Changing my opinions

Microsoft WordTen years ago I changed from a PC to a Mac. My mantra was “I have a Mac and I ain’t going back”. Then I got a client who wanted me to write an ebook for him. He insisted that I start by writing it in Microsoft Word and then change it to a PDF file.

So, I set aside my anti-Microsoft prejudice & bought Microsoft Office 365. That is a one-year license to use the Microsoft suite on my Mac.

It took a while to figure out Microsoft Word. But now I think it is more powerful than Pages for Mac.

Microsoft Word Features

Below are some of the things I had to figure out about Microsoft Word.

Bookmark & Link

Create bookmark first. Must have a letter & a number. Cannot have spaces but can have an underscore.  This is what to do:

Click here to learn more.

  1. Select text
  2. Click Insert
  3. Click Links icon & then Bookmark
  4. Name it & click Add.

Click here to see how to create a link to that bookmark.

Bullet points

Copy & paste

When copying from another source such as a web page, you may copy the formatting codes. Then, when you paste it, the new text may have a different font face & size from the rest of the text.

 To overcome this problem:

Footer, to remove

Insert > footer > remove footer

Header, to remove

Insert > header > remove header

Headings

Microsoft WordTo change or create the heading:

Hyperlink to bookmark

 

Embedding video into Word

Microsoft WordIntuition would tell people to change a video to an MP4 file before embedding it into a Word document. However, In Word and Excel, sounds are linked, not embedded. Sounds can’t be embedded into Word or Excel.

So, a good way to show a video in a Word document is to insert a picture from the video. Then, hyperlink from the picture to a YouTube video. Have some text about it explaining what you are doing.

Move an inserted picture to the right of the text

Microsoft WordTo have a picture on the right-hand side  of text:

Internal links stopped working

My internal links suddenly started taking me to a grey page instead of the correct bookmark. An online search told me that Word was now using absolute links rather than relative links.

An absolute hyperlink contains the entire name of the target that Word needs in order link. For instance, if you have to link to C:\My Documents\April\Sales.doc, C:\My Documents\April\Sales.doc would be your absolute link. April\Sales.doc could be your relative link.

It can be useful to make sure you use relative links when moving a document to another computer. The links are ‘relative’, meaning relative to where the Word file is, not ‘absolute’, meaning where the original file was in the first computer.

I went online & read, “Unfortunately,  there is no RELIABLE way to use relative addressing within Word documents on Word for Mac.”

I decided to try the old standard fix and turn the computer off. Then log in again. The internal hyperlinks work again.

Many more Microsoft Word features

Microsoft WordWhenever it is not intuitively obvious how to do something new in Microsoft Word, just go to Google.com and ask “How to ___  Microsoft Document”.

 They don’t respect your privacy

privacyAdvertisers and tracking companies don’t respect your privacy. They use various techniques to record your Internet browsing habits. They collect all kinds of information:

There are other reasons why you may not want people to be able to see your Internet use:

Snooping search engines

Google, Bing, and other search engines:

Privacy solution: PrivateVPN

There is a technique to protect you from those prying eyes. It’s called using PrivateVPN (virtual private network).  It makes you untraceable on the Internet.

privacyWhen you start a web surf, you go straight to PrivateVPN and BYPASS YOUR ISP (Internet service provider). When you get to the website you want, you will be using the IP address of the particular PrivateVPN server. Whoever would like to track you does not know it is you.

PrivateVPN cloaks and encrypts your signal:

You may be concerned about the wrong party:

Wherever you lie in that spectrum, PrivateVPN will be a good step in the right direction.

In the case of PrivateVPN, the signal may even jump to a server in another country before you get to the website. The snooper won’t even know what country you’re from.

10 reasons why people may want PrivateVPN

Intranet outside the office

PrivateVPN will allow employees to access a corporate intranet in complete privacy while located outside the office.

Secure chat rooms

Your girlfriend, wife or business partner can enter the URL of a chat room to take part in a secret chat.

