7 Traits of Rock-Star Employees

Finding the right person for the job can be very challenging.  Businesses always look for the most highly qualified workers with the skills to help them get ahead in this highly competitive market. The most successful companies hire for future success, and heavily consider personality when determining the best employees. Star employees in an organization always have a great future; they excel in their jobs, and their career progress is like a rock-star’s record on the charts. They are skilled, capable and trusted to do well in almost any job.

Regardless of their, salary, age or sex, rock-star employees possess some common traits. Here are seven of them.

1. They Take Initiative
An employee’s ability to produce insightful thoughts generally indicates they are dedicated to success. Star employees possess a can-do attitude, and a willingness to learn and accept criticism. These self-directed employees who look for new opportunities and imagine fresh possibilities will best represent an organization. They step up and take ownership in solving problems and achieving the right results. These star employees motivate the team and add more energy.

2. They Have Integrity
Integrity means keeping promises, doing hard work, and showing diligence and perseverance.  Star employees are always true to themselves and their full potential, which means performing excellent work. Great employees display strong ethical values. Trust, kindness, and respect for other coworkers make them model employees. They act by the rules and help others do the same.

3. They Deliver results
Great employees always feel proud of their work. They believe in delivering results because they want to contribute to the company’s success and feel valued. Most of all, star employees take action and take chances. New opportunities lead them to success and mold confidence to produce breakthrough ideas. Action-oriented employees always make money for the company.

4. They Communicate Well
Rock-star employees always use the most effective, influential and clear way of communicating their point. Communication skills have a strong connection with other important features a great employee possesses, such as the ability to disseminate information and motivate fellow workers. Solid communication skills also help you and your boss better understand each other, which is key to success.

5. They’re Adaptable
Great employees are flexible. They perform well with several assignments, both individually or as a team member. They embrace versatility to meet the pace of the business. Rock-star employees eagerly accept diverse tasks. The way an employee reacts to sudden changes measures his potential to adapt to needs of the business world. Their ability to compete is dependent upon their ability to adjust in an odd situation. A star performer embraces flexibility to lead the change.

6. They Don’t Create Drama
Great employees keep themselves calm in challenging situations, and look for solutions instead of creating arguments. They don’t allow themselves to be drawn into the fight, to pull rank or to lose their temper.  They always prepare themselves for a potentially unpredictable condition by attaining strong control over their emotions.  As a rock-star employee, they become the voice of authority and motivation – and preserve the peace rather than creating more chaos.

7. They Have Passion
At work, “passion” has become an unavoidable word in recent years. Passion is what makes an employee stand out above the rest. Unlike many other traits, passion is easy to spot in great employees — you can often sense someone’s passion as soon as you meet them. Although you can’t force yourself to be passionate about your job, you can pursue a line of work that you feel passionately about to help ensure success. A truly passionate person will even influence their fellow workers to care as much as they do about achieving even the loftiest goals.

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Be a Responsible Parent- Get a Mobile Spy App

Being a responsible parent does not only mean to raise your children with healthy food, respectable shelter and get them to reach high academic levels, it also means to get them to know the difference between good and bad, and save them from the social evils around them.

Many parents focus on the academic achievements of their children. Often such standards get the children under pressure and cause them to lose their understanding of the social and moral etiquettes. For instance, children might start taking drugs to relieve the academic tension they constantly undergo in their houses and schools. Also, they might start hanging out with dealers who offer unfair means to pass in exams and tests. All these activities are prevalent in children who are constantly forced by their parents to improve in their studies.

Mobile spy application can be purchased at a reasonable price, considering the company is chosen smartly. Many spy app developers out there offer almost all features for a low price package. Parents out there who are on a budget constraint should consider buying and experimenting with one of the trustable spy software first. The software can be installed on the children's mobile phone easily. As soon as the software is installed on the handset it starts functioning. This functioning includes recording the data of all activity and then transferring it to an online account. This online account can, of course, be only accessed by the parents who purchased the spy software.

Parents can keep a check on all the people their children are staying in contact with. All the calls that are being made, what timings they are made at and to whom, everything can be checked by parents. If any mysterious texts messages are being exchanged by your children make sure you take the necessary and immediate steps.

Spy software also allows parents to track down each and every step of their children by using the geographical tracker in the application. This tracker will update parents about all the locations being visited by their teenagers. So now there is a clear short cut to know whether your teenager is partying at night club or studying in the college library. Even better or worse maybe, your children could be involved in some illegal activity to earn cash. Track all these people down who are after your children to get their path straight.

