The Refresh Orlando Heirs

Customer support is very important when you’re running a business, whether your business is on or off the net. If your customer support is hopeless, you’ll soon find your customers running away from you and worse, telling others to stay away too.

If you’re like many of us out there, the last thing you want to do is to spend the whole day replying to customer support emails. Here are 4 easy steps to help improve your customer support and at the same time reduce the time you spend replying to queries. The trick here is to help your customers help themselves before you help them.

- Step 1: Start with a Knowledge base / FAQs

The first step to your support system is to set up a knowledge base or, if you have a quite straight forward product, a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section. This will save you a lot of time. Your customers will also be happier since they can find answers to their questions immediately. If you’re just starting out, it is still a good idea to set up a knowledge base/FAQs. Just sit down and think of all the possible questions that your customer would ask. Maybe not all. Start with a few and you can always add more to it as time goes by.

- Step 2: Set up a Forum

A forum is a great addition to your customer support system. The forum should be the second place your customer would turn to for help. A lot of people associate a forum to discussions, moderating, a lot of work and a headache to maintain. This is only true if you use a forum as a discussion area.

Instead, you should use it as a customer support tool. Just create different forum categories for eg., pre sale questions, member questions, one category for each product. A forum is an excellent way to provide customer support because:

• There is a search function for the customer to find related posts
• You could easily set up a forum for free. Most good web hosts now has a one click forum installation function.
• You don’t have to worry about your replies being caught by your customers’ email filters
• If you get a question you’ve answered before, just give them a link to the answer in another post.
• Usually, other forum members are willing to answer a question that they’ve managed to solve … for free.
• Hiring extra help is as easy as adding a new moderator.

- Step 3: Install a Ticket help desk

Not all queries can be handled via a knowledge base and a forum. Sometimes there is a need for your customers to send you private information such as usernames and passwords.

When a situation like this arises, you will need a way for your customers to send you the information without others being able to see it. One of the best ways to handle this is to set up an online ticket help desk.

A ticket help desk system will allow your customers to create a user account and log a ticket into your system. They can then send whatever information they need to send. You can even allow them to attach files. Most good help desks will also allow you to prepare pre-written responses for repetitive queries.

Again, a good web host would also have some kind of help desk script installation available at a click.

- Step 4: Use a good email software

And finally, you have the good ole e-mail. Which should be the last thing your customers resort to. After implementing the above three systems, you will find a remarkably reduced amount of e-mails you need to reply to. Customers are getting wiser. Most know that e-mails are seldom replied to. So, they would only resort to this as a last resort.

Don’t make a mistake of putting your email address on your web site. Use a form. With email filters rampant on the net, also remember to inform your customers that your e-mail may be trapped by their email filter.

There you go. Just set these up and you’ll find your customer support a lot easier to handle.

© 2004 Bina Omar

Bina runs the WebSite Workshop that provides tools & training to help newbies build web sites. Subscribe to Bina’s ezine ‘WebBriefcase!’ & get your free course on “How to Make Your Own Web Site in 7 Easy Steps” mailto:subscribe@website-workshop.com

1. You don’t make people feel safe when they order.
Remind people that they are ordering through a secure
server. Tell them you won’t sell their e-mail address
and all their information will be kept confidential.

2. You don’t make your ad copy attractive. Your ad
lists features instead of benefits. The headline does
not attract at your target audience. You don’t list any
testimonials or guarantees included in your ad.

3. You don’t remind people to come back and visit.
People usually don’t purchase the first time they visit.
The more times they visit your site, the greater the
chance they will buy. The most effective way is to give
them a free subscription to your e-zine.

4. You don’t let people know anything about your
business. They will feel more comfortable if they know
who they are buying from. Publish a section called
“About Us” on your web site. Include your business
history, profile of employees, contact information etc.

5. You don’t give people as many ordering options as
possible. Accept credit cards, checks, money orders,
and other forms of electronic payments. Take orders
by phone, e-mail, web site, fax, mail, etc.