Con menprivacy

Every place you go to, your online activities can be monitored by Internet service providers, government organizations or criminals. Protect ourselves against malware or con tricks when web browsing.

Securely connect separated offices

Use PrivateVPN to securely connect geographically separated offices of an organization, creating one cohesive network.

Circumvent political censorship

Secure your transactions with PrivateVPN to circumvent geo-restrictions and censorship. Countries like Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria surveil and limit access to the Internet. Activists and journalists in one of these countries can connect privacyto PrivateVPN server and tunnel out of the censorship restrictions. PrivateVPN conceals your page-by-page activity from any government eavesdropping.

YouTube users might have come across a message that says, “This video is not available in your country”. PrivateVPN’s free YouTube proxy allows you to watch any video with zero constraints.

Note that you must add Private VPN to your computer before you arrive in the geo-restricted country.

Online shoppingprivacy

Do you get annoyed by the shopping sites keeping tabs on you? They start sending you ads related to where you shop. PrivateVPN makes that a thing of the past.

Test online strategies geographically

PrivateVPN’s services allow SEO and marketing professionals to connect to servers in different regions to test their strategies and processes.

Make public wifi private

privacyThose Starbucks or McDonald’s hotspots are not safe for confidential email and browsing. Public wi-fi offers no encryption security to its users, and your signals are broadcast for anyone savvy enough to eavesdrop.

Accessing insecure websites makes  it easy to steal your private information.

It’s very easy for even a beginner hacker to intercept your unencrypted wi-fi signal using an Evil Twin phony hotspot or a Firefox Tamper Data plugin. Mobile users should consider spending the 4 to 5 dollars per month for the safety of a PrivateVPN connection.

Secure Skype phoning

It’s relatively easy to eavesdrop on Voice-over-IP (Internet telephoning). Even intermediate-level hackers can listen in to your VOIP calls. Perhaps  you regularly use VOIP services like Skype. If you log into a public wi-fi network and then connect to your PrivateVPN, all of your hotspot web use will then be encrypted and hidden from prying ears & eyes.

Make booking flights & accommodation cheaper

privacyFlight and accommodation Booking websites:

Free 7-day trial

If you wish to tryout a VPN at no cost for 7 days, go to free 7-day trial VPN. No credit card is required.

You will create a password that allows you to use PrivateVPN from anywhere in the world — on up to 6 devices at the same time.

It takes only a few minutes before your own PrivateVPN will be downloaded into your Downloads folder.  Double click on it and then drag the PrivateVPN app into your applications folder icon.

In a few seconds you will actually see it within your actual applications folder.

Double click on PrivateVPN. Fill in the email address and password that you gave during registration.

Click on the country list link. Click on the country from which you want to appear to be browsing.

Suppose you tested your new PrivateVPN out by clicking on the Belgium country link. Then search for what is my IP address? IP Lookup will give your IP address. Click on Get IP Details.

You will see data telling that you are in Belgium.

During the next 7 days, test out everything you can think of.

Email problems?

After you have used your PrivateVPN, you may be unable to use your regular email. That’s because you are not using your regular IP address.

To enable your regular IP address, click on PrivateVPN in your applications folder. You will get a PrivateVPN panel. Click on the button in the centre of the panel & your home IP address will be set up again. Then you email will work the way it did before you got PrivateVPN.

Blogger’s notes

To buy PrivateVPN, please click on any PrivateVPN link on this blog post. I will get a commission & it will help defray the cost of creating and keeping up this website.

Related pages

Evil twin
Mobile devices & cybersecurity

Related YouTube videos




Getting started with WordPress

So you want to have a website with a WordPress blog. This post explains your website setup from the very beginning to a working (very simple) website. Other posts in this blog will explain setting up

Website setup in 3 steps

Note that you have to set up everything in the exact order you see here.

1. Get a domain name

You want to start by registering a domain name that matches your business name. The domain registration blog post explains how to do that.

