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Saturday, August 30, 2008

800 Accounts

Ever wish you had an administrative assistant?
Tired of forwarding calls for your organization?
Want to appear as though your business is larger?
Would you like to have virtual office with your strategic partners on board with same line?
What about non-profits who don’t want to take calls at home?

No Better Business Logos, not endorsing these products, just an investigation, up to you to check them out.
But one does have very prominent customer service number and the other you can search and find at the bottom of the page.
Sales auto response message and fax on demand.
Up and running one day.

Good for small businesses, sales professionals.

All Business Communications
Listen to message and at 6:52 AM, could leave message for return call—using own system.


Not Free All Business Communications/
http://www.allbizcom.com/
From the All Biz website
Today, there are many ways to keep in touch. Managing the growing flood of information is increasingly difficult. Yet, cost-effective and reliable communication is VITAL to your business.
Now, for as little as $9.95 a month, you can have a personal, automated assistant that will work with your existing telephones, pagers, cell phones and fax machines for an amazing productivity boost. Each service includes your own nationwide toll-free number for as low as 4.5 cents a minute.
• Personal nationwide toll-free number
• Multiple voice mailboxes
• Follow-me-live-call-transfer
• Voice-on-demand
• Fax-on-demand/Fax-Mail
• E-mail message delivery
For More Information Call: 1-888-932-4299





Virtual PBX—Ring Central.com

You’ll have all the power and functionality of a Fortune 500 phone system but with no hardware to buy and maintain. You’ll connect remote teams and employees as if they were in the same room, and allow them all access to your telephone and fax features, no matter where they are. RingCentral’s easy-to-use online tools make configuring and managing your system a snap.

Even if your company has only one employee, you can also take advantage of multiple extensions. You can create virtual departments, make announcements and route calls from any extension to any number—your home, office, cell, etc.


Your callers will be presented state of the art messaging and options at each step they make through your system. Each system user will have unmatched functionality and flexibility to aid him/her in the efficient performance of his/her unique job responsibilities.

Answering the call
The auto-attendant will answer the caller with a professional recording (default or record your own). Callers could hear options such as “Press 1 for service, press 2 for sales consultants, press 3 for account information…” or “Press 1 for Bill Jones, press 2 for Elizabeth Harley…” or “If you know the number of the party…”

Incoming faxes
Incoming faxes are automatically detected and accepted. There is never a busy signal. Faxes are delivered to your email inbox or online account, per your setup preference.

Extensions
When the caller enters an extension number, the call will go to those telephone numbers you select for that extension: your or your employee’s home, cell or office phones; a sequence of telephone numbers; or several telephone numbers at once. These phones can be anywhere, yet they will all appear as if they are all in offices in the same building. You can even set up extensions to deliver company announcements or Fax on Demand.

Extension owner abilities
The extension owner will be able to identify callers through call screening technology and answer, or the caller will be routed to other numbers or a message mailbox. Each extension owner can personalize his/her extension with messaging and answering options for their unique work and schedule. Extension owners will have the ability to listen to messages in their own way: from computer, email or from any telephone.

Different options for different times and days
You'll be able to create different options for regular business hours, after-hours, holidays and vacations, for both the incoming main line and for each extension independently.

Tracking the calls and faxes
A record of all incoming and outgoing calls and messages will kept in your call log.

RingCentral Online
Your RingCentral Virtual PBX is only one of many features included with your Small Business Communications System. You can begin by using only your Virtual PBX and start using additional features as your business needs require. The richness of RingCentral’s business communication features gives you the competitive edge you need to grow your

As low as 4.99 a month!



At 6:55 AM Live Person, asked about free trials.
7 day or 30 day free trial
Outsourced
Get local or toll free number
Fax on demand

Said registered with Better Business Bureau, but when asked about logo we were disconnected.

Create the appearance of a larger organization

With extensions, multiple greetings, a dial-by-name directory, customizable music-on-hold, answering rules, flexible call forwarding options and total control over managing incoming calls, your RingCentral service outperforms most Fortune 500 PBX systems.

With RingCentral, you can:
Set up departments
Customize your music-on-hold and broadcast marketing messages
Create a company dial-by-name directory
Set up fax and voice mailboxes for employees
Broadcast special announcements, such as directions

Listen to this episode at: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/30986 Episdoe date: 12/10/2007 07:00 AM EST

Monday, August 18, 2008

PositivelyPittsburghLiveMagazine.com Launch

This show was to be about Free Virus and Spyware but guest had a family emergency so used the opportunity to talk about the launch of Pittsburgh's new on line community magazine: PositivelyPittsburghLiveMagazine.com


Positively Pittsburgh Live, the Internet-based radio show that is making waves in the Pittsburgh region, is broadening its horizons to include positivelypittsburghlivemagazine.com! This new online community magazine, set to go live Monday, August 18th, is an excellent resource for local businesses, tourists, professionals, artists, authors, non-profits and more, to upload their news content directly to the Web. It’s Internet, Radio, Television, and Magazine all rolled into one.