There are times when parents simply want to make sure that the friends their children hang out with are of proper upbringing themselves. Now of course these children will hardly pull out a word of 'hello' in front of you, but could be loading your children with weird thoughts and notions behind your back. But fret not, since this very handy mobile phone will help you with this situation. Many spy software companies now offer the feature of live audio recording. This live audio recording system can be put to start manually, at any time, from anywhere. Once switched on, all the surrounding sounds can be listened to as audio recordings. These audio recordings are uploaded on the same accounts the parents access rest of the information from.

So with all these benefits, it is hardly a surprise that many parents are now easily monitoring their children's activities from their homes. No need to ruin dinners with interrogative questioning sessions, simply pull out your laptop and spy on your child without him/her ever coming to know about it. They are your responsibility and with the help of a mobile spy application, you can carry out your responsibility better than ever before.

Image Credit: Source.

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The Basics of PC Utilities Software

PC system utilities are programs that encompass several applications that help clean up and fix numerous computer issues. While most PC utility software programs differ greatly in the services that they offer, there are several basic functions common to the majority of these programs.

Registry Fix:

Your registry is constantly changing with updates, new registry entries and deletion of old entries. Because of this, there are usually numerous entries in your registry that are very old, useless or corrupted, and these entries can create numerous errors. Your registry is a vital part of your computer, and it can easily be harmful to your computer to delete registry files that are necessary. Instead of trying to clean the registry manually, PC utilities software can scan and detect which files need to be removed and which files need to stay without harming your computer.

On the chance that the removal does damage your computer, there is usually the option to restore the registry to a backup file that was made before the cleaning process to return your computer to normal.

Junk File Cleaning:

Temporary files, cookies, recycle bin files and much more are all junk files that needlessly take up space in your computer. Not only does this rob you of hard drive space, but it may also significantly slow down your computer. A quick scan and sweep of the junk files can free up gigabytes of space and speed up your computer.

System Optimization:

You may not be using the best settings or options for your computing needs. System optimization tools can improve your Internet browsing, save laptop battery life, increase speed and more. You can also set the options to optimize performance for work related activities, gaming, typical home usage, server use and more.

Defragmentation:

As you add, change and delete files on your computer, these files fragment and spread out over your system. The more changes, additions and deletions are made, the more fragments are created. When too many fragments are created and when too many files are fragmented, it can slow down computer speed since it needs to find all of the fragments of a file in order to use it. Defragmentation software finds these fragments and puts them back together to create a more complete file allowing the computer to easily find and access the file.

Error Detection:

Though you may not always notice, your system may be dealing with errors that can be affecting performance or damaging files, programs or the entire system. Error detection finds and resolves errors found in your system. If it can't resolve the issue, it can usually provide the user with information on the error as a reference to fix it.

Why Do I Need PC Utility Software?

One of the most important times to get PC utility software is when you are dealing with a slow and problematic computer. A good utility software can remedy several problems that may be causing performance issues. Though a good utility software is a good start, it's also a good idea to get a quality antivirus software to ensure that no viruses are causing the issue. Antivirus software will also provide constant virus protection to keep your computer safe from future infections.

PC utilities software is also beneficial for anyone who wants to regularly maintain their computer. Regular computer maintenance is important to keep your computer running well for as long as possible and utility software is a great asset to have for maintenance.

If the software doesn't run regular scans, it's a good idea to run a scan at least once every week. If you run into any viruses or moderate to severe errors, it's also a good idea to run the software directly afterward to resolve additional errors and clean up junk which may have been created during the error.

Image Credit: Grant Cochrane.

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3 iPhone Apps that Give You the Chance to Earn Money

iPhone app developers are not the only ones who can make money off of their applications. Some apps for iOS can actually help users earn money, as well. That said, if developers want to earn the most money, they need to make sure they employ the right marketing strategy. For instance, appnext.com is a leading social and mobile advertising network. appnext iphone ads can help developers make the most money possible through their smart targeting technology and advertising tools.

However, if you're a mobile user looking to gain a bit of cash or rewards from your apps, the following are some iPhone apps with these perks.

1) CheckPoints:

Earn points when you check into shopping malls, cafes, grocery stores, etc. To earn points that can later be redeemed for rewards, such as gift cards and other merchandise, scan the items you purchase and refer friends to take part in CheckPoints.

2) EasyShift:

Receive simple assignments and complete them (i.e. taking photos, giving an opinion, etc.). You are paid via PayPal after completing several tasks. The more you do the more you earn.

3) App Trailers:

Preview app trailers and obtain points for your efforts. Not only can you make your opinion count and assist app developers in improving their apps, but you get paid for viewing or tying out a demo.

Other rewarding apps include:

Gigwalk, Shopkick, Phewtick, GymPact, Field Agent, and Iconzoomer.


