Search Engine Optimization, SEO for short, is a term that refers to programming, marketing and writing to try to get your web site ranked higher in search engine results for your given subject field.

For any web site to succeed, they need to be on the search engines such as Google and Yahoo, and naturally, the higher you rank, the more traffic you get.  This is monumentally important in the early days of a website when you’re attempting to build a following or customer base.  If you write about or sell widgets, then you want to be prominent in the searches when someone looks up widgets.

The majority of this is accomplished by other sites linking to the the site, using words that are relevant to your subject, using tags and on and on.  It is very tedious, but important.  Unless you run a website, it is nothing to concern yourself with, but if you do, you will become obsessed with it. It is another one of those things people just assume you know when they use it in a senteance.

Cloud computing is the latest buzz word in the technology world, but like so many other words, your average person on the street has no clue what it means.

Essentially it is just a new name for an old concept.  If you’ve ever used an online email service such as Gmail, then you have experienced cloud computing.  The concept is anything you do with a computer online that is not stored locally on your actual computer.  When we also described doing off-site backups of your data, that would be another instance of you putting data into “the cloud.”

While more companies are moving to using this concept, and it’s a nice idea that you can access your data from anywhere, there are some potential drawbacks.

How secure is your data? – You are putting all of your data into the hands of a third party.  How certain are you of their security measures?  Do they have redundancy plans?  What if there is a fire in their data center?  All questions you should ask of anyone you are going to use o store your important data outside of your control.

What happens if they crash/go out of business? – It’s a great idea to put data where you can access it, but if it’s your only copy, what happens if the company crashes or goes out of business?

Your Internet goes out, what now? – Google Documents is great for working on documents or spreadsheets, but what if your Internet goes down and you can’t access them?  If you’re facing a deadline, this could be disastrous.

These are all valid ideas to think about before embracing “the cloud”, and believe it or not, we like the cloud!  All of us here at StarterTech are on the move a lot, so having easy access to all of our files from anywhere is a great help, but we also make sure important stuff is in multiple places.

Just like with a home computer, you need to practice safe computing.

Adobe AIR is a runtime environmentthat you download to your computer to run Web applications directily on your computer.

While people move more of their computing life online, it may seem surprising that people would want to run anything locally on their computers any more.  With Adobe AIR you bring the ability to access certain Web applications locally on your own system, adding functionality that may be missing, or possibly just making it easier to use.

A prime example of an AIR application that takes advantage of adding missing functionality is Twitter.  While the micro blogging service is a wonderful form of communication, to use it you have to leave a window open on it, and you have to manually refresh the page to see any new messages.  With AIR applications such as Twhirl and Snitter, the messages are delivered directly to your computer so you never have to refresh the page, and don’t even have to have it open in your browser.

There are numerous applications out there, which can be a bit overwhelming, so you may want to try this list of useful AIR applications, to help you narrow down your choices.  Now everything that is out there is overly useful, such as the Pizza Hut AIR app, but there could just be a matter of opinion.

Do remember that you must download the actual AIR program first to make any of these applications to work, and then you just need to start finding ones that may be useful for you.

With the release of Firefox 3, this seems like a good time to discuss how you can take Firefox with you wherever you go with Firefox Portable Edition.

As an avid Firefox user, when I have to use a strange computer, it feels weird not always finding Firefox, and even stranger not to have my bookmarks and extensions.  Firefox Portable addresses this problem by allowing you to install the browser on a portable USB drive.  Once you do this, you can start Firefox from the drive and have all of your normal extensions and bookmarks no matter what computer you are on.

If you choose to do this, make sure to shut down Firefox, and properly shut down the drive before you leave the computer.  This is also a solution for people who want to try Firefox 3 without overwriting Firefox 2.  If you are not 100% thrilled with the new version, then you won’t have to work at reverting backwards to the previous version.

GrandCentral is a service purchased by Google in July 2007 that simplifies your phone usage by giving you one centralized phone number that will ring all of your phones at once.

In this day and age, it’s not unusual to have a cell phone, work phone, home phone and who knows how many others, making it difficult for people to know which number to call to find you at.  GrandCentral will let you set up a free account that gives you a virtual phone number that will ring up to six phone numbers at the same time when someone calls it.  You can also enable and disable numbers as you see fit so if there is a number you don’t want ringing at a certain time, all you need to do is uncheck it.

While this may not seem that exciting, there are some other interesting bonuses such as free voice mail and the ability to record calls when someone calls into your number by simply hitting one button.  When you do have a voice mail, you will receive an email letting you know, and you can then listen to it on your computer or via the phone.