Archived shows of Positively Pittsburgh Live can be found at:
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/18520



From articles, to audio clips, and even video content—this unique online magazine is a one-stop shop for news FOR and ABOUT the Pittsburgh region. Each member will have their very own page for audio, video, and written content, with an anticipated 200,000 visitors in the first year.
Positively Pittsburgh Live radio show already gets 2,000 downloads a month! For information please email info@positivelypittsburghlivemagazine.com

How can you benefit from becoming a member of PositivelyPittsburghLiveMagazine.com?

Community Businesses:
• Show yourself off to local residents, tourists, and other businesses
• Post specials, coupons and events
• Post job opportunities, recognize your employees good work, and network

Professionals:
• Post information on networking meetings and events
• Give yourself added exposure in the Pittsburgh market, all PR is good PR!

Artists:
• Utilize the site as an additional resource to expose your art and yourself
• Post ideas and network with other artists in the area
• Tell Pittsburghers where they can find your work

Authors:
• Publish your articles and stories online
• Drive sales to your books or publications
• NETWORK



Non-Profits:
• Added exposure of your mission, agenda, and calendar
• Community buy-in for your mission
• Avenue to find volunteers and employees

Plus, everyone will increase their spot in search engine results… “Get Your Google On!”

For Additional Information and More Details Please Contact:
Publisher, Joanne Quinn-Smith, Dreamweaver Marketing Associates
at 412-628-5048 or email info@positivelypittsburghlivemagazine.com

Annual fee for PPL membership: Launch ONLY $400.00
That’s less than $35 bucks a month for all the content you want!


*INTRODUCTORY SPECIAL UNTIL August 25, 2008

Receive a FREE “Professionals with Impact” Interview:
This is a 30-minute, ALL ABOUT YOU, interview—shameless self promotion—with host, Joanne Quinn-Smith. She collects talking points that you want to discuss, so the interview truly promotes you and your company and also, more importantly your commitment to the local, national or international Community as a Professional with Impact. This is broadcast live on the Internet, and is also archived for endless download opportunities. You can post your interview on your personal Web site, blog, organizational site, anywhere and everywhere that you can think of for added exposure. You can even burn the MP3 to CD and hand it out for promotional use. It’s a one-of-a-kind advertising tool for absolutely no cost.
Remember this is a launch only special and ends on August 25, 2008.


Listen to previous “Professionals with Impact” episodes at:
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/33431


*Act now and receive this additional bonus valued at $350.00


Call today to reserve your spot, membership is limited to 40 participants.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Is Cuil Really Cool?

So I named this talkcast Episode 66—“Cuil, a better search engine or an old-fashioned pen!” That was before I found out that Cuil was pronounced Cool and was nothing like Benjamin Franklin’s quill that he used to write, I guess more than Ben Franklin’s quill pen is archaic, I think Techno Granny may be too because in this case I just don’t see the sense of one more search engine.

Cuil (pronounced "cool") is a search engine that organizes web pages by content and displays a paragraph with thumbnail pictures for many results. It claims to have a larger index than any other search engine, with about 120 billion web pages. It went live on July 28, 2008.

Cuil's privacy policy states that it does not store records of users’ search activity or IP addresses.
Cuil is managed and developed largely by former employees of Google: Anna Patterson, Russell Power and Louis Monier. The CEO and co-founder, Tom Costello, has worked for IBM and others. The company raised $33 million from venture capital firms including to start the business.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia

Cuil or "Cool" is not Cool as far as Techno Granny is concerned. It claims to use different rules that are more relevant to real search and not just popularity but that “sexy” Russian Lady in a babushka dancing to Techno Music is still beating me out with her videos. If it were not for being listed on Zimbio and Zencast, I would not even have come up in my first search of even the Techno Granny Show. My first search did not even pick up TalkShoe, come on or Montana?!? So the Techno Granny thing is not just sour grapes.

Videos outstrip podcasts anyday in search ranking, so how is Cuil different? Let’s see, the Russian sexy senior citizen has one video that has been downloaded 100,000 times and I have 63 podcasts. What’s that tell you about the power of video and Cuil, very cooly claims that their search goes by different rules. Don’t think so!


Positively Pittsburgh Live, very concise look at what you are looking at but Hacking Live also comes up with Positivley Pittsburgh Live.
TalkShoe, on the other hand had several shoe stores in my first search and nothing about an audio host that has millions of users.