Part of the process of registering you domain name is linking it to your web host. This is called changing the DNS (domain name servers) information. The DNS blog post will show you how to do that.

2. Host your domain name

Since I started creating websites in 1996, I’ve used many different web hosts. In terms of price, tech support and other features LiquidNet Ltd Hosting is by far my favourite host.

The instructions in this post assume you are using LiquidNet. If you are using a different host, you will have to adjust these instructions accordingly.

Log into your LiquidNet Hosting Control Panel. Go to My Domains > Hosted Domains. If you cannot figure out how to add your new domain, open up a new ticket with tech support and ask them.

Click here to learn more.

3. Add WordPress to your website

website setup

If you are using LiquidNet, go to Installer > Applications Installer and click on the Install icon in the WordPress line.

You will see a new panel called Install Application. Make sure every line is filled in properly:

Notes on Posts & Pages

When you click New in the top of a WordPress Post or Page, you will get a choice of Post or Page. A Post will be part of your blog. When you scroll down to the bottom of a Post on the Internet, you will see a Previous and a (usually) Next button. They will link to the corresponding blog posts.

Any other page you create will be a WordPress Page. E.g., Home, About Us and menus for the various blog categories will all be Pages.

Website setup finished

As long as you performed all of the above steps in the exact order, your website setup should be finished. You should be all set to start creating WordPress pages & blog posts.

If you still have problems, use the search box or else the Blog menu to find the answers.

 

Job applied for

What I offer as a VA

There are over 200 entries in the blog on this website. Most of them are about social media marketing. All of the were written by me. I can

My specialty, blog-animation combination

What I really enjoy doing is making blog-animation combinations:

Because I’m so fussy about my videos, this could easily take 8 hours or more.

Earn a percentage of the selling price for every book sold.

Click here to learn more.

Work experience

Education

Your cost

Contact info

Please contact me using the form below.

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Benefits of using a VA

If you are wondering why a business would even use a virtual assistant, consider these benefits:

 

 

VAPeter Enns has been developing websites since 1996. As a VA (virtual assistant), he specializes in new website development, researching and writing blog posts and creating videos for YouTube and as animated GIFs. He is a social media blogger and author of the free YouTube video-creation tutorial called 7 Day YouTube.


What is Google Trends?

One of the best SEO tools around is Google Trends. It shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world. It is possible to refine the main graph by region and time period.

For instance, the chart here is comparing two search term uses over the past several years. The red line is SEO. The blue line is Search Engine Optimization. The highest point in the red line represents 100% of the searches for SEO throughout the world. Every other point on the two graphs represents the number of searches compared to that highest point for SEO.

I compared the two terms because I wanted to know which one I should use in the title of this post. SEO is way more popular than Search Engine Optimization.  That’s why SEO is used in the title.

You can compare up to 5 different search terms at the same time.

Ubersuggest can help you find the different search terms.

Search criteria

Geographic

Time frames

Click here to learn more.

Categories

Related queries

 

Subregion & comparison terms

Getting started with Google Trends

 

 

 

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What’s the point of Twitter hashtags?

The point of adding Twitter hashtags to your post is to help people find your tweet.Twitter hashtags For instance, suppose you want to upload your latest cat video. You may tweet: Here’s my latest #cat video. When people go to Twitter to find cat videos, they can search for #cat. Your tweet is more likely to be discovered.

If you search for “cat” without the hashtag, you will get different posts. A #cat in the post means that the writer wants people to find his post.

Multiply your chances

The ideal number of hashtags is two. A website at hashtagify.me will help you find that second hashtag. Go to that website and enter “cat” into the search box. You will get a list of the ten most popular hashtags that accompany “#cat” in a tweet.

You find that 7.3% of all tweets that use #cats also use #cute. So, you may refine your tweet to this: Here is my latest #cute #cat video.

Click here to learn more.