For now the service is free and in beta, and there is no clue when, or if, they will begin charging, but for now it is a fabulous service everyone with more than one phone should be trying out.

There was a time when extended warranties for electronics made sense, but has that time come and gone?

With the ever decreasing prices for computers and gadgets, extended warranties have gotten to a point that they seem pointless on anything except really high-end desktops or laptops.  For instance, on a $499 Dell right now, it would be $209 for a 3-year warranty.   My thinking has become over the years it is better to put that $209 away into a side fund and let it collect interest for the three years.

Almost all computers come with a one year warranty any more, and speaking from experience, that is when most problems occur.  In all my years of running computers, I think I have used an extended warranty a grand total of one time.  As I noticed this, I started setting aside the money from each “warranty”, and about every third computer I needed was bought with warranty money.  (mind you, I buy more computers than the normal person as I run a business)

Now, this rule doesn’t apply to laptops for me as they are still so expensive, and the same with higher-end gaming desktops, but for pretty much everything else such as TVs, video game systems, DVD players, while it is tempting to protect your investment, when you do the math of how long the warranties last verses the cost of the item, you generally will find they don’t make the most financial sense.

Our recommendation is you always do the math for yourself, but in general, we have given up in believing in them.

Keeping multiple calendars can be a pain in the behind.  You have one on your phone, one on your computer and one on Google, it would nice to merge them, but that’s not always easy.  Luckily Google has a tool named Google Calendar Sync that can help you with this problem if youa re a user of Microsoft Outlook.

Once you install the download, you enter your account information and then choose if you want to sync Outlook to Google, Google to Outlook, or have them sync to each other.  You can also set how often you want it to perform the sync, but that is totally up to you depending on how much you work with your schedule.

The major drawback to this for me is that it only works with Outlook.  I only use Outlook on my computer as a place to sync my iPod Touch to, and that is also the same place that most movile phones will sync contacts and calendar to, even if you don’t use the program for email.

This is certainly a solution if the $99 a year for MobileMe wasn’t appealing to you and yet you still wanted a way to sync up your calendars.  With it being bi-directional, it also makes a nice backup if anything should happen to your mobile device or your computer, and all for free!

We have discussed out love of the Firefox web browser before, but now we know for sure that Firefox 3, the newest version of the program is set for release on June 17th.

To celebrate this release, Mozilla, the company behind Firefox, is going to try to set a world’s record for the number of downloads for a piece of software in a 24 hour period.  There will be lots of new features that will make it well worth your time to do the upgrade, but why not go ahead and join in history by making sure to download it the first day?

Here and there around the Internet you see mentions of people “jailbreaking” their iPhone. What does this mean?

Due to the fact that the iPhone is exclusive to AT&T in the United States, people with other carriers were out of luck on getting to use the phone.  Several groups of hackers worked on ways to “break” the iPhone so that it could be used with the carrier of their choice, and get to used custom built applications people were coming up with.  Every time a firmware update came out, Apple would defeat the jailbreaking… for about 2 hours.

However, with the new contract for the iPhone 3G, AT&T will be requiring either activation in the store, or at-home activation within 30-days of purchase or they will begin assessing penalties.  Until someone finds a way around purchasing the phones, jailbreaking the 3G will be useless as you will still be paying for a contract with AT&T to subsidize the purchase price.

So is there any hope for using the new iPhone with other carriers in the United States?  Doubtful this time around.  It is a shame that Apple chose AT&T out of all the carriers out there because everyone here at StarterTech refuses to use them for various reasons.  Was there ever a more iPhone-friendly crowd?  Too bad none of us will have one until AT&T exclusivity ends in 2010.

Printers have come a long way over the years, and this is especially evident in travel printers.

I had one travel printer years ago that, to be blunt, sucked.  Now they are full-on inkjet printers capable of doing color and multiple pages per minute.

If you’re wondering why you would need one, there are a plethora of reasons.

- Airlines have discontinued pre-printed tickets, opting for people to do e-tickets, and print their own boarding passes.  Hotels don’t always have printers for you to do this, and if it’s a long trip, this would come in handy to print those off.

- On a long road trip?  Wouldn’t it be nice to print out updated route maps as you go along?

- If you’re on a business trip, or a traveling salesman, I see these as essential as any other piece of equipment so that you can print off documents or reports for your meetings.

Some of the printers even come with a battery now so that you don’t even have to plug in to an outlet, really handy if you are just running completely behind in your work.

It’s up to each person if they  need such a thing, but with our supposed “paperless society” never quite emerging, we at StarterTech do highly recommend buying one if you travel a lot.