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Ann's Blog
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Here is the fourth in our “Aargh!” series on how to do stuff that you don’t know how to do and now you have to do it and you’re tired of trying to find out how to do stuff you don’t know how to do.
Making an image file not so darn big
Double click the file name. Click on the Save icon. Give the file a new name in the Save As dialog box - “Head shot-web,” for example. Now close the file to preserve the originally named file in its original size and format. This is an important – and needlessly confusing – quirk of working with image files: they are renamed and saved in the opposite order from Word files. In other words, for images, the Save As function creates, closes, and stores the newly named file, leaving the original file open. In Word, the Save As function creates and leaves open the new file, closing and storing the original. So, do a Save As, give your file a new name, then close the image. Now locate the newly named file that will be resized.
Right c [...]
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Here is the third in our “Aargh!” series on how to do stuff that you don’t know how to do and now you have to do it and you’re tired of trying to find out how to do stuff you don’t know how to do.
Converting a jpeg to a png or bmp or other image format
Open the file with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Simply double click the file and the default program that opens it should be Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. If not, then right click the file, and from the menu that flies up, choose “Open With” and then choose “Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.” When the image opens, click the Copy To button (the little disk icon for “save”). The file name will appear in the save box. Beneath that is a Save As Type box with an arrow next to it. Click the arrow and choose your new file type from the drop down list, which should include BMP, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, and PNG. Now click Save. Magically, the file is saved in this new format.
Ann Baker is CEO of PR-123, www.PR-1 [...]
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Here is the second in our “Aargh!” series on how to do stuff that you don’t know how to do and now you have to do it and you’re tired of trying to find out how to do stuff you don’t know how to do.
Converting a pdf to a jpeg
You have a great looking document or image file in pdf format and you need to upload it somewhere, where pdfs are not accepted and a jpeg or other format is needed. How can you convert it to this other file type?
Answer: Here’s a free program online that you can download and use easily. It’s called Office Convert PDF to Jpg Jpeg Tiff Free. You can read about it and also download it at http://download.cnet.com/Office-Convert-PDF-to-JPG-JPEG-TIFF-Free/3000-10743_4-10900900.html. (Sorry about the long URL; it’s blocked for shortening at Tiny URL.) Basically, you download the software, then open it and look for the big blue button at the center of the program, Add File. Click that, and use the file tree to find the PDF that you have in yo [...]
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Here is the first in our “Aargh!” series on how to do stuff that you don’t know how to do and now you have to do it and you’re tired of trying to find out how to do stuff you don’t know how to do.
Converting a word document to pdf
Portable Document Format (PDF) is the standard for secure and error-free distribution of electronic documents. Your formatting stays intact and is protected from modification, unlike a word document. It’s also downloadable and readable from lots of different systems so it’s much more universally accessible than word processing formats.
Go to http://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/Writer.asp to download CutePDFTM Writer. It’s free. This creates a new phantom “printer” in your printer list. Now, whenever you want to create a pdf document from a word processing document, open the document, click on “print,” and then select your Cute PDF printer instead of your real printer. The program allows you to specify where to save the document [...]
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If you win an award for your business, product, or contribution to your industry or to society, that’s PR gold, for two reasons: First, you have a perfect reason for contacting a reporter with real news, and second, you can add the award as a credibility enhancing footnote or addition to your boilerplate in future pitches.
So I could almost hear you ask: great advice, Ann, but how the heck do I go out and get an award so I have something to announce?
Ha. Here’s a fantastic resource for you: http://awardsync.com/. It’s a free service that allows you to search upcoming awards by keyword. For example, I typed in “leadership – women” in the search box and the site returned 99 awards, organized in chronological order by entry open date. The list also featured entry close and winner announcement dates, and for each award I could click on “details” to go to a separate page showing the company issuing the award, description, rules and guidelines, the URL of the award-giving [...]
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Just a short note - the last for 2009. As you reflect on this last year, and look toward the next, ask yourself not just what goals you hope to achieve, but how you hope to achieve them. Reflect on the most productive actions you took, and also the most time consuming. Then ask yourself how you can do things better next year - but without working harder. Resolve to do that thing that businesswomen in particular seem to find so difficult - delegate. Find one or more tasks you can hand off to an employee, or assign to a VA, or look into inexpensive services that will provide value and give you back some of your valuable time. It will be the best resolution you can make for 2010.
Happy - Balanced - Healthy - Prosperous New Year to you all!
Ann Baker is CEO of PR-123, www.PR-123.com, and Publicity Pros, www.PublicityPros.net, and Savor Mastermind Leader for Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, and Costa Mesa in Southern California.
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You keep hearing that you’re supposed to research and use the most popular keywords, right? But how do you do this? Where are the best tools? There are several online keyword research sites you can tap into, and TopRankBlog recently conducted a reader poll for the best ones. The top five winners were:
Keyword Discovery – http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/
Wordtracker - http://www.wordtracker.com/
WordZe - http://www.wordze.com/
Google Keyword Tool - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
SEO Digger - http://www.semrush.com/
Ann Baker is CEO of PR-123, www.PR-123.com, and Publicity Pros, www.PublicityPros.net, and Savor Mastermind Leader for Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, and Costa Mesa in Southern California.
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Did you know that three of the top search engines are now social media sites? YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook now are just about as important for SEO considerations as Google. So, when thinking about and planning your SEO tactics, apply them to your presence in these social media sites and not just to your efforts to draw traffic to your website from Google searches.
Think about what social networks and media sharing sites your customers use. Then within those sites, you can do some social media specific keyword research by analyze how the content is labeled and organized. Pay attention to words used in conversations, tagging, linking, and sharing.
Next week: more on keyword research tools.
Ann Baker is CEO of PR-123, www.PR-123.com, and Publicity Pros, www.PublicityPros.net, and Savor Mastermind Leader for Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, and Costa Mesa in Southern California.
