Category Archives: Tutorials

I was so excited when I finally discovered Google Voice. Google is cool in that it does all sort of free things because it’s a free company and it can. I set up my number — the last four digits spell “Cole” — and tested it out. It seemed to work great. That was, until I realized it was only forwarding calls. When you visit Google Voice in your browser, you can call people for free from your computer, but the Android app will default to using your phone’s minutes. I realize some people simply want another number to deal with business or other calls where privacy is a concern, but I was looking for a way to decrease my phone bill.

As soon as I began Googling, the answer became obvious: I would need a third-party app to use VoIP with Google Voice on my phone, and GrooveIP was the one so frequently recommended. Yes, this means you need to authorize yet another service with your Google account, but this will be acceptable for many.

Here’s how:

1. Sign up for Google Voice. I chose the option for a new number and to use my own phone for voicemail since Virgin Mobile isn’t compatible with Google’s voicemail setup.
2. Install GrooveIP Lite to your Android phone. It’s free.
3. Launch GrooveIP and login with your Google account to authorize.
4. Type a phone number on the app’s dial screen. Alternatively, you can select contacts from the “Recent,” “People” or “Favorites” tab.
5. Select a number to call, and you’re on your way.

Obviously, a steady wireless connection will make your calls clearer. Mine weren’t quite as clear as regular calling  and there were a few moments where I could detect interference, but my phone partner understood what I said the entire time and vice versa.  As you can see, you don’t actually need to install the Google Voice app to your phone; although, you can do that, too.

I’m looking forward to downgrading my Internet plan next month!

There is a local establishment that uses a profile rather than a page for business activities, and it’s so strange. I don’t understand who thinks that’s a good idea. I don’t want to befriend a business, but I may want to like it. This business isn’t the only one that operates like  that, so it seems that this is a needed post.

You should get a Facebook page if you are or represent the following:

• A business — of any sort. If the general public doesn’t want to talk to you personally, there’s no need for a profile.
• A brand — Maybe you’re not selling anything directly, but if brand recognition is what you want, then a page is what you need.
• A website — A website may be a brand or a business, but it’s also worthy of a page. Facebook even has a category specifically for pages.
• A location that consumers would “check into” — You can both have a page and claim your page on Facebook Places.

A page, rather than a profile, gives you a great place to post photos, generate buzz, host giveaways and advertise events and promotions. You can interact with consumers, and because multiple people can administer a page, it doesn’t matter who in the company is doing the interacting. When you post website or blog updates to Facebook, you can also generate traffic to your own website. Include your website URL in your “About” section. If you have no website at all, a Facebook page is an adequate substitute, but I’d advise against using this as your only Web presence.

However, a Facebook page requires that you’re active. You should post at least once a day and respond to any comments, questions or concerns your fans have.  You should completely fill out your profile and use your company name in the text areas. Make sure to use a recognizable name for your page title and claim your company name as the URL for your new Facebook page.

Furthermore, you won’t directly sell anything from your Facebook page, but it’s a good way to encourage visitors to click over to your website to see new products or deals. Patrick Healy has something to say about this.

I’ve been loving my brand-new iPod Nano except for one thing: it refused to show my “Top Rated” playlist in the same order as in iTunes. In fact, on iTunes showed the playlist as ordered by dated added on for both my library and iPod, but my iPod kept showing the playlist by play count.  A quick Google search for “ipod playlist sort order” told me that I just had to right-click the playlist and select the option to copy by sort option. In fact, I had the same problem with my iPod Touch, and that did fix the problem, but it wasn’t going to work this time around.

The next result suggested that I should edit the information for all tracks to remember position. This also did not help. I finally set the iPod to manually edit and dragged my correctly-sorted playlist onto it, but that was to no avail. I resorted to a complete restore, and the sort finally did change… to another wrong order. According to iTunes, my iPod already should be sorted how I want it.

Then I figured out how to fix it.

How to Fix iPod Playlist Sort Order

If you’re like me, you might not like signing up for new services. I have hundreds of accounts everywhere, and if something isn’t worth my time, I’d rather skip it. However, Webmaster Tools is one of the things that you absolutely shouldn’t skip. Here’s three reasons why!

Indexing with a Sitemap

Chances are, Google won’t naturally index every page of your site, so Webmaster Tools lets you go in and add a sitemap that lists them all. If your website has several hundred pages, give it a few days. Then, when you log in, you get to see how many pages are indexed. At first, I used my RSS, but I was surprised to see how little this helped. Google only knew about 11 pages. Eleven! I opted for a WordPress sitemap plug-in, instead, and now 1600+ pages are indexed. Nice!

Changing Sitelinks

Sitelinks are what Google calls all those little sublinks under your domain when someone searches for the domain name. Once your pages are all indexed, you’ll start to see them. Google automatically picks ones that work the best, but the search engine isn’t always right. You can log in to Webmaster Tools, click on a property and add certain links to the ignore list, which strongly encourages the search engine to promote other links, instead. It’s not perfect, but it does afford you some control over your website’s appearance in the SERPs.

 

Fix Those Broken Links

Four oh dear! No one likes a broken link, but I had quite a few, because my site had been around for so long. I’d transferred blog platforms and domains and permalink structures a couple times. For whatever reason, Google was still thinking that pages from six years ago still existed, when they didn’t. I could have saved some hassle if I started it on my broken links after the indexing completed, but I waded in before. Regardless, you can use Webmaster Tools to look for broken links on your own website–and then fix them! It results in a better experience for your users, and those links can help your PageRank in the long run.