The US chairman of the Federal Communications Commission will present some proposals that may require Internet providers in that country to treat everything the same way every flow of content. The concept, known as net neutrality, faces Internet companies like Google with providers of broadband services like AT & T, Verizon Communications and Comcast, which oppose

Net Neutrality image

control rules in the network management.

Proponents of network neutrality say that Internet service providers should not be able to block or delay traffic on the basis of content. The suppliers say that the growing volume of services that monopolize the bandwidth, like streaming video, requires an active control and some argue that network neutrality could be a problem for innovation. The Federal Communications Commission of the United States could formally propose ruling fixed wireless platforms designed to ensure neutrality for the Internet.

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by Michael Gomez

‘The Techy Guy’ at Marketing for Small Businesses Ltd

For more info visit http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/Net%20Neutrality

The new Microsoft operating system, Windows 7, not only will be sold in packages to complete the installation via a disk, but you can download from online store to removable storage units or burn it to DVD.

The idea is that even users who do not have optical drives on their computers, especially those who have a netbook, can upgrade to the new platform, running the installation directly from your USB flash drives.

“For users who do not have a DVD optical drive on their netbook, the download tool in Windows 7 for USB / DVD will get an ISO image and create an auto-run USB device, which may be used to install Windows 7,” explained Brandon Leblanc, a company spokesman.
As indicated by eWEEK magazine, this choice (only available for downloads within the U.S. for the moment), is based on the WUDT tool, which also burn the ISO to a DVD for a traditional installation.

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Michael Gomez

‘The Techy Guy’ at Marketing for Small Businesses Ltd

New Apple Magic Mouse image

As had been rumored, the Cupertino company announces its new mouse, the “Magic Mouse”, which replaces the Mighty Mouse, an accessory that has been vehemently criticized for sacrificing usability in exchange for a cute design. The major failing of the Mighty Mouse – one of the most expensive in the market, is the tiny area that performs the “scroll” function – just a few months of use are enough before the piece requires constant cleaning, as grease and dust settle on the delicate scroll mechanism. On several occasions, the wear of this mechanism impacted on the ability of the mouse click, disabling the expensive accessory.
Apple seems to want to redeem themselves with the new Magic Mouse, whose design completely eliminates the mechanism of the sphere and the style of the new BlackBerry Tour, uses an optical sensor to detect movements. The news, however, has been met with skepticism from some consumers, who are accustomed to poor performance by Apple when it comes to design and manufacture of mice that can run correctly for a reasonable period of time.
The new mouse will work wirelessly via Bluetooth, with rechargeable batteries, and allow the use of “multitouch” like those Apple presented on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and soon after on their notebooks trackpads.

The Magic Mouse will be on shelves later this month with a price of around £55.

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A demonstration video of the Magic Mouse can be watched here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgiGd53jg2U

by Michael Gomez

The ‘Techy Guy’ at Marketing for Small Businesses Ltd

Last June during their IO 2009 meeting Google announced the development of a technology that might change the way we communicate and collaborate through the web.

This technology, presented under the name WAVE was developed by the same people who created Google Maps and a support team in Sydney, Australia, and is described by their creators as “what email would be if it was to be created today”

Email was created 40 years ago as a communication tool that only was capable of handling text. As technology advanced, new types of information were incorporated to the daily exchange such as images, audio and video; however, email programs managed to handle these new requirements in a very efficient way.

Today evolution has brought new mechanisms for communication that people use in their daily lives besides email. In fact, technologies such as instant messaging, chat, cell phones, etc, are used as alternate – complementary – non related tools to attend our communication needs.

Wave will present an integrated solution to these needs by offering a mechanism where they will interact under a natural platform. In fact, their creators describe it as a communications platform that will handle instant messaging, group or private conversations, documents exchange, documents collaboration, wiki type site building and more.  In a few words, just what you actually do with email plus several other programs and sites, joined in a single and simple window; managed by the browser of your choice, without installing any program on your PC and from any operating system (Mac, Windows, Linux, etc).

If this description has not amazed you yet then here are some more details that will be integrated in the product:

-       Online spelling dictionary with predictive text capacity.

-       Live transmitting of every word/character of your message.

-       Search tool to embed web search capacity in the conversation ‘Searchy’ feature.

-       Drag and drop contacts into the wave.

-       Play back feature, which allows you to keep track of the history of each wave from creation to last input in movie motion.

-       Create group albums by dragging and dropping the participants photos into the wave.

-       Embed the whole wave into a blog ‘Bloggy’ feature.

-       Discussion and content collaboration capacity, ideal for planning your projects, trips, events, etc.

