. Well here are some tips to get through the day.

Tip 1: Don't get to relaxed. Being relaxed in your chair can cause you to feel sleepy. Sit straight up in your chair is a good way to not feel relax and forces your to be more awake.


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