Image credit: thanunkorn.

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The Cost of Maintaining Internet Safety

In today's quickly-moving business world, there are a great many potential threats to a growing company. A lot of these have come about in part because of the rise of the Internet. There are more and more reported instances of Internet crime each day. To help you get an idea of the scope of the problem, let's take a look at the states where Internet crime is reported with the greatest frequency. California takes the top spot, with 34,169 complaints reported in 2011. Florida takes second place with 20,034. It's fairly obvious that this is a growing threat.

In order to protect your data and your company's profitability, it's important to know how to protect your data, to know your rights, and to know how to avoid hefty fines. In order to combat the rising threat of Internet crime, the Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) now requires telecommunications providers and equipment manufacturers to provide surveillance capabilities in their products so that federal agencies have the ability to monitor Internet and phone activity as well as VoIP traffic. It's a partnership that is taking great strides toward fighting the rise of Internet crime.

What does this mean for your business? In short, you need to ensure that your company is CALEA Compliant. The fines for ignoring this responsibility are hefty, often reaching up to $10,000 per day. The total consequences of failing to comply with CALEA standards can be as high as half a million dollars for a single breach of protocol. This is something worth taking very seriously, and hammers home the idea that everybody who participates in the Internet has a certain set of responsibilities to the greater community.

Source: GoWifi.

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USB Flash Drives and the Digital Age

Professional photographers today are faced with two choices when it comes to digital storage – DVDs or USB flash drives. Clients want to know that the storage device you use will keep their pictures safe and secure, and they also want a device that gives them easy access to those pictures. Given these considerations, USB flash drives are the better option every time. On paper, DVDs might look like the better choice – they can hold about 100 pictures more than a flash drive, and they are certainly less expensive. However, it takes a lot longer to upload large blocks of information to a DVD and DVDs are more vulnerable to damage. Conversely, flash drives allow for a quicker upload of information, safer portability, and they are compatible with all kinds of devices, from smartphones to tablets. And in our digitally connected world, clients truly appreciate the convenience of being able to upload photographs instantly to their social media sites!

Created by the marketing team at Custom USB, this infographic provides detailed information and a comparison between DVDs and USB Flash Drives.

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Everyone Is At Risk For Cyberattack

Homeland Security declared that October is National Cyber Security Month, which has inspired hackers across the globe to increase their nefarious efforts against secure accounts. According to Fox News, the initiation of this annual event - which is to spread awareness about the risks of surfing the Internet and how one person's computer can infect many more - has potentially compromised more users because of an underlying insinuation that the criminals who inspired this federal action felt baited.

According to the source, AVG and Avira, popular anti-virus software providers, were the victims of major cyberattacks. Although no end-users of these companies were affected by the hack, security expert Graham Cluley told the source that it is embarrassing for major security providers to be compromised in this way.

Who is vulnerable?

According to the Lane Report, individuals should be aware of the risks they're taking by simply browsing the Internet. In addition to security applications, such as password management software, an awareness of the risk can help prepare users for the harsh realities of cyber crime.

Everyone from casual Internet browsers to major corporations are at risk, as the above example Fox News example suggests. The source reported that hackers have developed new methods of producing income because of how simple it has become to acquire sensitive data, such as passwords and online authentication accounts. Additionally, it is becoming easier for the everyday person to turn to a life of cyber crime.

"If you can read, you can be a hacker, because you can pay money and they give you the instructions on how to run these hacking tools," David Montgomery, senior account manager for SDGblue, told the source.

According to the Lane Report, organized hacking has become a rising concern among businesses. Recently in New York, $45 million was stolen from automated teller machines by thieves who managed to acquire the personal passcodes of bank members.

Individuals should consider how their assets are stored online. As the risk for cyberattack is becoming more widespread with the advent of new mobile technologies, such as smartphones and tablets, it is important for Internet users to focus on how they're protecting themselves.

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New free expression tools from Google Ideas

As long as people have expressed ideas, others have tried to silence them. Today one out of every three people lives in a society that is severely censored. Online barriers can include everything from filters that block content to targeted attacks designed to take down websites. For many people, these obstacles are more than an inconvenience—they represent full-scale repression.

This week, in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Gen Next Foundation, Google Ideas—our “think/do tank”—is hosting a summit in New York entitled “Conflict in a Connected World.”

The summit brings together “hacktivists,” security experts, entrepreneurs, dissidents and others to explore the changing nature of conflict and how online tools and can both harm and protect. We’re also assessing what might be done to better protect people confronting online censorship. With our partners, we will launch several new products and initiatives designed to help:

• Project Shield is an initiative that enables people to use Google’s technology to better protect websites that might otherwise have been taken offline by “distributed denial of service” (DDoS) attacks. We’re currently inviting webmasters serving independent news, human rights, and elections-related content to apply to join our next round of trusted testers.
  
