Set your budget – One of the biggest regrets with buying a computer is buying more than you can afford and realizing that you did not need to spend that much money. When figuring out how much you can afford remember that you may have to purchase software and in the case of a laptop you will want a bag to carry the laptop in that will not damage the laptop. Additionally you may or may not want to add an extended warranty and finally you will need to factor in the taxes.  Remember that all these factors should be factored into your “cost out the door”.   So set how much you can afford and stick to it.

Hardware Specs – Everyone seems to worry if they are getting enough hardware or power. Here is the easy way to determine what hardware you need.  First figure out all the software you need and find out what hardware it requires,  then take the fastest processor & the highest amount of ram required and use those as the slowest processor you can get and the least amount of memory you should get. As for the hard drive you should add up all of the required storage space then double it and that will give you the smallest hard drive you can get. Once you have your minimum specs then buy as much above those specs as you can afford. So if you need a minimum of a 1.6 GHz processor and you can afford 2.2 GHz go for the computer that will run faster for you.

Software – for going back to school your computer should come with a preloaded operating system.  Then you have your office productivity suit, which is your word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software, which does not normally come with your computer.  The old stand by used to be Microsoft Office which is still a good suit of programs but extremely expensive compared to alternatives. For two free alternatives to Microsoft Office check out Open Office or Lotus Symphony.  Both of these suites have the ability to deal with Microsoft file formats. But gaining in popularity are cloud applications like Google Doc’s or ZOHO both of which have free accounts that should handle anything your student might need.  We also know that some teachers want students to use these software suites so make sure you know what your teachers are going to use.
Now if you still want to get Microsoft office make sure you have your student id because many stores will have educational licensed versions of the product that you can get with a student id. Educational licensed are no different than full licensed versions of the product. They are just licensed for students and they cost less because software companies know people that are in school or parents that have kids going to school are normally on tight budgets.

The computer that is going to run an operating system and office productivity suite are not going to be cost or hard drive heavy systems. But if your student is going to need to run a graphic application like CAD or Illustrator these might push your budget.  First these packages are pricey but also they tend to be heavy on the system requirements. Just be aware that if your student is going to need to run a graphic package they may not be able to get away with the base system.

Warranties and extended warranties – Most computers will come with a 1 year warranty on parts and labor. If the computer you are looking at does not come with at least a 1 year manufactures warranty then you should keep looking as there are plenty of computers that do.
As for extended warranties or service plans they are not worth the money, after the first year which is when an extended warranty starts.  There are three things that will typically happen. (1) Battery goes bad – this is not covered by most extended warranties and if it is covered then the cost for a new battery is far less than the cost of the extended warranty. (2) Hard drive crash – If your hard drive crashes most warranties will replace the hard drive but will not try to retrieve the data. Now if an extend warrant does cover this the warranty will normally be more that just purchasing a new hard drive  and having it installed.  (3) You do something that destroys your computer. You can buy accidental coverage warranties but these warranties do not cover data loss and normally run close to what a new computer will cost.

Tricks of the trade. Whether it is a price match guarantee or something else to get you to purchase a computer today, they will revolve around matching the model number not the system spec. So what you will find is that just bought that new computer at store X and then week later you find what you think is the exact same computer with double the amount of RAM at store Y or it could be back at store X and you think great that price match is going to kick in.  Well think again because that extra RAM triggered a change in the computer model number and since it had to be the exact model number you won’t get that price match deal. Why, because you either are trying to return the computer that you got for the one you just found or you are stuck with no guarantee.

So to recap; remember to  figure out what you can afford, what you need, and then how much above your needs as you can afford. And finally remember that computers are constantly going down in price.

1. Did you order any thing from Go Daddy?
2. If you did order do the order details match up with what you ordered?

If your answer is no to either of the questions then it is a phishing scam. But if you are still not sure here is a breakdown between the real one and the fake.

As always we hope this was helpful.

So our take away from this post is, if you are not tracking your marketing you need to. For Becky just stop, and for those who need it  here is a delicious pie chart here you go.