6. You don’t make your web site look professional.
You want to have your own domain name. Your web
site should be easy to navigate through. The graphics
should be related to the theme of your web site.

7. You don’t let people read your ad before they get
your freebie. When you use free stuff to lure people
to your web site include it below your ad copy or on
another web page. If you list the freebie above your
ad they may never look to see what you’re selling.

8. You don’t attract the target audience that would
buy your product or service. A simple way to do
this is to survey your existing customers to see what
attracted them to buy. This information will help
you improve your target marketing and advertising.

9. You don’t test and improve your ad copy. There
are many people who write an ad copy and never
change it. You have to continually test and improve
your ad copy to get the highest possible response
rate.

10. You don’t give people any urgency to buy now.
Many people are interested in your product but they
put off buying it till later and eventually forget about
it. Entice them to buy now with a freebie or discount
and include a deadline date when the offer ends.
———————————————————————————-
Steve Li is the webmaster of http://pushbuttonincomes.com
You can read more articles like this by subscribing to his
twice-weekly Newsletter. Send a blank email to:
mailto:pushbutton@pushbuttonincomes.com?subject=subscribe
get a free course “Online Advertising for the Completely Clueless!”
———————————————————————————-

Gone are the days when you would have been laughed at if you
walked into an all-night LAN party carrying your trusty laptop
and expecting to hang with the giant computer towers standing at
everyone’s feet. The gaming laptop computers of today sport
huge, crisp LCD screens, cutting-edge video cards and full-size
keyboards. Not only can these gaming laptop computers hang with
the standard clunky computer tower, but they can also be ordered
fully custom to meet the exact specifications of any gamer.

Since there are so many customizable components in these
laptops, a standard practice has been to create what some call a
“system builder.” This is the page where you get to add and
subtract components through drop-down menus in order to create
the best gaming laptop computer for your needs and your budget.
This type of page can be overwhelming to someone just starting
the gaming laptop shopping process, but it is very manageable if
you take it just one component at a time.

The Gaming Laptop GPU

This is the heart of a gaming laptop computer. The GPU (graphics
processing unit) is a component that will make or break your
gaming experience. If your GPU isn’t up to snuff, your games
won’t play.

Without getting into specific models since they change all the
time, the key is that the graphics card not share resources with
the computer. A gaming laptop video card must have its own
memory on board. Generally speaking, standard off-the-shelf
laptops will not have this feature. The two current makers of
laptop video cards are nVIDIA and ATI.

Without the Screen, You Don’t Have Much

What good is a gaming laptop without a screen that can actually
render your games? Now certainly, you can connect an external
monitor, but if you can’t actually play on your gaming laptop
without that external monitor, then your laptop isn’t all that
mobile.

While the technology and terminology for LCDs (liquid crystal
displays) could take up an entire article in itself, there are a
few key points to keep in mind when choosing from available LCD
options for your new gaming laptop computer: native resolution,
aspect ratio, rise and fall time, contrast, viewing angle, and
size.

Native Resolution. The native resolution is simply the setting
at which your screen will render the clearest images. Since
games are constantly in motion, slightly soft edges may not
bother most gamers, but keep in mind that while this is your
gaming laptop, you will likely also use it for other things like
surfing the Internet. If the resolution isn’t comfortable, you
aren’t going to enjoy using it.

Aspect Ratio. As you probably know, a movie theater screen and a
TV screen have different proportions. Likewise, there are
widescreen format gaming laptops and there are laptops that have
a standard aspect ratio — like that of a TV. A widescreen
format gaming laptop (a 16:10 ratio) has advantages and
disadvantages. Many games today do not have a widescreen mode.
This means that the game may stretch across the screen and
become distorted or you may run it with black bars that fill in
the sides. There are ways to get around this, but if you want an
out of the box perfect experience, the widescreen format may not
be for you.

