Alpha Technical Solutions

Posts Tagged ‘web’

This time a few very simple tips aimed at making the life for those of you researching a topic. The concept is simple – use basic web browser functions to make handling your research easy. I’ve made these tips browser agnostic – but you may find features on your particular web browser that will enable you to really optimise your searching and ideas

1. Use one tab for search results and place the sites you want to see in other tabs. This way you can track and refer to your search results as you work your way through them.
2. Save your searches as bookmarks or favourites. This lets you come back to a search easily if you have to stop your work.
3. Use bookmark folders to save search results and interesting pages. A good idea to allocated one folder to the project and subfolders to titles such as saved searches, hot results, interesting results etc. This turns your browser into an idea organiser.
4. On your bookmarks precede the descriptive text with numbers. This lets you order the result and again order your thoughts.

Its a commonly held view that everything you need to know is somewhere on the Internet. This is a good thing. The problem is that the Internet is a very big place.  This means that to find what you want any given time may be difficult. The best way to solve this problem is develop a strategy for dealing with search engines. Search engines such as Google are more powerful than most people realise. However like all powerful tools getting the most from them may not be obvious. The best way to maximise your chance of finding what you want is to create a strategy – a set of things that you do when approaching the problem of searching for something that tends to work for you. I say tends to work for you as we all types of web searches that reflect our personal and professional lives. That means that some techniques will be more useful to you than others.

To develop your personal strategy you need to try different ways of running a search, and remember the techniques that work. Over a not very long time at all you will have build a repertoire of useful methods that will cut down the time you spend looking for things.

At this point you may well be saying “what techniques!”

Fair point so in order to get you started here are my 7 favourite tips for searching the web.

1) It does not matter if you use capital letters or not. London is the same as london.

2) Keep searches simple. Use as few words as possible this usually yields the most results.

3) Try to use the most obvious words first then add additional words to the search in order to home in on your search. For example if you are looking for a holiday in Cornwall you might try the following

1. a. Search using ‘Cornwall’
2. b. Then try ‘Cornwall Holiday’
3. c. Then try the type of holiday ‘Cornwall Holiday Hotels’

4) If you know the name of what you are looking for then use the name. Names help search Engines home in what you are looking for. In the Cornwall Holiday example try ‘Cornwall Holiday Newquay’ to find holidays in Newquay.

5) If you looking for something to do with a technical item. For example – parts for a Washing Machine. Mobile Phone, Computer etc then use the model name, model number or part number if you can find it.

6) DO NOT common words such as ‘and’, ‘it’ ‘where’ ‘how’ etc. These will slow down the search and are unlikely to improve the result.

7) Numbers generally do not work well in a Search. There are two exceptions to this rule

1. a. If the number is part of a name then the number will help
2. b. Adding a ‘+’ sign in front of the number will generally help improve the search.

We’re currently in the middle of a redesign of the Alpha Technical Solutions website, the purpose of which is to improve our web sites ability to work for you. The redesign when finished will make the information you need easier to read and easier to find. We’re also adding new services as well.

We apologise for any inconvenience you may suffer during this period.

You may well ask why we did not just roll out a brand new web site? That is our normal practice and also what we advise our clients. Normally when we work on a new site or an update we roll the site out complete. This is conventional wisdom. It is safe, secure and reliable. However when you take your eyes off the Internet and look at what happens when a business refurbishes its premises you so often see that improvement being performed in public view. So I got to thinking what happens when you apply that to the Internet and defy its conventional wisdom. What happens when you allow people to see change in operation?

You see Alpha Technical Solutions is a business based very much on openness and clarity, so thinking in this way comes very naturally to us.

So the idea came to run the update in the open. Its an experiment. To find out what happens. Its our job to do this s. To ensure that the advice we give is of the highest quality possible and based on learning, experience, and wisdom. We don’t like to just copy the thoughts of others, we try and find things out for ourselves.

So far the redesign is going well and we hope you like it.

We’ve been offering Web Site hosting for some time. In fact all of our web site design packages come with 1 year of free site hosting. However until now it hasn’t been really easy for you to visit our website and just pick up a domain and hosting package. We’ve now removed this little obstacle by creating a new shop dedicated to enabling you to buy or update your own web site hosting.

Of course we do not want to automate things to the point of removing the human touch. We don’t believe in removing the personal interaction. That is why all of our hosting packages come with support via a free phone 0800 number. In fact we encourage you to give us a call. Especially if you are not sure which package will suit you. Call us and we will be happy to talk through your needs and give you our best advice.

We also fully support a technology called 1-touch. This will automatically install some of the best blogging, community building and web site design software that you can get. So if you want to build a web site or have a go at starting the next Facebook then at least getting started will be easy.

If you have any questions about our hosting offering feel free to visit our hosting website by clicking here, or give us a call on 0800 0354148.

As a result of talking to officers at Torfaen County Borough Council, we are pleased to announce that we able to assist businesses working in the Torfaen area by working on projects that are eligible for a Local  Investment Fund (LIF) grant.

The Local Investment Fund is available to social enterprises and small – medium sized businesses. It is intended to assist with the acquisition of capital expenditure. This includes ICT equipment, web sites, software and marketing materials. The practical upshot of this is that you can a grant towards your expenditure of 40%. That works out the same as having a 40% off the actual cost of your expenditure in real terms.

We’re more than happy to work with you through the grant application process to ensure that this is as easy as possible for you.

A copy of the Torfaen LIF  Leaflet is attached to this cost. You should note that although it states that the grant is 35%, it is now in fact 40%.

So if you would like some help in getting a grant towards improving your companies computer or Internet facilities give us a call on 0800 0354148 and we’ll help you get the ball rolling.

Here’s the scenario and it is one that every computer user has faced at some time or another. You need some new software, but you have no idea what to get. I mean how can you be sure that what you are about to buy or download will be any good? This is where alternativeto.net comes in. At its simplest alternativeto simply collects user votes for their favourite software, in similar fashion to the way many shops offer customer reviews. However this is not the genius of Alternativeto. That part comes next. You see for every piece of software on the website there is a list of alternatives to it. This way you can see who has voted for what and you can see alternatives that may very well suit you better.

It’s a one stop software discovery shop.

Alternativeto covers software for WIndows, Mac, and Linux.  It also has a cloud computing section for web  based applications. Giving it coverage of all major software platforms (excluding smartphones).

Fast Gas is the latest website from Fast Fluid Power, a regular client of ours. Its a small website dedicated to letting the customer know that they sell products from Flo Gas directly to the consumer.

This type of mini-site is something we like doing for our customers. We take existing branding and combine it with new material to create something that has emphasis on just one thing. It becomes something that is singular and focussed. Allowing for its content to be referred to easily and cleanly – making life easier for our clients customers. We believe it is always good to make things easier for the customer.

We’re also going to be announcing all new client web sites on this blog. This is a way of saying thanks to our clients and wishing them well in the future. It is also a plug for their businesses.

So thank you Fast Fluid Power for the project and good luck to Fast Gas we hope the new site does well