• The Digital Attack Map is a live data visualization, built through a collaboration between Arbor Networks and Google Ideas, that maps DDoS attacks designed to take down websites—and their content—around the globe. This tool shows real-time anonymous traffic data related to these attacks on free speech, and also lets people explore historic trends and see related news reports of outages happening on a given day.
  
• uProxy is a new browser extension under development that lets friends provide each other with a trusted pathway to the web, helping protect an Internet connection from filtering, surveillance or misdirection. The University of Washington and Brave New Software developed the tool, which was seeded by Google Ideas. To learn more about the challenges uProxy aims to address, watch our video.

Information technologies have transformed conflict in our connected world, and access to the free flow of information is increasingly critical. This week’s summit—as well as Shield, the Digital Attack Map and uProxy—are all steps we’re taking to help those fighting for free expression around the globe.

Posted by Jared Cohen, Director, Google Ideas

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Google Media Tools: a new intersection for newsgathering

The New York Times used Google+ Hangouts to interview U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about Syria’s chemical weapons. The Weather Channel used Google Earth to illustrate the damage of Superstorm Sandy through dramatic before and after satellite images and live YouTube video. And Svenska Dagbladet used the Google Maps API and crowdsourced information from readers to plot disparities in neighborhood mortgage rates, generating a meaningful debate in Sweden.

These are just a handful of ways journalists around the world are already using the Internet and Google tools to report the news, visualize data and improve their storytelling capabilities. To continue helping journalists report the news in new and compelling ways, we’ve launched Google Media Tools, a centralized hub aimed at empowering journalists of all skill levels with more ways to connect with their audiences and communities.

The site—which we unveiled last week at Online News Association ‘13 (ONA), a premier digital journalism conference—features a variety of ways to do everything from research to developing to publishing. There are many tips and tricks to make technology do some of the heavy lifting in the daily lives of journalists. The site also showcases the power of the Internet overall in reaching new audiences and giving journalists more ways to make an impact.

We’ll add more resources including case studies, tutorials and expanded content in the coming months, and will soon launch the site in other languages as well.

Posted by Daniel Sieberg, Head of Media Outreach at Google

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Vortex Responsive Blogger Template

Template Name: Vortex Blogger Template

Platform: Blogger / Blogspot

Release date : 20, October 2013

Author : www.templateism.com

License : Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

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Vortex is 100% responsive, high functioning and multimedia magazine style blogger template designed for richly professional bloggers and webmasters. It has some efficient features and functionalities that would certainly make you go gaga about this template. Most importantly, this template looks different on each and every device. For example, check it on your PC, Laptop, iPad and even your smartphones you will find all layouts a slight different from others, we call it the excellent designing. Other than that, it has some noteworthy features which are listed below.

Features of Vortex Responsive Blogger Template:

1. 100% Responsive Blogger Template: Vortex is flexible and highly responsive Blogger template. We have tried our best to produce a high quality theme with extremely flexible responsive style. We have tested it again and again on different devices like Android, iPhone, iPad, and it works pretty awesome on all devices with different screen resolutions. It fits your screen like as if it was exclusively made for your device.


2. SEO Friendly: SEO is something that can be done by you or other professionals. Since, you are using our templates, so we provide you the facility to just post your content, where as we take care of your Search engine optimization.


3. Multi-Drop down Menu: This theme also supports multi-drop down menu that enables you to add more categories in your site. It helps in giving users the flexibility to get into the depth of your category.


4. Browser Compatibility: Vortex is cross-browser supported that shows; we have checked and tested this theme a gazillion times before releasing it in public. It works fine on all major browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Internet explorer. However, it might not function on some low quality old school browsers that do not know the standards of latest development i.e. CSS3 and HTML5.


5. Optimize for AdSense: We have added some Html Comments that will help you to display Ads below and above your posts. In your template search for <!—AdSense Above Posts --> or <!-- AdSense Below Posts --> and replace it with your parse AdSense ad code.

How to Customize Feature Bottom Label:

The first thing you need to do is to go to Blogger >> Your site >> Layout >> Label Top (Feature Posts 1) >> and paste the following code in the HTML Box. Note: Replace "Featured" with your Label. Remember: The label name should be accurate, making sure that letters are capital or not.

