Exchanging of the Experts

This morning, I want to examine another site useful to both PC and Mac users called experts-exchange.com. This web site helps experts find their answers by connecting them with other experts in their and others’ industries. For those who want a quick answer, or just do not care to interact with other people, they can use the knowledge database of 2.6 million solutions from various experts. For those who want the most up to date answer, they can ask their question, which will receive an answer from one of their 50,000 experts. Most of the time those answers come only an hour after the question. For those who cannot wait for that possibility of an answer in less than an hour, they can sign up under one of the various plans and receive an answer within 30 minutes. For those, who enjoy the hunt, they can explore the various categories for the solutions themselves. Experts-exchange.com offers every expert a way to search for and come to the answer they desire.

For those who need answers to questions regarding Microsoft, they can search under applications, development, hardware, internet protocols, MS forefront-ISA, OS, or server applications sections. For those who need an answer to an Apple issue, Experts-exchange.com offers solutions in five categories: Hardware, networking, operating system, programming, and software. Again, in my opinion, while the Apple section of the website does not offer the plethora of solutions, that is because they are not needed. Also, since Apples can run MS Office, some of the answers in the MS section apply to Macs.

For those who do not have a computer specific question, there is also an internet section that includes answers in nine categories: Anti Spam, Anti spyware, Anti-virus, chat/IM, E-mail clients, File sharing, New net users, search engines, web browsers, web development, web servers, and web trends/stats. Beyond that, experts-exchange.com also offers answers to questions regarding gamers, digital living, virus and spyware, hardware, software, ITPro, and Developer. Just to the right of the developer section, almost unnoticeable, there are two yellow arrows with the word ‘more’ below them. ‘More’ includes answers to questions about storage, OS, Database, Security, programming, web development, networking, and even a section for ‘other.’ In each section, below the categories, Experts-exchange.com lists the top articles; and on the right, they list the top experts.

For those who want to read through random articles; though, don’t want to take the time to filter them, they can read random articles in the Articles section. There, experts can search through articles, filter them into one of several categories, or write an article. Of course, for those who want to write an article, they must first have a membership and be an expert in their field.Beyond all of the answers, for those who feel a bit overwhelmed by Experts-exchange.com, there are video tutorials (It is written in Xhtml or javascript, so I can’t blue link it, but it’s above the search bar on the right). The video tutorials section includes welcome, getting started, searching for solutions, asking a question, and contributing to the site videos. And after users become familiar with the basic search functions, there are advanced search functions that give them more search control.

All in all, Experts-exchange gives the experts the ability to interact and exchange ideas with other experts within and outside of their fields.

Come back next week for my next review of a great site that will make your life easier.

Erick

Filed under: internet, Mac, microsoft, search, Apple, APPLICATIONS, DESIGN, FILESHARING, FOREFRONT-ISA, HARDWARE, microsoft, NETWORKING, OPERATING SYSTEM, PROGRAMMING, PROTOCOLS, SEARCH ENGINES, SERVER APPLICATIONS, SOFTWARE, SPYWARE, WEB BROWSERS

A Great Source for Apps on Steroids

This week let’s look at a web site that allows the user to act like Google:  Botspot.com.  Google, and other search engines, use bots that scour the 5 billion web sites that make up the World Wide Web (that’s different from the internet).  Those bots read various websites and categorize them according to various algorithms.  While botspot.com doesn’t let individual users search and rank all 5 billion web sites for the world to see, it does allow users to search through various web site and their computer in much the same way that search engines’ bots do.

Botspot.com features various bots for Macs and PCs, of which some are freeware and some are not.  Personally, right now, I am a Mac man; though, I switch back and forth, depending on my current needs and whoever has the cooler commericals.  For Mac, there are bots in eight categories: Artificial Life bots, Download bots, Search bots, surf bots, Web development bots, File Sharing bots, shopping bots, tracking bots, and there is even a category for users to design their own bots.  There are 27 bots in those eight categories, and three design a bots.