That said, a widescreen LCD does offer plenty of screen real
estate for web surfing and other type of computer activities,
and a game played in a wide format setting offers an expansive
field of view. For this reason, there are some very loyal
widescreen-loving gamers out there.

Do your best to find a balance between current and future
technology and what your computer habits are beyond gaming. Even
with its limitations, the widescreen format is found on most of
the best gaming laptop computers.

Rise and Fall. The phrase ‘rise and fall time’ is used to
describe how fast the LCD can respond to changes. In the past,
LCDs have been plagued with the inability to render images as
fast as computer games can spit them out. This presents a major
problem for laptop gamers because if they can’t see the images
properly, they can’t play the game properly. This lag can mean
the difference between playing to win and barely playing.

Fortunately, gaming laptop LCDs have come a long way and they
are only getting better. While once it was impossible to game on
a laptop screen, the gaming laptop LCDs of today offer 25
milliseconds or less rise and fall time while generally
off-the-shelf laptops have 40 milliseconds or less rise and fall
time.

Contrast. If a gaming laptop LCD has poor contrast, that means
that the black areas aren’t quite as black as they should be and
the white areas aren’t quite as white. This is important to a
laptop gamer because you have to see the game properly — as it
was intended to be seen — in order to compete effectively. Look
for a contrast ratio of 400:1 or higher in a custom gaming
laptop computer.

Viewing Angle. This is an often-overlooked LCD feature, but it
must be considered if you are building a gaming laptop computer.
Many high quality LCDs on the market are difficult to see
clearly at any angle other than straight on and at the right
height. This can be a big drawback to gaming on a LCD screen
because a screen with poor viewing angles won’t allow others to
watch the screen as you play and also hurts your view when doing
something as simple as adjusting your seating, which can require
you to then adjust to position of your laptop screen to see it
properly again.

But gaming on a laptop does not mean that you are doomed to have
poor viewing angles. There are LCDs on the market that have
amazing viewing angles — up to 120 degrees. These screens not
only allow gaming onlookers, but they also allow you to use that
giant, crisp screen to do things like play movies and even make
presentations.

Size. In a gaming laptop computer, size is everything. Most
gaming laptops are large, robust pieces of electronics. Having a
machine of this stature means you also get to have a large
screen. The best gaming laptop computer LCD screens out there
are at least 15 inches. A crowd favorite is a 17 inch widescreen
(even with the challenges that widescreens present). Largr 19
inch laptop screens are just starting to be talked about with
consumers expecting to see 19 inch or even large models on the
market in the near future.

The best way to really get a feel for what laptop LCDs are all
about is to take a trip to a local box store and play with the
LCDs on the display laptops while keeping in mind what you have
read here. While these laptops are not custom gaming laptops,
you can see what the sizes really look like, what different
resolutions look like, and what the viewing angles truly are so
you can start to develop your own preferences.

The RAM - What Type and How Much?

The RAM (random access memory) found in laptops is called SODIMM
(small outline dual inline memory module). The RAM is
responsible for your processing power. If you are shopping for a
custom gaming laptop, you will generally be offered DDR2 RAM
with the choice of how much you want in your computer. Most
high-end games being released today need 1GB of RAM for optimum,
lag-free game play. Some people are going with 2GB to ensure
that they can run multiple applications along with the game and
not experience any slow down in response time. This is a large
investment and you want to be able to use this gaming laptop for
some time in the future. Most custom laptops are user
upgradeable, but this should be left up to professionals.

The CPU - Not Just Mobile Technology

The CPUs (central processing units) found in many custom gaming
laptops are identical to those found in desktops. These chips
require a great deal of cooling power, which in turn can make
your laptop louder than light weight, lower power ultra
portables when the fans kick on and it can become somewhat warm
to the touch. Don’t be alarmed by this — it is normal. And with
these desktop processors comes screaming power! Don’t waste your
money on the latest CPU release that likely has an inflated
price tag (and that price will likely come down before long).
Stick with a current CPU speed that is offered by a reputable
custom gaming laptop reseller, and you really can’t go wrong.