<script type='text/javascript'>

var numposts = 1;

var showpostthumbnails = true;

var displaymore = false;

var displayseparator = false;

var showcommentnum = false;

var showpostdate =  true;

var showpostsummary = true;

var numchars = 400;</script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="/feeds/posts/default/-/Featured?orderby=updated&alt=json-in-script&callback=labelthumbs"></script>

How to Customize Feature Bottom Label:

To customize Feature top Label first upload this template to your site then go to Blogger.com >> Layout >> Feature Bottom >> Edit and paste the following code in the HTML Text box. Note: Replace "Technology" with your Label. Remember: The spelling should be accurate otherwise it would not work, even take care of upper and lower class letters.

<h2 class="homelabelh"> Technology News</h2>

<div style='clear:both;'></div>

<script type='text/javascript'>

var numposts = 6;

var showpostthumbnails = true;

var displaymore = false;

var displayseparator = false;

var showcommentnum = false;

var showpostdate =  false;

var showpostsummary = false;

var numchars = 100;</script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="/feeds/posts/default/-/Technology?orderby=updated&alt=json-in-script&callback=labelthumbs"></script>

From The Designers Desk:

When we shared a teaser of this template on our Facebook page. We got a handful of awesome reviews, one user said that, "This is the GOD of Blogger Templates". Therefore, we decided to give it for Free. Let us know what you are outcomes about this template in the comment section below.

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How To Use Google Analytics

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is an online tool that assists in collecting detailed data about website visitors. Once the Google analytics script is added to website source code, it is possible to track website traffic, traffic sources, as well as conversion rates and sales. Google Analytics is mainly designed to aid marketers and webmasters. As a basic service, it is available for free. The advanced version is available for some monthly fee. Advanced version provides many additional information than the basic version. Website owner must allow Google Analytics cookies in order to collect information.

How Google Analytics can help?

Google Analytics tool helps to track AdWords campaign and also to boost online marketing campaigns. Once a person has visits a website, Google analytics tool uses access logs to store visitors data on the server. The information is then analyzed in a particular way once it has been stored. Part of the information includes the time and date of visit, the browser type on the visitor’s end, and the operating system, just to mention a few.

Google Analytics tool has been applied to determine the number of visitors coming to a site. But this is just one feature that may not reveal what people do once they come to the site. Thus, it becomes necessary to track the pages they visit once they land on the website.

Online advertisements and marketing campaigns can be tracked through Google Analytics tool. Thanks to its ability to track visitor’s path through HTTP connections. People who know more about HTTP connections understand that it is simply a way through which computers communicate with each other.

Google Analytics can also help people calculate the following:

• Visit depth
• Bounce rates
• Repeat visitors
• Bounce rates
• Website loyalty, among other things
• Lead generation
• Sales

Google Analytics works for SEO because it is easy to use. It is possible to define a range of data when viewing statistics in different categories. Webmaster can navigate from general to more specific data on the tool. Google analytics also shows from where the visitors came from. Which also includes the Keywords they have used to find the site. This particular option is very important to rank higher in search engines for any particular keyword. However, the most important contribution of Google Analytics in Seo is to help website owners improve their marketing campaigns, advertisements and website visits by using statistics.

Google provides an improved version of Google Analytics tool, which can track even short activities on a particular website. It also loads faster. It is called Real time data. You can access visitors flow, number of visitors on site and many other useful data in real time using this new feature. It is possible to see where visitors are coming from, where they arrive and at what point they leave. Thus, by paying attention to each of the pages, webmaster can make necessary adjustments. This would result to more sales or conversion rates.

From the above discussion we can come to the conclusion that Google analytics has made the life of webmasters and marketers more easier. Read more information on Google Analytics here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics

Image Credit: SmartPhotoStock.

Author Bio:

Author Matthew Anton is a seo expert. He loves to write posts on how Google analytics can be used to track seo data.

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Leaving a lasting legacy with help from Google

Last year Andrew Willis used Search and Maps to turn his love for skateboarding into something that could bring a community together: his skatepark, Frontside Gardens. Here is his story. -Ed.

Andrew (“Andy” to his friends) has been a passionate skateboarder for as long as he can remember. To make his dream of building a skatepark for his community come true, in 2012 Andy entered a competition to lease a piece of land in Hackney Wick, in East London. He won—then realized he had no budget to build his dream.

Using Search and Maps, Andrew found a wealth of reclaimed materials in the area. From screws to planks of wood to sheets of ply, he sourced his skatepark materials from local suppliers and businesses. An engineering graduate, he also used YouTube to learn how to use new materials, like marble. The result: an empty building site turned into a thriving community skatepark—Frontside Gardens.

