Anyways my cousin is really in to Rap/Garage/R&B and Hip Hop and wants to take his beats to the next level.  I’ve been selling software and hardware for a number of years so he came to see me about beat making software that he could use on his laptop/computer.

The setup that he wanted was going to cost close to £2k just for the hardware alone!  There had to be another option.  This is where I came in.  I’d been using beat making software for video productions and uploading to you tube over the course of 12 months.

Now my cousin is young only about 13 and wants to impress his mates and the girls – this could just be a face or it could lead to something so we had to find him a cheap alternative to the £2k setup he had his eyes on.  That’s when we came across beat maker.  Not much in the name I know but for the price of an XBOX game he was making some “wicked” beats within 10 minutes of downloading the softwares!

He’s now making his own beats and has never looked back with this beatmaking software - it’s a weird name but it’s great.  I’m going to post a video in a few days with his latest beats!  Stay tuned.

I was receiving a message about authorware web player not being installed.  So today I’m going to lead you through how to install authorware webplayer.

1: Download Authorware

The following location has both an online version and a msi downloadable version of authorware to install.

http://www.thirdforce.com/support/downloads/

Navigate to the Autotest EDCL tab and choose the option for downloading.  I have chosen the downloadable MSI as I have more than one machine that requires the update.

2: Remove any previous versions of authorware – this will stop any conflicts when installing the new version.

3: Install the MSI as an administrator or a user that has correct user rights to install software on the workstation in question.

4: The install process only take a few minutes and there are no pop-ups.

After install I can pretty much say that you have now completed the install authorware process.  Congradulations!

First order errored out – i guessed because one of the pizza’s had 4 toppings which the deal doe snot include.  Problem is the app just hangs and does not say why.

2nd attempt I put through the order with only 3 toppings – it worked then asked me to register.  After registering it forgot my order and asked for it again!

took me bloody 30 minutes to get the thing working – now i have to try and order again.  However I’m not going to attempt it.  Going to the local pizza shop instead! grrrr!

Anyway my SEO marketing has fairly picked up a notch and I’ve been given a good bit of advice from a fellow marketer on how to make a good business on-line picking low hanging fruit

I’ve always concentrated on co.uk domains which has been my main downfall when trying to drive high volumes of traffic to websites.  As that TDL is country specific.  I’d have much better success with .com .

So the new year brings with it a fresh start on my SEO journey to being self sufficient.  I’ll up date with more info as I make tracks in this new strategy.

The new year also sees my first .com domain blog up and running. I’ve built it for a friend and we are going to split the profits off of any traffic we generate.  He just happens to be jetting of to Thailand and I’ve talked him into writing a blog to make money It will also be a good way of keeping in touch with him.  I believe his first stop is phuket in Thailnd.  I just hope the  phuket thailand climate around this time of year is something he can cope with.  Check it out.

I’ve been tasked with deploying Skype to a small local business in Aberdeen.  A recent head count I believe the deployment will be on 11 workstations and I’ve to get them all talking to each other and provide webcams/head sets.

I’ve set up Skype in a business environment before so am somewhat familiar with the Skype for Business Manager.

Over the next week I’ll be blogging about what it takes to get Skype up and running for a small business.  Hopefully in easy to follow steps!

1)      Choice of headsets

2)      Choice of webcams

3)      Creating users

4)      Deploying software

5)      Going live!

Stay tuned.

After downloading and installing the VMware converter I then ran the online conversion to my virtual centre server’s datastore.  I then proceeded to fire up the new VM.  However I got an error L

“A disk read error occurred, press ctl+alt+delete to restart”

Not to good.

A quick google and I find my answer I have to change the type of disk that the virtual machine uses from IDE to SCSI however this means running the conversion again.  In the advanced options make sure you use the SCSI drive opposed to IDE this will do the trick.

After running the conversion for a 2^nd time I power on the virtual machine and get to Windows login.  I then proceed to login and am asked to activate Windows.  The machine I converted had an OEM copy of Windows so windows reads that the BIOS has changed from the OEM vendor Dell to my new virtual machine.  This means I have to reactivate it!

Not so easy – even though I have a volume license key this does not work and neither does a call to Microsoft.   Another google and I find I have to do a repair install of the OS to get Windows activated.

I download the Win XP iso attached it to the virtual machine and boot into it.  No hard disc found : ( I have to download VMware’s SCSI floppy disk and attach this to and F6 whilst going through the Win XP install.

Run the repair install then boot up again.  I get another error!

ntldr missing

Another google and I find out I have to disconnect the floppy image as this will bring this error up.

Hopefully this little tech rant has helped some other folk out with the same issue which I am guessing is probably quite common in the IT world.

“Google Profiles is not available for your organisation.”

WTF?  So I search for a solution, run across the google enterprise blog that states they’ll have profile working for google app users in a few weeks.  That post was made back March 30th.  It’s now July google+ is live and guess what – Google Apps users are still waiting.

Well done G – your doing a great job of trying to take the facebook traffic – if only you had a system that worked so users could sign up.

To register a local business on Google places UK, google verify your listing by mailing out a post card to the registered address.

This poses a problem you do not live in the same city that your trying to promote.  There are two methods to overcome this issue.  The 2nd method is the free method the first costs ££.

Method 1:

Use a virtual address.  Companies like Mailboxes Etc will charge you a monthly fee for a PO box in the city you require an address.  Just plug in your Mailbox Etc address and set up mail forward with them so you get the postcard verification from Google.

The main issue with this method is that it costs money (£100) and if you have several websites your trying to game then the costs can add up.

Method 2:

Go to sipgate.co.uk they offer free VOIP geographical telephone numbers.  Once you have your account registered and you got your local number get it working with the softphone software they offer on their site.  Also free.

Now go to Thomsonlocal.com and register your new number and a false address.  I use the Mailbox Etc addresses just for the hell of it here – even though I do not actually rent out a PO box, it provides good cover!

Now the reason you need a phone number locally is because Thomsonloca.coml will call you to verify the listing so you have to be on standby for the call.  And the reason you’ve listed the business with Thomsonloca.coml is because Google Places UK scrape Thomsonlocal.com listings.

Once the listing has been scraped by Google you can claim owner ship just using the phone number and not having to use the postcard/address.

Hope this helps someone

I am trying to sell to things on the website.

1) An instructional video on laptop screen repairs and replacements.  It’s a 18 minute in depth video that goes over all the steps on how to preform a LCD panel replacement on a laptop.  It also includes how information on where to buy cheap screens for as little as £40 for a standard screen!

2) The 2nd thing I’m trying to sell on the site is a service for laptop screen repairs on a national scale through out the UK

Currently the site receives 30 visitors per day looking for the keyword “laptop screen repair” I hope to double this once the site ranks at number 1 in googles.