The Gaming Laptop Hard Drive

This is the final component to consider when building a gaming
laptop. Laptop hard drives come in a variety of speeds and
capacities ranging from 4200 to 7200 RPMs and 40 to over 100
GBs. For the most part, this is user preference. Whenever
possible, go for a 7200 RPM hard drive, but if you need a
capacity not offered in this speed, it’s okay to go for the 5400
RPM drive. Take a look at your current computer, and buy your
capacity based on this. Also keep in mind that with many custom
gaming laptop manufacturers, you have the ability to upgrade or
add another hard drive at a later date.

At the end of the day, gaming laptop computers are all about
power. Don’t expect a twelve-pound notebook with a desktop
processor, numerous fans, a giant heatsink, and independent
video card to last on battery power all that long. But do make
sure to enjoy the jawdrops that you’ll get as you walk into your
regular LAN party location with your new, screaming-fast gaming
laptop computer. Crack that puppy open, fire it up, and stand
clear of the drool as you take on your favorite game with fellow
gamers gathered around to take in the action. Gaming is not just
for desktops anymore!

We all have it; we live with it daily: stress. As America’s #1 health problem, surveys, reports and studies have been done concerning this epidemic. Meditation, massages and reading are some of the many ways for you to alleviate stress levels. Doctors hand out pills; insurance rates go up; you pay to learn meditation, to talk to a therapist or for a massage therapist to give you a massage. Day after day, week after week . . . this is a never-ending cycle. The fact is you need to, and can, control your stress simply and cost effectively.

Rest is what we do to let stress subside. Doing fun things that we enjoy in our leisure time compensates us for the unpleasant stress we experience at work, bringing some balance back into life. This is particularly important if we routinely experience unpleasant levels of stress. (Permission from, Mind Tools material is published by Mind Tools Ltd of Signal House, Station Road, Burgess Hill, West Sussex, RH15 8DY, United Kingdom)

So lets get this straight, you have stress. You want to get rid of stress. To rid yourself of stress you must rest! OK that is simple enough. Now how does this relate to you and outdoor furniture? Remember when you were much younger, before life’s stressors attached themselves to you? Riding a bike, going fishing, swimming, playing with friends? Having a seat next to Grandpa and Grandma, listening to their stories? How relaxed they looked, how fascinating the experience was?

I have fond memories of summers gone by of my Grandparent’s property on a small little lake in northern Michigan, all it had was a boat house, a dock, a fire pit, and of course the picnic table, and a few lounge chairs. The chairs weren’t fancy, really quite simple, the old style fold up chairs, and then there was Grandma’s favorite outdoor patio wood chair. I didn’t know the name of the style then, but I knew it was hers, if she was around no one sat in it, except her. That chair now belongs to my Uncle Richard, I know he has had to work on it, some regluing, some added screws, a new varnish job. But it does bring back those old memories still to this day. I go visit my uncle, to relieve stress, to visit those good old days and memories of simpler times. We all would love to go back in time. I know you do, or want to, don’t you…

Whether it is a chair, a swing, lounger or any kind of outdoor furniture, they do allow you to relax, to enjoy life, to feel good again. Read a book, sit and bask in the warmth of the sun, a cool drink at your side, the sound of the wind, hearing natures sounds or just a good old fashioned nap will do what you need, rest and relieve yourself of stress. Now that you are feeling a little better, time for a new wake up call!