For Hackney Wick families and kids, Frontside Gardens is more than a skatepark. Built by hand from scratch, it’s a place to enjoy a sunny day, learn new skills and make the most of what they've got together. For Andrew, it’s a place to pass down the things he's learned over the years and in doing so, creating a legacy all his own.

Posted by Steve Vranakis, Creative Lab

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Five Things You Didn’t Know About Google+ for Business

Since its beginnings, Google+ has had the unfortunate label of being like a step child in the social media family. Social network titans like Facebook and Twitter have always been more popular in the past for individuals and businesses alike.

But for anyone with an online business who wants their presence made online, Google+ has actually become a necessity for online marketing.

So, if you are running a new business and are overlooking your Google+ account, it’s probably because you assume that little to no value can come of it. But that’s the furthest from the truth; Google+ can make a big difference in your overall Google rankings, as well how you engage your target customers.

1) Creating a business page can improve your search appearance:

Have you ever looked up a business you were curious in, and saw the large rich snippet image appearing to the right of the screen? This is all tied to how Google finds your business, which can be easily modified when you create a Places for Businesses page.

Google will favor your business when you have a well-established Google+ page (alongside a Places page)— allowing more accurate search results when people search for your business.

In Google’s eyes, trusted businesses will have their image icon appear within search results; making a good impression on anyone searching for you.

Give your target market the chance to read reviews of your business, and learn more about your products and services.

2) The +1 Button:

Ah yes, the mysterious “+1” button from Google. Believe it or not, it’s actually more straightforward than you think. Users clicking the +1 button, indirectly impact your business.

It’s doesn’t affect direct SEO; instead, it shows how users are likely to interact. Users are more likely to trust businesses who interact on Google+, and have a +1 business or product.

Having user-relevant content on Google+ will improve a business’ SEO rankings; attracting more clicks and +1 shares.

3) Google+ profiles are treated like regular sites:

According to a recent article in Social Media Today, Google doesn’t give special treatment to Google+ profiles; they are ranked with the same factors of any other website.

Individual Google+ pages even have their own PageRank. Providing some extra care to your Google+ profile (including your own interaction, links, as well as user interaction), could mean better rankings for your sites.

Find a way how to monitor employees Google+ interactions; evaluate your findings and plan a strategy to make the most of it.

4) Google Hangouts are more effective than you think:

Plenty of us have used live stream services for meetings and such through Skype and GoToMeeting. These help drive internal matters of your business, but have you thought about what you can do with Google+ Hangouts?

One of the most significant aspects of Hangouts is how you can live stream your sessions with the public, even if they aren’t involved with the Hangout. Take the opportunity to conduct a live interview, webinar — anything you want on camera for your target customers to view and understand.

Nothing beats letting your audience see the faces behind your project. The live streams can be viewed by an unlimited amount of people; so it’s a great tool.

5) Google+ has more users than you think:

Everyone likes to thumb their nose at Google+, believing “no one is on it”; but guess again. This past June, Google+ had more than half a billion active users, with numbers steadily growing.

If you’re looking to reach out to an audience beyond just Facebook and Twitter, it’s time to put Google+ in full gear.

Author Bio:

Andrea Fisher is a published journalist as well as a content writer for ADT Home Security. She has an English degree and political science minor from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

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Supporting entrepreneurs worldwide with UP Global

Startups and entrepreneurs lead the way in creating innovative products that improve lives and drive significant economic and social impact. A robust community of entrepreneurs—paired with resources, mentorship and technology—can thrive. That’s why one year ago we launched Google for Entrepreneurs, which today supports more than 70 organizations that are champions for entrepreneurship in more than 115 countries around the world.

Today we’re announcing a new partnership with UP Global which will double their impact over the next three years. UP is currently active in 500 cities globally and with our partnership aims to be in 1,000 cities by 2016. We’ll expand our existing work together to grow Startup Weekend, now powered by Google for Entrepreneurs, activating entrepreneurial communities and helping them launch companies. We’re also teaming up to power Startup Digest and NEXT to connect entrepreneurs with training and event resources—all through UP Global.

A tidal wave of startups is sweeping the globe. Connect with us on Google+ and join the movement. Here’s to the entrepreneurs!

Posted by Mary Grove, Director of Google for Entrepreneurs

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NSA: Best Mobile Phone Trackers Around

During 2005 the NSA began its warrantless wiretap program to look into international emails and calls. It’s come a long way from being an organization that was created to spy on foreign agencies. No one would have predicted that it would one day be deploying mobile phone trackers against citizens of the United States. The NSA folks are so skilled that they even cracked the Blackberry code! Blackberry has boasted of the most secure system around, and even they couldn’t fight the NSA off. Companies like Verizon are routinely handed over customer data to the NSA. Do you think the NSA is going a bit too far?

