Media Media Inc.

Google launches Google Drive

philperetz — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:35:22 +0000

Today, April 24, 2012, Google introdes Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond. Get started with Drive today at drive.google.com/start

Tactical Tuesdays with Phil Peretz

philperetz — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 05:07:15 +0000

Beginning May 1st, 2012 Media Media Inc. will begin hosting our free webinar-based clinic, ‘Tactical Tuesdays with Phil Peretz’. These will last exactly one hour and will start at 10am (Pacific) and will be held the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays every month.

Tactical Tuesdays is all about you…and it’s free. We ask that you register, bring your questions and we will discuss anything that is on your mind ranging from sales and marketing, website tips and tricks, social networking, SEO, employee or management development, advertising…anything that is on your mind.

This is our opportunity to give back to our customers and clients and, although we do hope that you will buy some of the e-books and services we provide, it’s not necessary.

To be a part of this, please register one time and we’ll add you to our mailing list to notify you of Tactical Tuesdays. We promise that we won’t spam you and we will never sell, trade or lease any of your information.

See you on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month.

Make More Profit Selling Digital Downloads

philperetz — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:34:27 +0000

The old business model for Independent Musicians and other audio content providers is simple…Give away your money to everybody. Set-up fees, commissions and transaction fees are high and everybody gets rich except you.

We propose the ‘New Business Model’.

Informed Business Decisions allow you to look at a variety of options that result in capturing additional revenue and profit. Don’t send a customer to another website top buy what they could have purchased directly from you.

Monitoring your Marketing Strategy

philperetz — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:40:47 +0000

Marketing Strategy Questions and Information Sheet

Here are some items to give consideration when developing your Social Media and Internet business strategies. This list is what we use as a talk-track with our clients and is a great starting point for you. Honest answers (or the lack of answers) can help move your business to the next level.

10 Free Graphics Programs

philperetz — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:58:32 +0000

Here is our list of what we consider to be some of the best free graphics and graphic design programs and editors on the internet. Some of these are photo/web editors and some are design programs. When reviewing these you should take into consideration what you want to accomplish. Some of the screen editors only work with RGB and don’t allow you to save in a print color format (CMYK)

GIMP Version 2.6
GIMP is a very versatile graphics manipulation program with a customizable interface allowing for robust photo enhancement and digital retouching. GIMP allows you to work in layers and channels and has all of the features that you would expect from a program costing hundreds of dollars.
http://www.gimp.org

Picassa
A simple tool to organize, edit and share photos. Editing includes cropping, straightening, remove redeye, remove blemishes or add text. Simple sliders make it easy to manage fill light, highlights, shadows and color temperatures.
Easy to upload and share your photos on Google+
http://picasa.google.com/

Webcam Publisher
Webcam, camera, scanner or other real-time video capture device FTP publishing. Webcam Publisher supports png, gif, jpg, and avi via FTP or the built in webserver. Overlay text, images, watetermarks, time stamps, and more. Multiple webcams are supported.
http://www.wheresjames.com/index.php?page=wjwp2

Ultimate Paint
It has a flexible brush handling method which encourages creative drawing. It’s similar to what good old Deluxe Paint had, so if you’re familiar with DP, you will love Ultimate Paint. You can also retouch and enhance photos using a comprehensive set of built-in tools and plug-ins. Features include resizing, rotating, flood filling, text operations and a lot more. Comes with dozens (more than a hundred!) of cool plug-in filters, and Adobe plug-ins are also supported. All pictures are handled 24 bit.
The user interface is adjustable to the user’s experience level, thus both novice users and experts can use it conveniently.
http://www.ultimatepaint.com/

Inkscape
An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development.
http://inkscape.org/

Terragen
Terragen is a scenery generator, created with the goal of generating photorealistic landscape images and animations. It is available for Windows and the Mac OS. Terragen is free for personal, noncommercial use, with only a few limitations.

Terragen Classic is capable of near-photorealistic results for professional landscape visualisation, special effects, art and recreation. Terragen Classic has been used in a variety of commercial applications including film, television and music videos, games and multimedia, books, magazines and print advertisements.
http://www.planetside.co.uk

VariIcons Icon Editor
VariIconsRevolve is an Icon and Small graphics editor suite which allows you to create and modify icons with frames up to 256×256 size using 22 pixel and vector tools, effects and a variable gradient filling.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/variicons/?source=directory

Creative Docs
Creative Docs .NET is a vector-based graphic design tool with support for rich text, ideal to quickly write short documents, manuals, posters, illustrations, schemas, plans, flow charts, and much more.