Which Twitter hashtags are best for you?

Enter this into your address box: analytics.twitter.com. That will give you statistics for your particular twitter account.

Doing that I found out that the top media tweet from the past 28 days had 112 impressions. That means that 112 people saw it.

The hashtags in that tweet were #animated and #GIF. So, of all the hashtags I used in the past 28 days, that is the hashtag pair that is most likely to give me the most impressions.

The following was my next tweet. Learn how to make an : . The GIF tells you to click here. Instead, click on URL above.

It is possible to upload animated GIFs to Twitter. So, I should be uploading them and using #animated & #GIF as hashtags. Then people will be more likely to see my tweets.

4 steps: uploading animated GIFs to Twitter?

  1. Find your animated GIF. (Click on the animated GIF below to find out how to make them.)
  2. Compose your tweet. Make sure it has 2 hashtags.
  3. Click on the camera icon
  4. Click on your #animated #GIF from the list of files

 

 

 


Content categories

blog content

When you are trying to decide what your next post will be about, think of these popular blog content categories.

1. Practical guides and helpful content

2. Trending topics

3. Research and insights

4. Case studies

5. Infographics

6. Authoritative industry news

1. Practical guides and helpful content

For example,

Guides —

Tips —

How  to  — E.g., You need to know how to make better YouTube videos.  “You need to know” is one of the power words discussed in the How to Write Headlines blog post.

2. Trending topics for blog content

Categories #3 – 6

To read about the last four categories of blog content, go to 

Buzzsumo’s Six Lessons for Marketers.

Watch a free video series about how to create animated GIFs & entertaining videos. 

Blog content & links

As a blogger you want to get to the top of page 1 of the Google SERP (search engine results page).  You do that by ranking high with the factors that matter most to Google.

Google states that there are over 200 different ranking factors which they take into account when determining where to rank websites for a certain keyword. They have also confirmed that the two highest and main ranking factors are CONTENT and LINKS.  (Mark Preston)

Make Your Blog Content Engage And Delight

Forbes magazine says

Your blog positions you as an expert in your industry, bolsters thought leadership, builds trust with your audience, and is a critical element to your inbound marketing strategy, it’s important to regularly publish blog content to increase exposure and engages your viewers. You want to generate results with your blog, whether it’s for shares, to capture leads, or to initiate conversation through comments.

There are steps you can take to ensure your blog posts meets your desired objectives while keeping readers interested in your content. Check out these six tips to creating amazing blog content…every time!   Read more.

Headlines

To analyze a headline, go to the free headline analyzer. That post talks about types of words.  Read about common, uncommon, emotional and power words. 

Emotional element in headline

Having an emotional element in a headline can increase the number of people who will read, share and/or link to your article.  Below are seven emotional elements I found in a Buzzsumo post. 

Also in that same Buzzsomo article are a list of blog post elements that can help your post go viral:

 

 


Promoting with 7 social media

Animated GIFYesterday I created a post about animated GIFs.  On this page, 7 different social media are used to promote the blog post about how to create this special GIF.  This page show how those social media were used.

Facebook, Twitter & Google Plus

The website was promoted twice on Facebook.  It was on the Social Media Marketing page and the YouTube Video Creators page.

To find the Twitter post, go to the latest post that has the above picture of the yellow affiliate marketing button.

See the Google+ post. When you post a link to a web page on Google+, the picture at the top of the page automatically shows up.  In this case the first picture was an automated GIF.

Earn a percentage of the selling price for every book sold.

Click here to learn more.

LinkedIn

See the LinkedIn article.

YouTube

Making the above animated GIF

Pinterest

animated-gif-final-pinterest

This image is called a Pinterest pin. Pinterest pins can still be sending visitors to your website months after your post was created.

You can see this pin on the Pinterest website. You can learn much more about Pinterest on this blog.

 

SlideShare

Here’s how to create a SlideShare presentation.

