North Coast Notes

Email NoDaddy Google Mail and Fusemail

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:06:39 GMT

My hosting problems, which began with the nolonger EasyCGI takeover by Incompetence Inc. led me to GoDaddy, who offers a pretty good bargain. If it were not for the close to horrible email. Customers have complained that it takes nine to ten hours for email to arrive, If it arrives at all.

So the search began - Google Apps has gotten good reviews so I tried it. Spam protection is good, mail arrives timely, but the interface is clunky. I like to sort mail by sender, date, and header. Those options are not available. The service seems reliable and is only $50 per user per year.-

Now Fusemail seems to be the provider of the moment. The administrative interface works fairly well, is flexible enough for my needs and is more affordable for my clients. And the users like the interface much better than hoarde or the google webmail interface. It's spam protection is seemingly very good. V has onle had one piece of uncaught spam in the last three days - and she was getting 20 to 40 pieces of uncaught spam from the GoDaddy email system. So let's see how it goes... Hopefully this will be the last time I have to change mail hosters. That is until I find a good - cost effective - Zimbra host.

Web Invoices - On-Line Accounts Receivables

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:56:48 GMT

I recently realized that I could do a better job of handling my accounts receivables. I have been using Quickbooks on Bigdaddy, my 17 inch Toshiba laptop/notebook. V offered to take on that responsibility and I quickly agreed. Then I realized we would need another copy of quickbooks and we would need to centralize the data flles. This would be okay but since I'm on the road for most of the day wwe would have to make the files avaialble across the net. Not a problem if I open a VPN prot to the home office. But then it dawned on me. Build a Web App. Having written at least half a dozen ar programs over the years this seemed like a no brainer.

So I fired up my trusty development box and began with VWD 2005. The I thought - heck if this is good for me maybe it will be good for someone else so I built it as a dot net nuke module. It's a work in progress bu t so far it allows for the managment of customer information and one-line-item invoices. Now to build a few reports.

Friday Morning - Thoughts of Tom Turkey

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:55:24 GMT

This morning I woke up intent on working out. I got so far as doing a few stretches, then it dawned on me that I had not checked out my web sites. So much for the workout. Good news is that the Perel JOnes and Sons Funeral Home as well as the Cummings and Davis Funeral Home have achieved top rankings in Google, Yahoo and MSN - at least if you search by name. Likewise First Fruits Child Care gets first page ranking on a google search by name. Now the challenge is to get them ranked by business type. It would be great if they popped up high with a search like Funeral Cleveland, or Child Care Euclid. I'm not sure how to do that but I'm working on it. Meanwhile V said I should develop a web based invoice system for Ron Black & Associates - It seems we don't want to give Intuit $400 for a two user quickbooks. It should not be too hard of a project..... ( that's what they all say )

Oops

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:54:11 GMT

I just took a look at my Zetta Kappa Kappa web site ( Zata Kappa Kappa is a Cleveland chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, of which I am a member). It seems the images are not consistently displaying. The site is built with DotNetNuke and hosted by PowerDNN. The advertise that you can have unlimited portals per web hosting account - problem is they don't adequately support more than one portal per hosted account. Consequently the secondary portals periodically flake out on us.... Time to go. I already closed my hosting accounts with No Longer Easy CGI. It may be time to do the same with Power DNN.

Sherwood Forest Friends Association

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:45:15 GMT

V and I live in a part of Euclid known as Sherwood Forest. We have plenty of deer but no Robin Hood, Our neighbor reminds us of Friar Tuck but that's another issue. The good folks of Sherwood have banded together to for a neighborhood group knows as the Sherwood Forest Friends Association. V has been elected VP and offered to build a community web site. So here goes a real live opportunity for Dot Net Nuke, the content management system of choice here at RBA Web Services. Check out the site and let us know what you think......

Indulgements

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:20:51 GMT

Just found out that I failed to put up a link for the Indulgements Web Site - so here it is - Your Unique Gift Basket Headquarters and while you are n the shopping mood - check out our friends at Midwestern Leather Products - they have designer purses

Luncheon

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:58:21 GMT

Well today was a day of days. My fraternity, Omega Pis Phi, Zeta Kappa Kappa Chapter had it's annual founder's day celebration. This year a luncheon was held. It turned out to be a very nice affair. And to top it off I was honored with a Superior Service Award for my tutoring/mentoring of youth at the City Mission.

My New Entry

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:52:06 GMT

These are the notes for today

Indulgements Dot Com

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:42:06 GMT

I finally figured out that I need to have multiple web sites linked to sites that I want to have decent google rankings. So I have five different hosting services and now I will put pages on each service - and the pages will have links to the others - and each page will attempt to have content that changes regularly - Let see what we get Todays Links are to Pernel Jones Funeral Home the Cummings and Davis Funeral Home - so lets see what we get. Oh yeah - heres a link to Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church and EMS Rams

RBAWebServices can use a boost as well

SEO Stuff

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:32:49 GMT

After finally getting most of the web sites back in operation I can now spend some time trying to figure out this search engine optimization thing. Just for fun - and to see what happens - yesterady set up the first fruits child care web site and submitted it to google's webmaster tools along with a sitemap. This moring I googled first fruits child care and it appeared along with a map - so that was wonderful. Now to do the same thing for the Cummings and Davis Funeral Home, Pernel Jones and Sons Funeral Home, RBA Web Services, Buckeye State Funeral Directors and Embalmers Association, Alexs Rooms For Rent, Verniki Dot Net, Pilgrim's Rest Baptist Church, Ems Rams Football, Midwestern Leather Products, and of course Ronney Black Dot Com.

More Later.....