The interface is tailored for high productivity: it does never get in your way. Creative Docs .NET tools are simple, yet powerful. All styles and attributes can be modified interactively with a minimum number of mouse clicks. A color gradient, for instance, can be modified directly by dragging its handles in the document window.
http://www.creativedocs.net/

Paint.net
Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool. It has been compared to other digital photo editing software packages such as Adobe® Photoshop®, Corel® Paint Shop Pro®, Microsoft Photo Editor, and The GIMP.
http://www.getpaint.net/

PixelToolbox
PixelToolbox is a complete solution for designing desktop graphics for Windows. Create, edit, and apply 1-bit patterns, wallpaper tiles, icons, and cursors – all from a single integrated environment. PixelToolbox offers the standard set of painting tools along with a few filters and features not found in other software. The unique interface, tools, and workflow were engineered to maximize your creative potential.
http://www.axiomx.com/PixelToolbox/index.htm

10 Best Free Productivity Applications.

philperetz — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:44:19 +0000

We love free software. We especially love free software that helps us get things done faster and better. Here is our current list of what we feel to be the absolute best free applications.

Google Docs - Google Docs is a suite of products that lets you create different kinds of online documents, work on them in real time with other people, and store your documents and your other files — all online, and all for free. With an Internet connection, you can access your documents and files from any computer, anywhere in the world. https://docs.google.com/#home
WordPress
Wordpress.com – You can get a blog started in less time than it takes you to read this sentence. All you need is an email address. You’ll get your own WordPress.com address (like you.wordpress.com, you can switch to a custom address later if you’d like), a selection of great free and customizable designs for your blog (we call them themes), 3 gigabytes of file storage (that’s about 2,500 pictures!) and all the other great features listed here. You can blog as much as you want for free, your blog can be public to the world or private for just your friends. http://www.wordpress.com
WordPress.net – WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you’re ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power the place on the web they call “home”. http://www.wordpress.net
Handbreak - HandBrake is a general-purpose, open-source, cross-platform, multithreaded video transcoder software application. HandBrake was originally developed by titer in 2003 as a general-

Google rolls out AdSense Publisher Toolbar for Chrome

philperetz — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:53:41 +0000

If you are a website publisher that uses Google Adsense as a revenue stream, this will be exciting news.

This cool new extension allows you to view your AdSense account without leaving your website.

Many of us have multiple Google Accounts for a variety of reasons including segmenting and security. This toolbar allows me to view revenue stats without having to sign out of my main Google account and into the account that I use to manage Adsense making it a great timesaver.

The AdSense Publisher Toolbar gives AdSense publishers two easy ways to access real-time information about their accounts and the ads served on their websites.

Pop-up account overview lets you view the following at a glance:
• Account earnings summary (today, yesterday, this month, last month)
• Top 5 custom channels
• Top 5 URL channels
• Lifetime revenue

In-site ad overlay gives you the following options right in your site:
• Instant summary of each ad unit’s earnings (today, yesterday, last 7 days)
• Links to go straight to your AdSense account

Click for more information about this toolbar

Jing – Easy to use screen capture utility

philperetz — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:32:04 +0000

This is a must-have for anyone who needs to do quick and easy screen captures or wants to create short (5 minutes or less) screencasts with audio. The best part is that the basic package is free. Upgrades are very inexpensive as well.

Once this application is installed, a cute little sun icon stays at the top of your screen with menu choices: capture, history and settings. Clicking on the icon with the cross hairs, you can capture an area of your screen and either create a screenshot or start a recording.

Screenshots are easy to capture allowing you to capture a window, pane or region on your screen. Once you create a screenshot, you have the ability to emphasize an area or explain something about the screenshot by marking it with a text box, arrow, arrow, highlight of rectangle. You can save the file or you can share it instantly allowing you to upload it to Screencast.com. Flickr, Twitter or Facebook.

Screencasts are easy. Select a window or region and you can record everything in the area selected. Point to things with your mouse, flip through a Powerpoint or a Prezi presentation, click around a website or application and Jing captures it.