 

Click on it

This animated GIF was used to promote an online course about email marketing.  Click on it to see how this works.

Animated GIF

 

 

 

 

 

 

More about social media marketing

2016: The Year Everything Changed In Social Media Marketing

The Inside Counsel website says

Three megatrends culminated in online business development in 2016, requiring attorneys to change their digital marketing tactics and to re-focus on what produces results.

Your next client will most likely visit you using a smartphone, not a desktop computer. New data from comScore shows that digital media time spent on mobile devices is now a whopping 68%. Desktop computers account for only one third of digital time spent. Ask yourself: What does your law firm website look like on a cell phone?   Read more about these megatrends.

 

Peter Enns has been developing websites since 1996. He is a social media blogger and author of the free YouTube video-creation tutorial called 7 Day YouTube.

tweets

Making the animated GIF below

Animated GIFAnimated GIFs are becoming more popular in the websites of major companies. As long as it is subtle and does not distract the reader, it is a good way to get a website visitor to notice something.

(The above GIF keeps repeating itself every 9 seconds or so.)

Create an animated GIF in 4 steps

1. Write your script

2. Gather pictures

3. Create animations with Keynote

First of all, look at your script and decide which pictures you need. Create them using GIMP.

This is so complicated that I am explaining it with a YouTube video.  Pause the video frequently to take notes.  There are lots of steps.

Click on the Keynote link above to find out how to turn your still pictures into animations.

(Note that you may have problems unless your maximum dimension is 500 pixels.)

Earn a percentage of the selling price for every book sold.

Click here to learn more.

4. Edit and upload with ScreenFlow

Using ScreenFlow 6.0 or greater:

Animated GIF

Most important: Maximum dimension is 500 pixels.

 

Troubleshooting

If you are having trouble making animated GIFs with ScreenFlow 6.0+, it may have nothing to do with your ScreenFlow program. Four other alternatives:

    1. Too many colours.  Animated GIFs are designed to have a maximum of 256 colours.
    2. Corruption in your Mac computer.
    3. File too large.  The animated GIFs work for me every time if neither of the dimensions are greater than 500 pixels.
    4. After you have finished the above steps, close your computer down and start up again. Then you should be able to make animated GIFs to your heart’s content.

Solving my animated GIF problem

I suddenly was unable to successfully make even simple animated GIFs. So, I

    • Deleted lots of pictures
    • Emptied my trash
    • “Disk”, Enter into spotlight (magnifying glass in upper right-hand corner of screen)
    • Waited several seconds and then click the First Aid icon
    • Closed all programs and click Apple icon > Restart

As soon as the computer started, I was able to make animated GIFs.

animated-gif-final-pinterest

 

 

Related pages

Animated GIF on Google +

To get an animated GIF on Google+, have the animated GIF at the top of your web post. Link to that post from Google+. Your GIF will automatically be posted on Google+.

See example.

 

Supernova animation

A supernova is an explosion of a star into oblivion.  Here is an animated GIF released by the European Southern Observatory.

Australian flag

See this example of a flag continuously flying on a web page.

Spinning around the north pole

See this spinning world from above.

Christmas tree

Make your own Christmas tree animation.

 

Click on it

Animated GIF

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peter Enns has been developing websites since 1996. He is a social media blogger and author of the free YouTube video-creation tutorial called 7 Day YouTube.

tweets

 

Video Quality start-your-own-business-click-hereI wanted to make a YouTube video to complement my blog post about how to start your online business.   The purpose of the video was to get people to the post. I had 5 main points I was trying to get across.
Watch the video below.

11 secrets  for adding video quality & making some boring points memorable

The 5 points are in abbreviated form such as “paid advertising” and “build a list”. If I would have simply listed those 5 points, most people would have closed the video before they watched it all. I had to enhance the video quality.  So, here’s what I did to make it interesting.