Here is a typical situation, each fall you have to put the furniture away into storage for the bad weather of winter. If you live in an area that doesn’t have snow, you don’t have to but you do cover it for all the rain and cold. Every spring you pull it out again, clean it, maybe paint or varnish it, reweb the webbing, tighten the screws, fix it up for the summer again. Every 2-10 years you have to replace it, because of age. Plastic furniture gets brittle, metal gets rusty, oak and cedar does rot out eventually, aluminum gets wore out, bent or worse…breaks. This adds stress to your life, even if it is just for a short time. True, summer time does allow most of that stress to disappear. Now then the cost of replacement, repairs, your time getting it ready, and the extra space used for storage does add up! For example a good cedar adirondack chair costs close to $300 and lasts for about 4 years, if you don’t do anything at all except use it, about $77 dollars a year plus upkeep, varnish, your time, etc. A good oak chair will cost a little more, around $350 and lasts about 6 years. Let us say we treat it just the same as the cedar chair, now you have about $60 a year plus varnish, paint, upkeep and so on. Hmmm sounds a bit costly to me. Still sounds like stress to me.

OK time to really get rid of stress, outdoor furniture made from teak wood, yep that really expensive stuff. That same style chair, the adirondack, in teak it costs around $660! Wow that is expensive! Oh my I’m having a heart attack…oh nope just a bad attempt at humor. Seriously, yes teak is expensive, but here is something for you to think about, ready? Teak lasts 75 years, leave it outside, don’t even cover it, don’t varnish it, don’t do anything but clean it now and then, and enjoy! This means more room in that storage shed for other stuff, you don’t have to pack it away, or pull it out any more! Just wash it down now and then. Less stress…hmmm…virtually no work, more time to relax, to enjoy life….OK wait a minute you might be asking about now, hey he told me about how much that other stuff cost me a year and he hasn’t said a thing about this teak stuff and how expensive it is…OK, OK one adirondack chair made from teak, less then $9.00 a year and no work!

Less stress means you can live longer, less heart problems, less to worry about diabetes, less headaches, less muscle aches. See, any outdoor furniture that you use will allow you to release stress, that is a given. Teak outdoor furniture will relieve more stress, easier for you.

Is this a blatant article about my products? Yes it is, but I want you to think about releasing some of that stress you are feeling. Read, walk, relax, take up a hobby, stop and smell some roses, no rushing around, no pushing yourself to the limit. Just sit down, relax and enjoy your life!

I want to personally thank you for reading this. Hopefully you will get a bit of a laugh and something new to think about.

Sincerely,
Bruce Gokey
Co-Owner of VanBar’s Outdoor Patio Furniture

VanBar, All Rights Reserved. VanBar grants unlimited license to reproduce this article, unaltered, on websites and e-zines, with the condition that all links and this notice are preserved.

On August 8 2005, Macromedia announced it’s release of Macromedia Studio 8. This was an improvement of it’s already popular MX2004 Version.

I have been using the new Dreamweaver 8 for the last few weeks and have observed noticeable improvements that I will describe here.

The first improvement that i noticed was the new top and side rulers. This is very helpful in lining up table and layers accurately.

Also, If you like to work with the code, Dreamweaver has a new feature where you can compress a certain line of code and hide it on the left hand pane. This allows you to hide code that you are not working with, and open it up at anytime if you decide to play with it.

One of the best new features is actually something I had a small gripe with in MX2004. In the previous version, when updating your site with the server, you had to sit there and wait while it uploads all your files. The new version fixes this. In Version 8, you can upload your entire site, AND continue working while your files upload in the background. This is a great new feature.

A couple of other new features and improvements worth noting are:

1. The new CSS Panel - Improved editing and working with your .css styles.

2. The ability to zoom in and out of your webpage.

3. A new coding toolbar

If you haven’t already, I would recommend getting the new version of Macromedia Dreamweaver 8. You won’t be disappointed. Dreamweaver comes with some great tutorials as well. If you’re not familiar with the program, I would suggest going through all the tutorials.

Jason Cooper aka The Rich Nice Guy has been involved with Internet Marketing for a number of years and is an emerging force in the area. Visit http://www.therichniceguy.com to find out more! You may use this article as content for your website or ezine as long as this tagline remains unchanged.