Among my favorites are Htmlsearch Lite 3.1, which allows users to search the internet, an intranet, their computer, or a CD ROM.  There is also Glooton, which allows users to query several search engines at once.  Since Firefox has an app that can do that, I don’t think it’s worth it.  For those of us who are aware of the filesharing program LimeWire that is featured under File Sharing Bots.  LimeWire allows users to interface and share files with anyone else using a Gnutella file-sharing program.  Though, as a social marketer, I am going to have to give my kudos to Hotline Connet 1.9.1, which allows users to enjoy a more interactive way of sharing files through social media.  There are several other bots for Mac users; though, those are a few that stood out to me.

For those who work on PCs, or run windows on their Macs, there are more bots than I have time to count.  Those bots can be found in eight categories subcategorized into 35 sucategories.  Among a few I randomly picked, Genealogy Detective helps users search their family history, as well as it allows users to create a family website and host it for free.  Visual Web Task allows the user to search through websites by parsing HTML tags and searching the most relevant data and files.  Offline-Commander searches in a similar way, but it consists of a few more features that also help users protect their computers.

Since I had to undergo several months of therapy (not really) due to that infamous purple ape BonziBuddy (Whoever came up with him will probably revolutionize social networking 20 years from now), I am not going to suggest a virtual assistant who helps you keep your schedule or strips for you because she’s bored.  I am going to suggest Talking Translator Pro , which translates content and finds definitions of words.  While there are several more bots available for PC than Mac, the reality is Macs come equipped with many of those bots on their iMacs, so all of those extra-apps (That’s really all the bots are) are not necessary (Steve, can I get a free MacBook Air since I gave you some free advertising).

Among other features on Botspot.com, there are some books you can buy.  Honestly, they’re just links to Amazon, so nothing to get excited about.  For those who want to keep an eye on what Botspot.com’s up to, they do have a newsletter, and many of their editions are archived.

Botspot.com is a great site that allows computer users and internet surfers to take back control of their computers, thus making it more user friendly.  So whether you’re a slightly jean wearing, geeky guy who once appeared on a show about a small town lawyer who owned a bowling alley or you’re a nerdy business man who still thinks sweater vests will make a come back, Botspot.com has a bot for you.

Botspot.com is one of the many websites featured on my custom made search engine, along with various other sites I’ll tell you more about in the following weeks.  So, come back and learn about some other great websites in the weeks and months to come.  And be sure to connect with my on Facebook and Twitter.

Filed under: Apps, Apple, Apps, BonziBuddy, botspot.com, computer, freeware, HTML, iMac, interactive, internet, LimeWire, Mac, PC, seobridges, social marketing, Steve Case, user friendly, virtual assistant

A Virtually Personal Sales Site

So, this week for my first recommendation of web sites that will help you in your business is Salesgravy.com. They offer free membership, which includes various tools right on your desktop, which honestly I am still discovering because I just signed up for my membership this morning. Though, there is a forum where professional can talk with other professionals. There is also a job section, where employers can post jobs and employees can search for jobs, as well as there are multiple other free resources on the site.

I have a LinkedIn account, and while I have a handful of connections on the site, I don’t really find the site worth much of my time. To me, LinkedIn makes connecting with friends, former colleagues, business connections, and the like seem like Dorothy trying to connect with the Wizard of Oz. Maybe, I just don’t get it, but it seems a little more impersonal than it needs to be. Aside from that, Salesgravy.com attracts a specific type of professional, so I’ll probably spend more time connecting with others there.

So, before I end for this week, I am going to give you one more recommendation, and that is about the podcaster who introduced me to SalesGravy.com. Jeb Blount blogs and podcast for SalesGravy.com, and I look forward to them both. If you’ve ever seen me use the quote, “Success leaves tracks,” which is one of my favorite quotes, that is a Jeb Blount quote. So, for this week I recommend that you connect with others on SalesGravy.com, and connect with Jeb Blount. I don’t know him, but he seems like a really nice guy.

Keep Connecting,

Erick

Filed under: relationships, sales, Uncategorized, connect, employees, employers, jeb blount, linkedin, membership, salesgravy