1. Bought the “start your online business” graphic from Adobe Stock.
2. Used the Keynote effects to give movement to the text.
3. Had additional smaller text to give more meaning to each of the 5 main points.
4. Video Quality start-online-businessHad a Keynote “spin” action on graphics that came from the blog post.
5. At the end I added the URL of the blog post that corresponded to the video.
6. I set the Keynote slides to “play” and recorded them with ScreenFlow.
7. Edited the video using ScreenFlow.
8. Using ScreenFlow, I recorded the text as an audio file.
9. Added the individual audio clips to the video.
10. Went to the YouTube audio library to find free music to use in the video.
11. Used the audio ducking feature to soften the music during the speaking parts.

Earn a percentage of the selling price for every book sold.

Click here to learn more.

Buy ScreenFlow

Go to the ScreenFlow website to buy. Alternately, you can get a free trial copy so that you can try before you buy.

 

 

Peter Enns has been developing websites since 1996. He is a social media blogger and author of the free YouTube video-creation tutorial called 7 Day YouTube.

tweets

Free Web Design

Category: Blogging

  • This is the Powerful Microsoft Word Compared to Pages

    Changing my opinions Ten years ago I changed from a PC to a Mac. My mantra was “I have a Mac and I ain’t going back”. Then I got a client who wanted me to write an ebook for him. He insisted that I start by writing it in Microsoft Word and then change it…

  • How to Protect Your Internet Browsing Privacy

     They don’t respect your privacy Advertisers and tracking companies don’t respect your privacy. They use various techniques to record your Internet browsing habits. They collect all kinds of information: Websites you have visited Kind of products you are interested in Your political ideologies Health conditions. There are other reasons why you may not want people…

  • Website Setup Starting from the Beginning

    Getting started with WordPress So you want to have a website with a WordPress blog. This post explains your website setup from the very beginning to a working (very simple) website. Other posts in this blog will explain setting up Your home page Horizontal menus WordPressBlog Etc. Website setup in 3 steps Note that you have…

  • VA (Virtual Assistant) Services Available

    Job applied for Virtual assistant (VA) Providing administrative, technical & creative assistance to clients remotely. Notice how there are some gaps in the circle you see here. That’s my job. To fill the gaps. What I offer as a VA There are over 200 entries in the blog on this website. Most of them are about social…

  • Google Trends for Better SEO

    What is Google Trends? One of the best SEO tools around is Google Trends. It shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world. It is possible to refine the main graph by region and time period. For instance, the chart here is comparing two…

  • Twitter Hashtags, Which Ones to Use

    What’s the point of Twitter hashtags? The point of adding Twitter hashtags to your post is to help people find your tweet. For instance, suppose you want to upload your latest cat video. You may tweet: Here’s my latest #cat video. When people go to Twitter to find cat videos, they can search for #cat. Your…

  • Blog Content, 6 Different Categories

    Content categories When you are trying to decide what your next post will be about, think of these popular blog content categories. 1. Practical guides and helpful content 2. Trending topics 3. Research and insights 4. Case studies 5. Infographics 6. Authoritative industry news 1. Practical guides and helpful content For example, Guides, Top tips &…

  • Animated GIFs and Social Media Marketing

    Promoting with 7 social media Yesterday I created a post about animated GIFs.  On this page, 7 different social media are used to promote the blog post about how to create this special GIF.  This page show how those social media were used. Facebook, Twitter & Google Plus The website was promoted twice on Facebook.  It was…

  • How to Make an Animated GIF

    Making the animated GIF below Animated GIFs are becoming more popular in the websites of major companies. As long as it is subtle and does not distract the reader, it is a good way to get a website visitor to notice something. (The above GIF keeps repeating itself every 9 seconds or so.) Create an…

  • 11 Tips to Enhance Your YouTube Video Quality

      I wanted to make a YouTube video to complement my blog post about how to start your online business.   The purpose of the video was to get people to the post. I had 5 main points I was trying to get across. Watch the video below. 11 secrets  for adding video quality & making some boring points memorable The…