Infographic By: Mobistealth

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Cool Slideshow Maker for Windows - Make Slideshow for PC, DVD, and the Web!

Photo Slideshow makers are really a great tool when it comes to making a story with your precious photos. These Slideshow making software's allows you to easily design and create high quality Slideshows and convert them to videos by adding background music to it, Allowing you to create a story with your photographs. One such software that allows you to create story with your photos & that we are about to discuss in detail on this article is SMARTSHOW (Smart Slideshow Maker).

With this Cool Slideshow Maker you can create and share your life's memorable moments in a new Unforgettable way. SmartSHOW slideshow maker turns still pictures into thrilling photo movies with music and beautiful transition effects. Let's have a look at it's features...

Features:

Smartshow has a lot of features to add variety of effects to your Slideshows. Let's explore them,

Templates:

It has a wide range of Readymade templates to use for your project. These templates includes Basic, Vintage, Wedding, Travel, Children, etc.. with sub-branches within them to choose from. After selecting a template, you can add photos for your slideshow and carry on with your project.

Transition Effects:

This Cool Slideshow Maker is integrated with 100+ transition effects to choose from. Transition effects are categorized as Standard, Gradients & Double. Standard has about 45 effects, Gradients has about 44 and Double has about 44 transition effects. Each and every effect is unique.

Music Options:

You can add a number of sound tracks as background music to your slideshow and make it alive. Smartshow accepts musics of all formats and allows you to cut audio track, sync it to the slideshow, set faders and more.

Output Formats:

Smartshow offers 4 types of output formats as follows,

1) Video Slideshow:

Video slideshow option allows to export the slideshow created by you in popular video formats such as AVI and MP4. It also has some more options for Creating HD Video, Video for mobile devices, Video for the Internet & Other types of videos.

2) DVD Slideshow:

DVD Slideshow option allows you to burn the slideshow which you created to a DVD. It first offers you to choose a template for your DVD and allows you to Burn it to a disc or Create a ISO Image of it.

3) Create Screensaver:

It simply converts your slideshow into an animated screensaver for your desktop.

4) Create EXE Slideshow:

This is one of the very best option that converts your slideshow into a .exe file and allows it to play on any system without the need of any video players/installation of any special software.

Sample:

Here is a sample "Christmas Images slideshow" made with SmartSHOW.

For more Samples, Have a look at their Samples page here: Samples.

Compatibility:

SmartSHOW is compatible with Windows xp, vista, 7 & 8.

Get it now:

You can Download and try SmartSHOW by going to: http://slideshow-maker.com

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A long way home with help from Google Earth

In 1986, a five-year-old boy named Saroo Munshi Khan accidentally fell asleep on a stationary train in India. He woke up hours later, alone and in an unfamiliar place. This fateful train ride ripped Saroo away from his home and family. For more than a quarter century, he searched for them before finding his way back home with the help of Google Earth.

This incredible true story spans decades, miles and continents. If it weren’t for hope, determination and technology, Saroo would have remained forever lost.

On that day 27 years ago, Saroo and his 14-year-old brother, Guddu, were searching a train station for change to help support their family. Guddu wandered beyond the station and Saroo fell asleep on a stationary train waiting for his brother’s return. When he woke up, the train had left the station, separating Saroo from his home and family.

The train Saroo boarded was in Berhanpur, India, and he ended up 1,500 kilometers away, in Calcutta. For weeks, he survived on the streets. Eventually, he was taken into an orphanage, where he was adopted by the Brierleys, an Australian family. He moved across an ocean to the town of Hobart in Tasmania. At six years old, Saroo had a new family, home, country and name. Though Saroo Munshi Khan couldn’t find his home, Saroo Brierley never gave up the search.

In 2011, using vague memories and Google Earth imagery, Saroo identified his home town. Using the ruler feature in Google Earth, he mapped out a search radius by making an educated guess about how far he traveled by train. After countless hours of scouring this area of Google Earth imagery, he came upon a proverbial needle in a haystack. Saroo spotted one vague landmark that led him to the next, helping him unlock a five-year-old child’s memories. He eventually spotted a neighborhood, street and tin roof that looked familiar.

In Saroo's words, "It was just like being Superman. You are able to go over and take a photo mentally and ask, 'Does this match?' And when you say, 'No,' you keep on going and going and going."

In 2012, Saroo embarked on a trip from Australia back to Khandwa, India. Once he arrived, he shared his story with locals, who helped him find his way back home to his mother and surviving brother and sister. Twenty-six years after accidentally leaving home, he finally found his way back.

The Google Earth imagery that brought Saroo home.