-       International language input method.

-       Live editing.

-       ‘Yes, No, Maybe’ gadget to organise responses.

-       Twitter capacity ’Twave’ – a Wave of tweets.

-       Insert a Google map by highlighting a location name in your Wave. Add comments and markers to your map and use the polygon tool to highlight specific areas.

-       My very favourite!!!!! ‘Instant translation to 40 languages if any of the parties does not speak your language’.

In summary, its an email + chat + instant messaging + document collaboration + document sharing and editing + translation tool + online dictionary + more, more… much more! All integrated in a single window.

The product will be released by the end of this year. The effects this will have in the way people communicate is not easy to predict, but as we see it, two things look clear from now:

Our current email communication will become obsolete. Group integration will be enforced, as the language barriers no longer will be a limitation.

Want to add your own prediction? Please send us your comments on this post and remember to ‘Bookmark it’ if you liked it.

Michael Gomez

‘The Techy Guy’ at Marketing for Small Businesses

For a more detailed description visit http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html

Marketing for Small Businesses is proud to offer a Virtual Marketing Department, tailored to Small & Start Up Businesses in Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire, that is cost-effective and managed by qualified marketeers. Find out about the benefits of this service in this interesting article about the benefits of having a Virtual Marketing Department taking care of all your marketing needs. No project is too small for us!

‘Outsourcing has always had the good and the bad associated to it, but the success of outsourcing all over the developed world has proven beyond doubt, that the volume of the pros associated with outsourcing overpower the cons to a great extent. Latest in the field of outsourcing is the concept of “virtual marketing departments”.

Wondering what these are? Well, just like any other outsourcing job, virtual marketing departments take care of all your marketing needs and strive to make your startup/established business a success in the online world. Right from branding to developing market strategies and getting leads and tackling the media etc., these departments know all the tricks of the trade and the best part is that they help you save a lot of time that you otherwise would have wasted on doing each of these things on your own.

You might put a question to me at this juncture- why outsource when I can hire people and see them formulate plans in front of my eyes? Well, I understand your apprehensions about outsourcing your marketing job to a third party virtual department, but in doing so, you are entitling yourself to a hoard of benefits. First up, you don’t pay these virtual departments on an on-going basis. Rather, you pay them only for the work they do. On the other hand, if you had a dedicated marketing system set up for your company, you would have had to pay them a fixed salary and compensation packages, irrespective of the kind of work they are doing. In outsourcing, therefore, you tend to save at least two quarters worth of money that you would have paid your local marketing department.

Besides, you would also have incurred the cost of setting up the office, telephone connections, health benefits, worker’s comp etc. for your dedicated marketing department, while this is not the case with virtual marketing departments. Virtual departments have their own infrastructure set up and all you have to do is pay them and put your idea across, without worrying about anything else. So, what are you waiting for? Just outsource your work to a virtual marketing department and give yourself complete peace of mind.

Another point to consider is that if you hired a local in-house marketing department, you would need to train them to do the tasks you need. This takes time and expertise which you may not have, and the benefit of having a Virtual Marketing Department will free up your time and stress of wondering how to get your marketing going.’

For more information on our Virtual Marketing Department (VMD) Service please call us on:

01202-233262

or emails us to hello@marketing-for-smallbusinesses.co.uk

Extracted from http://ezinearticles.com/?Outsourcing-Tips-For-a-Small-Business-Virtual-Marketing-Department&id=3017036

The Finland government just introduced this week law projects that will guarantee Internet access as a constitutional right.  This means a milestone on the tech history; an example that surely will be followed by other countries.

In 2004 Estonia pronounced a similar law but Finland’s government wants to go beyond the mere right to internet access: They also guarantee Broad Band Access to everyone living in the country. Indeed, starting July 2010 people are entitled to a 1 Mbps connection right (about the standard today), but this speed will be systematically increased as technology advances allows to do so.  Estimations calculate that by 2015 a 100 Mbps transmission rate will be the guaranteed right !!!.

100 Mbps are about 12 MB per second. In plain words, your PC, Laptop or any other device suitable to this type of communication could be transmitting or receiving the information contained 12 times in Romeo & Juliet every second.

The impact on daily life, social and commercial relationships and business is not hard to imagine. Just think of all the information (documents, transactions, audio, images, video, etc.) that can not be transmitted online today due to its size and you will have a pretty good idea of the first limitations that are to disappear; and, as usual with technological advances, the list will grow and grow.

Sources:

http://brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/10/14/today-it-is-a-good-day-for-making-a-history-well-done-finland!.aspx

http://europe.rights.apc.org/c_rpt/finland.html