We’re currently in the process of developing a new logo for My-Language.com, a global language learning company.
We’ve managed to get down to 2 or 3 potential logos and thought it would be interesting to get outside opinions on the designs before making our final decision.
So thanks for taking the time to read this and please let us know which design you prefer by posting a comment!
Thanks for your help!
Digital Economy Bill
The Digital Economy Bill became law today after peers approved final changes to the legislation.
Having been rushed through parliament before the upcoming election, the bill has been the subject of much criticism from all quarters, with Labour MP Tom Watson speaking about the possibility of “unintended consequences” and business owners voicing their concern about the possibility of prosecution. And with over 20,000 people writing to their MP to plead that the bill be scrutinised further before being passed, there is genuine, widespread concern about its implications.
Anyone one who infringes copyright, will under the Digital Economy Bill, run the risk of losing their internet connection. If your Internet Service Provider suspects you are infringing copyright, then they will send you a letter to warn you over your behaviour. If the warning is not heeded, the bill allows for technical measures to be implemented, from reducing your connection speed to completely cutting you off from your broadband connection.
So what does the Digital Economy Bill mean to you as a business owner?
Well, the bill is intended to protect artists copyright and tackle illegal file sharing. Understandable given the growth of illegal file sharing and the potential loss in revenue for music artists, movie studios, game companies and software houses.
The most obviously affected would be businesses that knowingly engage in copyright infringement. Using pirated software, downloading music and films over the company broadband account. These are the targets the Digital Economy Bill has in its sights.
But the problem lies with identifying an “infringer”. Previously, lawyers had to work hard, establishing a case based on a little something called “proof”. That is no longer necessary. The broadband account holder is now responsible for everything on that connection.
Sound reasonable? Maybe, but consider a small business with a WiFi connection. Firstly, that connection had better be secured. If not, anyone could be connecting to your WiFi and downloading copyright material. Even then, WiFi security has been broken and takes little technical knowledge to circumvent. So if someone really want’s to, they can make use of your secured WiFi connection.
What if you provide internet access to your customers, for free or otherwise? Unless you collect registration details of ever customer that uses the connection, how will you know who has connected and what they’ve downloaded? Are Starbucks going to start storing registration details of everyone who uses their free WiFi? Same goes for any business that provides free WiFi. Coffee shops, pubs, hotels, any public place. And ultimately, the broadband account holder is considered responsible for what’s downloaded, so you’d probably have your work cut out proving that it wasn’t you that downloaded copyright material and that a customer is responsible.
So what about your company network? Even if you don’t have WiFi, do you have complete control over everything your employee’s are accessing on the internet? Whilst there are technical solutions for restricting internet access, small businesses don’t often have these in place and operate on a trust basis. Trusting your employees not to download illegal content. Ideally, there would need to be a mix of both solutions, but is that enough now? If an employee abuses your trust and downloads illegal content, your Internet Service Provider would hold the broadband account holder responsible. Give your employee an official warning, discipline them, sack them, it doesn’t change the fact that your ISP may now remove your internet access.
And the prosecution can be instigated by the copyright holder aswell as the ISP. Under the Digital Economy Bill, If the copyright holder believes their copyright has been infringed, they can contact your ISP to get all of your contact details and pursue the case themselves. Which could well involve going to court and prosecution.
So, could your business survive without internet access?
And as an aside, the same applies at home. So if your broadband connection at home is used by several people: your kids, your house mates etc, if you’re the broadband account holder, you’re responsible and could lose your connection and possibly face prosecution.
Censorship?
Whilst not directly related to your business currently, a clause in the Digital Economy Bill gives the goverment the power to shutdown or restrict access to websites that they consider to be promoting copyright material. So does that include Google?? Many of the pages in Google’s search results contain links to websites that “promote” illegal downloading of copyright material.
Giving a central body the power to censor and restrict internet access in this way seems like a slippery slope. What would be next on the list of sites to restrict access to or ban? The sucess of the internet for both business and pleasure was the freedom of information exchange which created a truely global market. We only need to take a look at the censorship of the internet in China to see how problematic this sort of power can be.
So why has the Digital Economy Bill been passed?
Mostly, the bill has been passed as a result of a lack of technical knowledge from the MP’s voting for it. There is no reason to expect MP’s to have the detailed technical knowledge to work on a bill such as this, which is one of the reason’s so many people requested that the process be delayed so that it can be properly debated.