Maps can affect our lives in many ways, big and small—but hopefully they always help us find our way. You can now read Saroo’s book, “A Long Way Home,” for a detailed account of his journey of survival and triumph against incredible odds. It celebrates the importance of never letting go of what drives the human spirit—hope.

Posted by Peter Birch, Google Earth Product Manager

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How Can You Improve Your SEO Performance with Webmaster Tools

The best SEO company says that SEO experts should be familiar with different statistics that can help them enhance and optimize their strategies. One thing that can assist them in this regard is Webmaster Tools, a powerful set of tools especially meant for SEO specialists.

The greatest advantage of Webmaster Tools is that it allows you to view one or more sites from the Google angle.

It is necessary if you want a strong SEO impact. With the toolset, you can view your site in a way Google does. It gives you insights into the indexed pages of your site, the various links that are pointing to it, the most popular keywords etc.

Hence, a site that is active in Webmaster Tools has much better chances of being fully indexed and rank well as compared to the ones that are inactive in the toolset. You can also get other deeper insights from the tool set, which can be leveraged to get the best Search Engine Optimization benefits.

If you are not yet active in Google Webmaster Tools, let me tell you that it’s pretty simple. All you need to do is sign up for an account, login to the dashboard of Google Webmaster Tools and from there, add your website. You will then be asked to prove that the domain is yours. On the basis of your host, Google may offer to do the needful through an uncomplicated pop-up process that allows you to login and verify in a few steps.

The other options include getting a Google-provided meta tag to your homepage, followed by an HTML file upload to the root folder of your site, or confirming your ownership with the help of Google Analytics, if that is already installed in your website. It generally starts populating data within 24 to 48 hours.

Google Webmaster Tools Features:

The best SEO Company India says that once you are done with the site set up, its time to log in and make yourself familiar with the interface. The toolset, at its core, is all about metrics i.e. what’s getting indexed, linked and traffic.

The data you get should then be broken down in different ways to use it to formulate a plan regarding the steps you need to take to get your SEO campaign going.

The various Webmaster Tools metrics are:

Search queries:

It shows four metrics:

Impressions: It indicates the number of times a website is visited through a particular keyword. It, thus, helps you renew your web content with keywords of greater value.
Clicks: This shows the number of people who have taken action and clicked on your site in the search result.
CTR: This shows the number of users who have clicked on your website from the search results. If you find your number to be dissatisfactory, you can change your meta description to attract more traffic.
Middle position: This tells your exact rank for each keyword that you use. It helps you determine your performance and the impact you have on your traffic.

Keywords:

In order to understand how your keywords are performing, you need to click on the terms while being on the search query section. Studying the data for individual keywords informs you about the pages that are ranking for those keywords. This way, you not only understand your overall SEO achievements but also get to know about the different elements of your content campaign. 

Top Pages:

Within “Search Queries”, you get the opportunity to view “top pages”. This indicates content that gets the maximum number of impressions and clicks. It, thus, offers low hanging fruit opportunities you can easily capitalize on.

Page Level Strategy:

A site is structured in a way, so that each keyword points to a section of the website. Webmaster Tools enables you to identify ideal keywords for each of the sections. Once you get your keywords mapped, use them to rank tracking tool to find out extra data like competition and traffic.

Author statistics:

It allows you to tie in guest posts on other websites by linking to your Google + account. It can be easily accomplished by the “rel=author’ tag that is embedded as a link in particular write-ups. Your picture appears next to your content; and readers find it easier to read your other write-ups.

The best SEO company will always suggest you to use Google Webmaster Tools when developing an SEO strategy, as it offers you better opportunities and the perfect medium to determine the performance of your site.

Author Bio:

Sarmista Aun writes for a professional digital marketing company. She tries to guide all new online advertisers through her writings.

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50+ Premium WordPress Themes/Templates of 2014

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What is a DDoS Attack?

A DDoS attack is designed to compromise the integrity of a website, allowing hackers to gain access to sensitive material such as banking, financial, and personal information. DDoS attacks are orchestrated by hackers who rely on vast networks of computer botnets which simultaneously attack a website. These attacks are hard to identify simply because of the sheer volume of information that passes through a website on any given day. Botnets mingle in with those information streams and keep attacking the website until they make a breach in its defenses. Most times a DDoS attack is not even recognized until it is too late to stop it. Often, the first sign of a DDoS attack is a slowdown in website speed and functionality, and by then the damage will already have been done. DDoS attacks are a serious problem that can cost companies millions of dollars and devastate a business’ customer base. However, with the help of a professional DDoS protection company, it is possible to guard your online business from such vicious attacks.

Created by the team at Prolexic Technologies.

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