Content Writing & Copywriting Blog

What about the Opera browser?

Jul 01, 2008 4 Comments »

With so much hype surrounding the release of Firefox 3 I was wondering how many people are using the Opera browser. I find the interface quite cool.  My only problem is I’m using so many add-ons with Firefox that it won’t be worth the effort switching to Opera; although it does seem inviting. Are you using Opera instead of the Internet Explorer or Firefox?

Using Gmail As Your Business Email

Apr 23, 2008 9 Comments »

For a few days I’ve been using Gmail to handle my business email and I’m really happy about the decision. When you use Gmail to handle your business correspondence it doesn’t mean you have an email such as yourbusiness@gmail.com; you can easily use something like yourname@yourdomain.com. The email will come to and go from your personal email, it’s just that you will be using the friendly Gmail interface to manage your email. Some of the benefits of using Gmail as your business email are:

• You can set up multiple email accounts for your partners and employees under a common link: http://mail.yourdomain.com, with their own logins and passwords.
• You can keep archiving the messages forever, since every email account begins with 6GB of memory that keeps on increasing.
• You can either use the web interface, or use an email client like Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird to manage emails. I’ve decided to use the web interface as my wife is helping me manage my projects and correspondence and we will be accessing the same email account from different computers.

Setting up Gmail as your business email

It is difficult or easy, depending on how comfortable you are changing your hosting setup. The steps involve (I’m assuming you have a domain hosted somewhere):

• Signup at Google Apps and then create the email account (if you don’t create the email account now you may lose your crucial emails once the email start arriving at the new server).
• Sign into your hosting account control panel and go to the section where you can manage your email and there, try to find how you can change the MX records. This link has all the procedure explained.
• The changes may take up to 48 hours to propagate throughout the Internet and till then you will keep on receiving your email through your current mail server. As soon as your MX records changes are properly propagated, your will be able to go to http://mail.yourdomain.com and manage your email using Gmail.

It may sound a bit doubtful, using a free service for your business email, but it doesn’t make a difference because you will still be using your old email, just with added Gmail features.

The Drawback Of A Sudden Boost

Oct 19, 2007 No Comments »

Since most of my work involves writing — in fact all of my work involves writing — the realization that I could dictate using MS Word was a great boost. All you have to do is get hold of a microphone, attach it to your computer or your laptop and then train the dictation software bundled with MS Office and there you have it: you say and the word processor writes it. The more you train the dictation software the better it types. My productivity increased five times all of a sudden.

But in order to dictate you need quieter surroundings; if there are lots of noises around you the mic catches all those noises and then types them according to its own take on them. So I shifted to another room where I could close the door and do my work in silence. For the first few hours it was great. The problem started when I started using the dictation software even for writing shorter passages. Although it is a great tool, still the accuracy is anywhere between 85% and 95%. So while you’re dictating many times you have to make corrections. If it is a long document, say 1000 to 2000 words, then making repetitive corrections doesn’t seem to be a problem. But if you just have to write 100 or 200 words then it is better to type it rather than dictate it and I realized it after wasting lots of time.

Even shifting to a quieter room has so far turned out to be not-so-productive because I think I’m used to working in the sitting room, in the hub of all the activities. I think sitting in a separate room I thought I was working a lot but in fact I was not.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon the idea of working in a separate room and dictating instead of typing. If I implement these changes properly I think I can enhance my productivity significantly so I’m going to stick to them without getting distracted. And another thing, the dictation software is forcing me to improve my pronunciation because if I don’t pronounce the words right it doesn’t write them correctly :-). Right now I have a very bad pronunciation.

Digg Is Introducing Social Networking Features

Sep 19, 2007 4 Comments »

This is another example of what a dominating force social networking is becoming on the Internet. There is tremendous desire to communicate and share content, whether self-generated or recommended. The post titled Digg Getting More Social at Read/Write Web says:

social news site Digg will launch a slew of new social networking features that will put the site in closer competition with services like Facebook and MySpace.

The new social networking features will enable its close-knit community to interact with other members and share links in a more comprehensive manner. Another quote that explains the new features:

“Instead of submitting stories for review by the larger Digg community, users will be able to send — ’shout’ in Digg terms — story links along with messages to particular Digg friends. Friends, or small groups of friends, also will be able to chat or discuss stories on their personal pages with posts to a message board, a feature akin to the ‘wall’ on Facebook.”

Up till now I have been too lazy to look at Digg properly or consider it as a content promotion service but as I blog more and more I think I should pay more attention to social media websites. Have you had any successful experience with Digg?

Technorati Tags: digg, social networking, social media

Would You Use Software for Copywriting?

Jan 09, 2007 5 Comments »

I keep an open mind when it comes to applying technology to minimize time spent on repetitive or intricate tasks. I just read Brian’s review of a copywriting software called Glyphius that helps you prepare a killer copy by evaluating your version with the help of “a built-in database of over a hundred thousand profitable and unprofitable ads”. Short of giving the living and the dead geniuses of the world a run for their money, I think software can achieve any thing.

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