If you would like to know more about tracking or more specifically analytics check out our sister blog the Analytic-lounge.com

Failures simply are, you have an idea or a plan and on execution you have a worse than expected result. The great thing about a failure, if a failure can be a good thing,  is the ability to turn it successful. Turning a failure into a success is as simple as remembering the advice your parents always told you “learn from your mistakes”.

Now waste is something truly to be feared and unfortunately there is a lot of it in business and in marketing. Waste is doing something that is going to fail, without getting something out of it, just doing something for no reason at all, and so on. Now if you have the compulsion to do something for no reason at all please feel free to make a check out to me for one million dollars, see the contact page for mailing details. The two biggest wastes I see in marketing are material with no purpose and material with no contact information.

First your web page. Your web page is the core that everything else should be linked back to in some way, shape or form. With everything linking back to your web page, your web page is the only thing that has to meet all of your goals.

The rest of your material needs to meet one or more of your goals but does not need to meet all of them. When reviewing your material you need to compare three main parts of the material, separately, to your goal(s) of each piece. The three parts are

• Message
• Presentation
• Location

If any part, of any of your marketing efforts, does not match up with one of your goals stop the advertisement immediately. You also need to make sure that each part meets up with the same goal. So if you have an advertisement where the message and the location match up with your 1^st goal and the presentation matches up with your 2^nd goal or no goal at all. You have a choice to either make the presentation match your 1^st goal or stop the advertisement. Either way the advertisement should not continue as is. Once you are done with this process you will more than likely have three categories of advertisements keep, stop and retool.

Make sure you write down your goals and keep them by you.  As we go through this blog series you will be going back to what your goal or purpose is quite often.

Square is the name of a device that is currently in development that will be a mobile credit card reader that will plug into the head phone jack of any smart phone or iPod and will allow you to process a transaction in real time.

The square actually has three parts to it.  The square or credit card scanner that plugs into the headphone jack on you phone.  Second the secure app that you need to load on your smartphone. According to a CNBC report they are hoping to either give away the hardware and app for free or sell it at a very low cost.

The third part is the credit card processing service. Like with your phone itself. they will give you everything you need to use their service for free but to make it work you have to pay for the service. Payment for the service looks like it will model after the traditional credit card companies, they will take a percentage of every transaction.

For more information watch the CNBC Report below.

If, they are able to keep the device under $20.00 and keep the service competitive. I can see the “Square” being a must have for business.

This phishing scam looks more official than the virus that we wrote about the other day. This email claims that Facebook has updated there log-in process and you need to update your account. The email looks very official with Facebook color scheme and logo. But like all phishing scams the links are fake. This perticular email does not have a legitimate link to Facebook at all. The majority  of copies of this email seem to have .eu web address.

Quick review

• Email is very official looking
• Does use the Facebook logo
• Does not have an attachment
• Does not contain a virus.

Actions to take

• Do not click on the links
• Do not fill out any form in conjunction with the email
• Delete the email

The first type is confirming it is done. These emails are sent after you have either just changed or reset your password confirming that the process is done and will typically contain the verbiage along the line of “your password has just been changed.  If you did not change your password please contact support”. If you receive an email like this and you did not change the password always verify a phone number by going to the web separately from the email.  Or in the case of email always go to the web to click on a support email or to start a support ticket.

Second type are a click on the link. These are emails that are triggered after you have filled out a password reset form. Once you click submit on the form it will tell you that it is sending you a confirmation email with a link in it that you need to click on and you will receive it in a set period of time. The link will never be contained in an attachment.

Third type is the temporary password or code email. Again this is an email you have to trigger by either filling out a password reset form or clicking on a forgot my password link and given some information. These emails typically either have no link or just a simple link that takes you to a home or log-in page. These emails will contain either a code that you have to input or a temporary password that you input and after log-in instantly takes you  to a page to change your password. The codes and temporary passwords are typically only good from anywhere from an hour to 48 hours.

Sign that a password rest email is fake

• You did not trigger the email
• Email has an attachment
• It is to a page you do not belong to( example would be you get a  password reset email from Chase but you do  not have a Chase account)
• Email has a fake link