Many Apple MacIntosh users have believed that their computers are immune to malware and viruses. This latest news indicates that it is no longer the case (if it ever was):

http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/security-it/rude-awakening-for-mac-users-serious-mac-flaw-needs-urgent-fix-20120405-1we6x.html

Thank you so much to the representatives from each of the following organisations for attending yesterday’s annual fund raising event for the St.Kilda Gatehouse:

• Note Couture – online personalised stationery
• Crohn’s & Colitis – supporting the Crohn’s and colitis sufferers with programs including education, advocacy, counselling, increasing awareness and supporting research.
• Mollard Property Investment Consultants – the holistic approach to property investment.
• Energy Efficient Building Technologies – save money and reduce your carbon footprint in your next home.
• SP Software

I am truly grateful that you were so generous with your time, and helped us to all have a lovely afternoon of specialty teas, fresh cappuccinos and more delectable cakes and sandwiches than we could eat!

Thank you so much!
Heather Maloney

As political journalists across the country are poised for the next stage of the saga between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, technology is helping us to keep up to date with all manner of up to the minute broadcasts from Canberra. For example:

1. Live webcam as the media, from two different angles and corridors in the Parliament building, wait for the ALP politicians to come out of their vote for either Ms Gillard or Mr Rudd.
2. If you don’t want to watch the webcam, the politics blog page of the The Age is being updated every 5 minutes or so with another comment or photo to keep you up to date.
3. You can follow tweets attached to particular hashtags in Twitter to hear the news as it comes to hand.

I wonder what the price was for advertising space on the political pages of the national newspapers during this morning?

In a nutshell… there’s no need to stay in the dark for very long, whether you are sitting at a computer or using your mobile phone!

What’s your favourite way of watching the news unfold?

It got my attention, so I thought I’d share with you the recently distributed “database refresh” message sent out by CNET to try and get their audience to read their messages or re-engage.

The subject of the newsletter below was the first thing to get my attention. It read: “Is this goodbye? CNET will miss you.” I couldn’t help wonder what it was all about, as I skimmed that subject line (I skim due to the volume of email I receive on a daily basis). In an instant, they had piqued my curiosity and I found myself opening their email!

Next, I saw the big CNET logo, and then I read their first paragraph, where they explained that they “loved it when I would click “open” on their emails” and that they wanted me back. Cute. The rest of the email was very simple, and set out to show me why I should be opening and reading their emails based on the value they provide. So, now that their brand is firmly back in my mind, I may well open more of their emails in future.

What do you think of this strategy? Have you used a different “list refresh” strategy or had someone use a successful one on you?

Following the key points described in the article below will benefit the design of your home page, landing page, or email marketing campaign.

Landing Page Design Trends for 2012 – Website Magazine – Website Magazine.

Today (or Tuesday in the USA) the announcements finally came out about the new iPhone which will be called an iPhone 4S (rather than an iPhone 5 which will apparently disappoint some people…?). It won’t have the new operating system (iOS5) on initial launch to the market mid October (in the US). iOS5 includes some pretty cool features, including some features that Android smart phone users have been enjoying for some time!

You can read more about iOS5 here.

You can read more about the new iPhone 4S here.

We’re delighted to have recently assisted one of our clients to make their website and online store mobile device friendly. You can check out the results (using your mobile phone of course) via: http://www.henrylangdon.com/

But why would you go to the trouble of making your website mobile device friendly? Browsing the internet via a mobile device is at an all time high, and increasing exponentially. Some statistics: in the US mobile data traffic increased by 260% from 2009 to 2010, and the sale of smart phones outsold the sale of PCs in Q4 2010 for the first time ever.

The availability of the iPhone 3 with it’s superbly easy to use interface, followed by iPhone 4, and the proliferation of HTC and Android devices together with improving data plans from the major telecommunications companies I believe has changed the way we think about browsing the internet. You can find out when a movie is on, answer your question or solve an argument immediately, check what your friends are up to, and find the weather report, all in a matter of seconds without even thinking about booting up your PC or Mac.

Click through to read our “3 preliminary steps for creating a mobile device friendly website“, followed by the “5 activities required to implement your strategy”.

Google has updated it’s Sitelinks functionality, which shows a list of links for a site that it thinks you are searching for, beneath the regular listing of the site. This functionality will help a person who is searching for that particular site to get to the place within the site that they are looking for more quickly.

This article gives more details about the change.

I’m looking forward to trying out Google Plus when it becomes more broadly available than the current field test stage which is only open to a select few by invitation only.

You can take the tour from here: https://plus.google.com/up/start/?sw=1&type=st to learn about it.

I think that the concept of Circles really fixes a difficulty with other social sites – the ability to replicate online the different “circles of people” that you mix with in real life.

As soon as Google Plus is readily available, we’ll be exploring it to see how it can help our clients’ businesses, so stay tuned.

Here’s a great article which considers the differences between Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus, and what the advent of Google Plus may mean for social media.

What does the EOFY and the ski season have in common?