Carl Weisbrad of WDSL Library was on the line so I checked him out, nothing and he’s also a pretty prolific guy with shows on two networks, Talk Shoe and Blogtalk Radio and he is also a master with RSS feeds. What are the new cool rules for Cuil?

From the Cuil website: “Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance. When we find a page with your keywords, we stay on that page and analyze the rest of its content, its concepts, their inter-relationships and the page’s coherency.” Ah well, they did only just go live on July 28 and I am wrtiting this on August 4 so Techno Granny may soon eat her words.

But what did they spend 33 million dollars on. I did notice that by the end of the show the Search results looked a little better for Talk Shoe. Could they have used part of that money for Google Alerts Pro and “heard” me talking about them and gotten it together or am I just in the twi-light zone. The second on air search that I did on Talk Shoe, still had some shoe stores but had 5 references out of three columns about the REAL Shoe.

From the Cuil website: “Then we offer you helpful choices and suggestions until you find the page you want and that you know is out there. We believe that analyzing the Web rather than our users is a more useful approach, so we don’t collect data about you and your habits, lest we are tempted to peek.” Oh is that what they were doing, excuse me their internet crystal ball told them that a 58 year old granny didn’t want to buy shoes but wanted to check out a Podcasting site called Talk Shoe. Well, that’s what they would have one believe.

From the Cuil website: “Cuil is an old Irish word for knowledge. For knowledge, ask Cuil.” Think they spent some of that 33 mil on a spiffy by-line from a Madison Avenue Ad Agency. No, they are nothing like Google, Ask or Yahoo!

Well you asked for it, before I did this show listeners were e-mailing me and calling me about how Cool it would be for Techno Granny to scoop Cuil, so I did and I may “hide” that podcast after a while but in the meantime, what in the world do Eco Shoes (walking Shoes), Wooden Shoe Books and Records, Ontario Shoe Travelers Association and a Shoe made of Garbage, Niki Trash Talk have to do with our beloved TalkShoe ?

By the way a recent article in PC Magazine agreed with me that many searches on rather common items such as States either yielded nothing or were irrelevant. Guess that’s what happens when you go to a party and the fun people haven’t arrived yet. If you leave early because no one is there, you could miss all the fun! So Techno Granny is going to go back and check it out after the party gets going a little better.

You can listen to the actual talkcast on this topic at:
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/30986

Just in case I decide to claim this blog at some later date:
This blog post can be reproduced in its entirety with the following information: © Joanne Quinn-Smith, TEchno Granny Show 412-628-5048
Listen at: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/30986
Blog: www.technogrannyshow.blogspot.com

Monday, August 4, 2008

Would you lend your child money but not your time?

This was sent to me in an e-mail by one of my listeners Carol Carmichael, who owns Carol's Restaurant and Hometown Sports Deli in the Historic West End of PIttsburgh. I thought, as a grandmother that it was important enough a parable to share.


For those of us with kids, something to ponder..........

A man came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year
old son waiting for him at the door.

SON: 'Daddy, may I ask you a question?'
DAD: 'Yeah sure, what it is?' replied the man.
SON: 'Daddy, how much do you make an hour?'
DAD: 'That's none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?' the
man said angrily.
SON: 'I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an
hour?'
DAD: 'If you must know, I make $50 an hour.'
SON: 'Oh,' the little boy replied, with his head down.
SON: 'Daddy, may I please borrow $25?'

The father was furious, 'If the only reason you asked that is so you
can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then
you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why
you are being so selfish. I don't work hard everyday for such childish
frivolities.' The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door.

The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy's
questions. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money? After
about an hour or so, the man had calmed down , and started to think:
Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $25.00 and
he really didn't ask for money very often. The man went to the door of
the little boy's room and opened the door. 'Are you asleep, son?' He
asked. 'No daddy, I'm awake,' replied the boy. 'I've been thinking,
maybe I was too hard on you earlier' said the man 'It's been a long day
and I took out my aggravation on you. Here's the $25 you asked for .'

The little boy sat straight up, smiling. 'Oh, thank you daddy!' He
yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled up
bills. The man saw that the boy already had money, started to get angry
again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, and then looked up
at his father. 'Why do you want more money if you already have some?'
the father grumbled. Because I didn't have enough, but now I do,' the
little boy replied. 'Daddy, I have $50 now. Can I buy an hour of your
time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with
you.'

The father was crushed.. He put his arms around his little son, and he
begged for his forgiveness. It's just a short reminder to all of you
working so hard in life.. We should not let time s lip through our
fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to
us, those close to our hearts. Do remember to share that $50 worth of
your time with someone you love.
If we die tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily
replace us in a matter of hours. But the family & friends we leave
behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.
From my house to yours