Newsletters

Newsletter April 2010

Welcome to the Cooloolabusiness.com Newsletter for April 2010.

WOW!  Where did March disappear to?  It feels like I only sent the March newsletter a week ago but here we are again.  With Easter in the middle and the constant stream of website update requests, I didn’t achieve all of the goals I had set for the month but our plans for content syndication and network development are still on track. 

However, syndication has been “turned down a bit” as updates for Member listings in the Cooloolabusiness.com Gympie Directory are not being sent in by Members.  I urge all Members to check their listings in Cooloolabusiness.com and send us an updated description/profile with products and services for your business.  Having a good description will not only make it much easier to find your listing in Cooloolabusiness.com, IT WILL ENSURE GOOD BACKLINKS FOR YOUR WEBSITE as we proceed with syndication of your listings in our network.

MEMBER NEWS

We would like to welcome Jim’s Cleaning and Toby’s Kiosk to Cooloolabusiness.com.  Jim’s Cleaning are offering professional cleaning services in the Gympie region and a special offer for cooloolabusiness.com Members – read the offer in our Member Classified Advertisements below.

We have developed a new custom WordPress CMS for Toby’s Kiosk, a Toowoomba based company specialising in Ice Cream Van and associated equipment hire and sales.

INTERNET NEWS

We routinely receive calls requesting assistance with email accounts.  These range from forgotten passwords (an easy fix -we just re-set the password on the mailserver) to accounts blocked by large email attachments.

If you are having trouble downloading your email with Outlook (or similar email client), it could be that there is an email with an attachment that is causing the problem.  The solution is to use webmail to login to the account, review the emails and delete the one that is causing the problem.  We have found that the easiest online webmail program is www.mail2web.com – click for our information page on using Mail 2 Web.

Email was designed as a quick and simple communication system – not to send files over the internet.  Attaching files to an email can cause several problems:

• The attachment may be too big to pass through your ISP gateway resulting in the email bouncing back to you
• The attachment may be too big for the recipients mailbox again resulting in a bounce back with a message that the mailbox is full
• The attachment may block the recipients mailbox preventing download of email

These problems can be easily addressed by using one of the many free file transfer systems that are now available.  If we need to send a file quickly, we use www.yousendit.com, a website system that uploads your file and sends a download link to the recipient. 

HANDY SOFTWARE

File Sharing and Backup – We are trialing a new system at Dropbox, which offers free file storage up to 2GB.  The system gives you a small program to install on your PC that synchronises the PC Dropbox folder with the secure online storage and allows you to share sub-folders with other people who can either login to the folder online to download the file or use their own Dropbox program to access the file.  Click here to get the free Dropbox Program – 2Gb of free secure online storage is very handy to keep a copy of your critical files and make it easy to share files online instead of emailing them.

Acronis PC Backup – Have you ever had a computer crash and lost critical data or even important files? The cost of losing critical data can be huge to a small business but the good news is that this can be easily avoided by implementing a proper backup system.  We have used Acronis software since it was first released several years ago and it provides us reassurance that we have safeguarded our business data – a very inexpensive insurance policy.  The latest release is Acronis® True Image Home 2010 and is full featured and provides automated backup set via a scheduling feature.  It is currently on special at USD$49.95 till 30/4/2010 and comes with a free Plus Pack Add on which includes the flexibility to restore files, applications and an operating system to a different computer with dissimilar hardware(Plus pack usually retails at USD$29.99).  Click here to visit the Acronis True Image website where you can buy the special version or download a trial version to test the software on your PC.

OpenOffice – We mentioned OpenOffice software in our March Newsletter.  It is a very good, free product suite that is a true alternative to Microsoft Office.  Over 100 million downloads in just over 12 months shows just how popular and good this software is.  It has lots of additional functionality, templates ands clipart all available free for download.  Read more about Open Office in out software page at www.cooloolabusiness.com/software/openoffice-suite  and view the online video for using free templates in OpenOffice Writer.  

MEMBER CLASSIFIEDS ADVERTISEMENTS

Jims Cleaning – April/May Special 

Mention this advertisement and we will give you a *20% Discount on any quoted residential or commercial cleaning service until 15^th May 2010.

House and Office cleaning starts from as little as $4 per/day, this price is based on a regular fortnightly clean on a standard townhouse or office, please ask for a FREE QUOTE for your cleaning job. Call 131 546 to contact your closest Jim’s Cleaning Professional in your area. Your local Jim’s Cleaner who quotes on the job will also be the one who does the job, we give you our Satisfaction Guarantee. Call now 131 546.

*Special applies to any one job from first time clients only.

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Gympie Meat Hall – call and see Gary and get 10% of any order over $100 by mentioning that you are a member of cooloolabusiness.com (by the way the cheese kranski is very good).

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