With a seemingly impressive result of 189 votes to 47 for, the bill looks well supported, however barely 20 MP’s showed up to debate the bill. The rest of the voters just turned up to make their vote, based on the instructions of their party “whip”.
So will the Digital Economy Bill work?
Whilst the bill makes it much easier to clampdown on genuine copyright thieves, the long term effects of such a proposal are unconvincing.
Last year, Sweden passed a new anti-file sharing law, which saw overall internet traffic in the country dip by 30%. Several months after the passing of the bill however, Sweden’s internet traffic increased even higher then levels before the law was passed. A consultancy firm investigating the rise concluded that levels of file sharing had bounced back with one major difference: the traffic was encrypted.
Internet users in Sweden just found a way to circumvent the law, by encrypting their internet connection. This kept the details of what was being downloading away from prying eyes and effectively created a much bigger yet far less manageable problem.
Ultimately, the fear of prosecution will lead to yet more red tape, costs and enforced procedural changes for small businesses and new ventures. The long term effects of which we shall have to wait and see.
Firefox beating Internet Explorer in browser wars
The warnings come after Microsoft admitted their browser was used in the recent attack on Google by Chinese hackers. Microsoft’s director of security response Mike Reavey had this to say:
“Based upon our investigations, we have determined that Internet Explorer was one of the vectors used in targeted and sophisticated attacks against Google and possibly other corporate networks,”
The attackers were able to gain access to Google’s internal computer systems and the nature of the attack has left Google threatening to withdraw their services from China completely.
The German government “recommends the temporary use of alternative browsers” with the government of Australia taking a similar approach, saying: “Microsoft has not solved the security glitch and Australians should use alternative browsers”.
CERT, the French government body tasked with protecting government computer systems were issued the following advice: “Pending a patch from the publisher, CERT recommends using an alternative browser.”
Microsoft are believed to be working on a patch and have urged that all Internet Explorer users should make sure they are using Internet Explorer 8 with the latest security updates, as versions 6 and 7 are vulnerable to attack. To make sure your version is up to date, visit the Microsoft Update Center.
The UK Government have stated that they won’t be issuing any warnings along the lines of the French, German and Australian announcements and have instead recommended that anyone concerned about online security should visit the Get Safe Online website.
However, with Microsoft only releasing temporary fixes to the problem (the next scheduled update is for second week of February), now might well be the time to consider changing to a different browser. Whilst all browsers could potentially be the victim of the attack, Internet Explorer is considered one of the least secure browsers and as such is targeted more than other browsers.
The chart below shows the most used web browsers in December 2009, with Firefox being Internet Explorer’s biggest challenger for market share.
To try an alternative browser out, try these links:
Global Market
Why do I need a multi-lingual website?
Your website is a 24 hour shop window for your business, selling your company and its products to the world all day, every day. So why not take advantage of the global nature of the Internet to reach customers that don’t speak your language? In comparison to expanding your business globally offline, globalising your website can give you access to a huge set of new customers for minimal cost Gone are the days when a company had to invest heavily in infrastructure and have a physical presence in other countries in order to sell to customers around the world.
In September 2009, English was the first language of 33.12% of web users. If your website is only available in English, then that’s more than 65% of your potential customers that may not understand your site, may feel alienated from your brand or simply may never find your website. The chart below gives a breakdown of the top 10 languages used on the web.
How do I take my website to the world?
In order to reach that missing 65% of your customer base, your site needs to be able to handle multiple versions of the same content but in different languages. We start by putting in place a database structure and Content Management System that makes this possible. Our powerful, multilingual Content Management System, enables you to easily manage all of your sites through a single, simple interface whilst ensuring that your site is optimised for search engines in every language.
If you would like to find out more about taking your business to the world with a multilingual website, please get in touch with Ribit Solutions now and your business could be soon be operating on a global scale.
Google have just (yesterday) made a big improvement to their local search accounts.
You can now see how many people have viewed your local listing, how many of those people showed interest and how many clicked through to your website. You can also see what searches your listing is being returned for and how many people have found your listing by search term.
Local Search is a search performed with a location provided as an integral part of the query, i.e. searching Google for ‘web design hertfordshire’. Google has a very good tool for managing your business listing and this latest upgrade seems to show how committed they are to improving local search.