If your computer has a microphone, you can record your commentary at the same time. You can save the video or immediately share on Screencast.com, Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.There are two versions of Jing. A Free version which allows you to create SWF video, 5-minutes of screen recording, Mark up tools for images and a free Screencast.com account. Jing Pro (which is what we use) is $14.95 per year and also includes Webcam recirding, Instant Sharing to YouTube and creation of MPEG-4 videos.

This program is easy to use for novice and computer pros. We strongly recommend Jing. http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html Jing is a product from the Techsmith Corporation.

About TechSmith Corporation

Founded in 1987, TechSmith Corporation provides practical business and academic software tools and services. TechSmith’s solutions enable users to capture, record and enhance digital content so they can share information and knowledge in compelling multimedia formats, and allow others to observe, analyze and learn from their experiences. TechSmith products are used by 99 percent of the Fortune 500. Visit www.TechSmith.com for more information.

Looking for a Job? Reinvent yourself.

philperetz — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 07:02:16 +0000

The economy sucks. People are struggling with making ends meet, interest rates are high, banks are starting to charge additional fees on ATM cards, groceries are more expensive than other. Even things like peanut butter, a staple in every household, will be going up 20-25% in the next few months.

Things will get better, they always do. Unfortunately that doesn’t help you pay the bills now. We really don’t know if it will take a year or a decade for the economy to improve.

The good news is, the best thing you have going for you is your ability to adapt.

You have 100% control to rethink the way that you work, the way that you communicate and the way that you take personal responsibility for reinventing yourself.

Need more money? Then take the time to understand the value in you.

Here is the way that it works…The major thing that businesses and employers think about is profits.

Sure, there are great employers out there who are concerned about working conditions, being able to pay or help with benefits and the needs of their employees, but strip away their profits and no matter how wonderful they are, they will focus on getting rid of those employees who do not understand the importance of building company profitability. I can teach you how to get inside the head of your employer and to understand how they think.

I wrote the book 1000 Resumes, One Job with one thing in mind….getting people to rethink the way that they thought about getting a job. This book will teach you how to get noticed, things that you can do differently and better ways to communicate.

There are two ways that you can get this book. You can buy it from Amazon for $14.95, or you can read it for free on-line. My gift to you.

Click here to learn more and to read the book for free.

Creating a QR Code Strategy

philperetz — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:00:43 +0000

What is a QR code?
A QR code is a 2 dimensional barcode. Unlike a UPC or an EAN barcode that contains numerical data only, is read in a single direction and requires some sort of database to pull information, a QR barcode contains alpha-numeric data and is read both horizontally and vertically.
Data is embedded in a QR Code. Typically, the data in a QR code is a URL pointing people to a website or a Facebook page. It can also be used for virtual business cards and to send other information, however the most common use is directing your customers to a website landing page.

Why scan?
If you are going to add a QR code on your packaging, flyers, website, posters, etc., do it from your client’s perspective. Make the experience count. Get your landing page to take them to the next step in the business relationship. Don’t tell them the same thing you already told them and make it fun, interesting or educational for everyone involved.
Things that you can do are: Give additional information, have a contest, send people to your online store, scan for directions to your business, sweepstakes, liking your Facebook page, conduct a survey, etc.

Make it serve a purpose.
In addition to making it worthwhile for your customer, there has to be a reciprocal reason for you. What is your purpose for adding a QR code? If you are not gathering information about your client so you can further the business relationship, it’s truly a waste of time for you. This can be done either by getting them to sign up for your mailing list, liking your Facebook page or making a purchase.

The Right Size
Make the QR code big enough to scan easily. The minimum size should be 1.25x 1.25. If the QR code is any smaller than that, the code becomes difficult to scan. QR codes were created to make it easy for people to link content so, make it easy for them to scan properly.

Make the codes easy to read.
The longer the URL for the landing page, the more data there is in the QR code. The shorter the URL, the easier it is for the smartphone to grab the image. Think about using URL shirtners like TinyURL or Bitly.

Provide multiple paths.
The QR code is secondary, your primary goal is getting people to respond to your campaign. Not everyone will use a code reader to ‘snap’ the code so it is very important to include multiple paths to get to your campaign. A shortened code that they can click on or input into their web browser will get more people involved.

Read about QR Code Strategies

Media Media Inc. can help with your QR code strategy. Contact us at info@mediamediainc.com or call 775-376-8075