Take a look at the video below to find out about Google Local Search, find out more about how local search can help your business or setup your local search account.
My-Language Redesign
The huge My-Language website has been totally redesigned by Ribit Solutions.
The pages were redesigned to add a personal feel to the website and to localise the pages where appropriate i.e. include local images on the ‘Learn German’ page and do the same for each ‘Learn’ a language page.
The site is available for most languages, so the challenge for Ribit Solutions was not just to make a good looking site that was easy to manage large amounts of content, but also to ensure that design and management system works in English, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian and lots of other languages!
To find out more about this massive project, please take a look at the My-Language page in the portfolio or visit the My-Language site.
Ribit Solutions latest website RumerMills.com has gone live.
RumerMills v3.0
Take a look at the portfolio page here: RumerMills Portfolio page
or visit the site: RumerMills
With the current economic climate, small business owners need to make sure their businesses are running as efficiently as possible. These ideas help ensure that your business is not spending more than is necessary on IT solutions.
1) Email
Thunderbird for your email
One of the most popular email clients in use today is Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. But one costs money and the other has a reduced set of functionality. Luckily, there are now several viable email solutions available for free.
If you like having your emails stored locally on your PC like Outlook, then Mozilla Thunderbird may just save you a chunk of money. With the recently released 2nd version offering much more functionality and security than Outlook Express, its a definately worth a look:
GoogleMail
Alternatively, if you want to be able to access your email from anywhere in the world and the ability to store every email you ever send and receive, GoogleMail may be the solution. GoogleMail is completely free, you can manage multiple email addresses through one account and you get unlimited storage at no cost. This gives the added benefit of ensuring that your emails are safely backed up and stored outside of your office. should the worse happen and one or more of your computers fail, you can be safe in the knowledge that your email is backed up, safely stored and you can go on receiving and sending mail from any Internet connected computer. GoogleMail also boasts excellent spam filtering and the ability to access your mail from mobile devices.
2) Office Software
OpenOffice
Again, Microsoft are the most well known provider of office software with MS Office, but the cost can be significant. Happily, it doesn’t have to be expensive to have top class office software as Sun Microsystems provide an excellent alternative to MS Office.
Sun Microsystems offering is called OpenOffice and perhaps is the best alternative to MS Office. Its completely free and the package contains a Word processor (i.e. MS Word equivalent), a spreedsheet program (Excel alternative), presentation software (Powerpoint alternative), a graphics/drawing program and a full database program (MS Access alternative). This really does offer a viable solution to the Microsoft suite.
To find out more visit Why Open Office? and find out why you should consider OpenOffice.
3) Anti-Virus/Computer Protection
Whilst there are lots of paid solutions for anti-virus, the costs can be prohibitive when you have several computers to protect. ClamWin Antivirus is a free solution, that provides protection on a par with many of the paid solutions.
4) Bookkeeping, Project Management and Invoicing
FreeAgentCentral Accounts, Book Keeping and Project Management
This is a difficult topic and trying to get software to manage each of these areas can be very expensive. Getting your financials for the year into a good position for your accountant can be time consuming, plus there is an additional cost of maintaining a suitably secure filing system. FreeAgentCentral is an online solution to all of this problems, allowing you to manage your clients, projects, time tracking and invoicing all on one system. You can upload your bank statements and match payments to invoices and receipts and then have the majority of your end of year accounts automatically generated by the system.
Although there is a cost associated, at £250 a year, this piece of software represents a big saving just on accountancy fees alone.
Find out more at FreeAgentCentral.com.
5) Backup and data management
Carbonite Backup
We all appreciate the need to have a good backup solution in place, but often prohibitive costs of backup solutions and configurations mean that backup solutions and disaster recovery is often something that gets put off till another day. Unfortunately, a disaster can strike at any time and even something as common as a computer hard disk failure can be devastating for a small business.
Ribit Solutions have just begun using Carbonite’s online backup service. Its a $55 flat fee for the year, and you can back up as much as you like. Its completely automatic, safe and secure and simple to setup. Once the program is installed on your PC, you just mark which files you want backed up and the software takes care of everything else. By default, the program will keep your files backed up as you work, so once you’ve created a new file or changed a document, Carbonite uploads it to their secure servers in the background while you carry on working. This way, if your computer dies, you have a power cut etc, you can easily select the file you want to restore and Carbonite will get the latest version back for you.
Find out more at the Carbonite website
For more information or for help getting started with any of these services, please contact Ribit Solutions
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RWpjPiHmZI
With the development of online services in recent years, more and more traditional office based tasks are being moved online where users benefit from the grealty reduced costs. With small businesses spending a significant amount of their hard earned income on completing year end accounts, an online solution is likely to flourish.
As part of our search for a reliable, cost-effective accountancy solution, we investigated several online solutions, but ultimately we decided to go with Free Agent Central. This service costs from £150 a year for a sole trader and £250 a year for a Limited company. If you are refered by an existing customer, you’ll also receive an additional 10% discount.
For Ribit Solutions, this was a no-brainer. £1000 a year for an accountant to compile our accounts, or £250 for an online management system that enabled us to track customers, projects, estimates, timesheets, bills, invoices and bank transactions over the year and ultimately produced a full set of both company and personal accounts. Our regular accountant (who thankfully is a friend) has even admitted that we’d be stupid not to use it!
By visiting the Free Agent Central website, you can try the system online for free and if you like that, you can even sign up for a 31 day free trial, with no obligation to buy.
I don’t want to go on and on about this, but it seems like such a brilliant system I thought you’d appreciate the heads up.
To get a 10% discount on the annual price, you can just type in the following code when you sign up for the trial: 32z88q58
If you want to reduce the cost of your accountancy, then I would highly recommend Free Agent Central to you. Visit the website for your free 31 day trial and see what you think.
How can local search help my business?
Local Search is about to undergo a period of rapid growth, as search engine and content providers begin to recognise the value of providing local results to search engine users. How does your site perform when a visitor searches the local area for your services?
Even if your website performs well in search engine results normally, you might be disappointed with your local search results. With a recent Piper Jaffray report stating that approximately 30% of online searches contain a city, county or post code or 2.6 billion local searches performed each month; can you afford to have your website not perform well in a local search?
For some businesses, local search is the only thing they’re interested in. If you only provide services to the surrounding area, then Local Search is vital to the success of your website.
What is Local Search?
Local Search is a search performed with a location provided as an integral part of the query. That could be searching Google for ‘web design hertfordshire’, searching on Google Maps for ‘web design’ and Google automatically filtering the results based on your current location or maybe just searching an online directory such as Yell.com, where you search for a ‘Who/What’ and specify a ‘Where’.
Why is it important?
As mentioned above, approximately 2.6 billion local searches are being made each month and local search is set for a growth explosion. Local Search has just overtaken offline media such as the Yellow Pages and local newspapers for the most commonly used method for finding local services, suppliers and products. All of the offline directories and phone books are developing or already have an online service as they look to get in early with regards to local search.
One of the drivers of the growth of local search is the mobile search market. With more and more mobile phones and handheld devices connecting to the internet, the mobile search market is going through massive growth and the mobile operators (Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile) are all in agreement that local search is a logical fit for mobile devices.
How is it different from normal search?
Because of the information needed for to return local search results, the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) can’t collect data and build their index of websites in the normal way. Normally, a search engine has a program called a ’spider’, which visits websites, finds any links on that website and then visits those links, indexing as it goes and building up the huge databases that power the search engine. To return local search results, the search engine needs to know the address linked to that particular website and a spider cannot determine that information on its own.
So even if your website is performing well for search terms such as your company name or the service you provide, if you are not proactive in letting a search engine know the area or areas that you provide services to, you won’t perform well in local search.
So what does this mean?
Hopefully by now, you’ll have decided that you want to get in on Local Search at the ground floor. Before it explodes and ahead of your competitors. Local Search is currently a developing area, heading for massive growth.
To get a head start in Local Search, you need to be proactive: spend some time identifying the local directories and “Internet Yellow Pages” that serve your area and make sure you are submitted to those. Visit all the big search engines and get your business listed on their local search and map pages. Have a look at Google’s local search site. Visit the main online directories and make sure your details are listed.
If you’ve decided to improve your sites local search performance, then please contact us and we’ll make sure your website is optimised for good local search performance and do all the hard work for you.
Take a look at this video to find out more about Google Local Search:
