Love it! It’s small, heavier than I expected, and very sleek. Once I powered it on the vibrant display walked me through a few simple steps to setting up my new device.

Ease of access is smooth and extremely user friendly. My daughter—who has a lot of iPhone and iPod experience under her belt—has no problem maneuvering her way around Kindle Fire.  The apps available for the Kindle are from the Android market, and just like the apps on your smart phone, there are plenty of free ones to choose from; some of our favorites are Facebook, AllRecipes, Amazon, Words with Friends, and Hangman. There’s also a Newsstand that brings you all the most popular magazines and Newspapers; there’s everything from Fashion and Entertainment to News, Finance, and Technology. I recommend National Geographic and Bon Appétit!

Of course the books! I’m an avid reader, I love my books, and I’m sure there will be times when I read an actual book again, but since having my Kindle, about a month, I’ve gone through  4 “books”! There’s SO MANY to choose from, ridiculously affordable, and a Lending Library for prime-members, in which you get a 30-day trial, and I’m leaning towards becoming a full-time member. The benefits of the Lending Library: Borrowing books rather than purchasing, discounted shipping and handling at Amazon, and more! The not so cool part: You can only “borrow” one book a month from the Library, so if you’re a fast reader like me it might get a little aggravating, but you can always purchase it from Amazon and it’s still cheaper than going out and buying a book.

Music apps like Pandora are also an option on the Kindle Fire, along with an earbud plugin. Although I don’t use it often, it is a very nice option.

Video such as TV shows, movies, etc. are also available. And of course I’m using the Netflix app which is handy on road trips or just something to keep the little one occupied.

You can view documents on the Kindle Fire, search the web, book mark web pages, check email, and SHOP! Seriously, what’s not to love?

There is not much I would change about the Kindle Fire. I love the look, the quality, the usability, and everything I can do with it!

Let’s tie your Facebook Page to your website.

Step 1: Choose which Facebook Badge best suites you.

As you can see there are four different types of badges to choose from: Profile Badge, Like Badge, Photo Badge, and Page Badge (only available to application and page admins). And each serves its own purpose. Profile Badges are great if you just want to share your personal profile page on another website of yours; A Like Badge will highlight your favorite Pages on Facebook; A Photo Badge shows off your Facebook photos; And a Page Badge is a way to let your website followers see your Facebook Fan Page so they can follow or “like” that as well.

Step 2: Follow the wizard to customize the badge.

Facebook gives you a couple of commonly used options (Blogger and TypePad) to add a badge to or you can choose “other” to add the badge to your website. If using Blogger or TypePad once you choose one it automatically takes you into a sign-in page to begin the badge process. When you choose “other” you’re given an html code to paste anywhere on your website. I don’t recommend going crazy with the badge, but a couple of places to add it would be your home page and then your contact page.

Voila!

As we dive deeper and deeper into the social media frenzy I’m finding that the different options for creating eye catching pages are becoming more and more available. I’ve tried a few different services for our pages and am quite pleased with the outcome. But of course there will come a day when I’m ready to change those up again too and like I said, the options are definitely out there!

Using Catchfree I found a list of top rated Facebook building sites, I’ve had a chance to only go through the first five:

Wix
Fanzila
Cool Mojito
Pagemodo
Stiqr

Again, I love Catchfree because they’re always keeping up to date on this stuff; if a better one comes along, they’ll tell you!

The Benefits of Having a Facebook Welcome Page

• Appearance
  • Clutter free
  • Easy to read (stay away from funky fonts)
• A friendly hello
  • Welcoming and Inviting
• Informative
  • About you and/or your business
  • Product/Services information
  • Contact information
• Call to action!
  • Words that urge the reader to take an immediate action, such as “Call Now” or “Like Us”.

When crawling through Facebook fan pages I find myself more drawn to the well thought out pages; the ones that flow smoothly, starting at the welcome page. In order to intrigue your audience you need to engage with them. Welcome readers to your page–introduce yourself; tell us about your company and the benefits of your services and/or products; and always put your contact information where it can be easily found. TIP: People generally do not want to read a short novel about your business—keep it short, simple, and straight to the point. If there’s anything else they want to know, they’ll ask. And last but not least, include a call to action. People are more likely to “like” your page or contact you if you tell them too!

In order for companies, small businesses, and entrepreneurs to stay in the game we have to stay active in our marketing department. This is equally important for well established enterprises and/or individuals as well as those currently in the start-up process. Today not only are we being reached via the television, phone, and mail; but also the internet. And big or small, setting up fan pages via social networking pages is a must. Let’s face it—social media is here to stay! So why not embrace it?

At the top of the list of most popular social networking sites you’ll find Facebook. Throw in FREE, user friendly and accessible from anywhere (there’s a FB app for almost any mobile device you can think of) and you’ve found your first stop in launching your social media campaign.

But first let’s take a quick look at Fan Pages vs. Profiles.
This is from a section on Facebooks official policy (on difference between profile and pages)

Facebook profiles are meant to represent a single individual. Organizations of any type are not permitted to maintain an account under the name of their organization. We have created Facebook Pages to allow organizations to have a presence on Facebook. These Pages are distinct presences, separate from user profiles, and optimized for an organization’s needs to communicate, distribute information/content, engage their fans, and capture new audiences virally through their fan’s recommendations to their friends. Facebook Pages are designed to be a media rich, valuable presence for any artist, business or brand.

If you create a profile for your business, your account may be disabled for violating our Terms of Use. If you have questions about how to best leverage your Facebook Page, please check out our Insider’s Guide or FAQ.

Facebook’s policy in terms of how businesses can use their pages:

All personal site features, such as friending and messaging, are also for personal use only and may not be used for professional promotion. If you add a user as a friend, for example, this person will be invited to be a friend of your profile and not your Page. Using personal site features for professional promotion, or creating unauthorized Pages, may result in your account being warned or disabled.

Now, let’s get started…

1. Pick a category and name for your page. There are several categories to choose from; your businesses and/or interest may not fit perfectly into one of the categories but choosing one that matches closely is important because you won’t be able to change this again. The name of your page should be the exact same as the name of your business, organization, etc.
2.  Add a profile picture. Choose a picture or image that is clear and best represents you and your business. All of your fans and friends will see this picture.
3. Add information! This part is crucial. Underneath your profile picture is a box where you can add your company info; name, contact information and web address. Tell your audience who you are, what you do and where to find you. The more information you add the more successful you will be.
4. Make it rich & engaging. Just like profile pages there are tab options available to add content. A few are built in like a Wall tab, Info tab and Notes tab. Engage with your fans on your wall, post your businesses news, articles, etc and let your fans comment on them. Add information about your business-what you do-in the info tab. Add a note about upcoming promotions or events in your notes tab. And don’t be a stranger to your fans–add photos.
5. PUBLISH your page. Click the “publish this Page” link to share your page with the world!
6. Update regularly. Another crucial part of successful social media is updating on a regular basis. Don’t get lost in the newsfeeds by neglecting your status updates. Post fresh photos, events and promotions. Engage with your audience!

Curious as to how much traffic your website is generating? Would you like to see a list of the most popular sites for different products, services, and social media? Me too!

I’ve been a fan of Alexa Rating for quite a while (I like seeing how a website ranks as far as popularity) but was unaware of how much Alexa actually has to offer. After doing very little digging my eyes were opened to the possibilities and I’m so excited to share what I’ve found.

I want to start with the Alexa Toolbar–a quick and easy download–useful to you and helpful in the gathering of valuable information about the web, how it’s used and what’s important and what’s not.

Next I came across Alexa Site Info, a database of information about sites, their statistics, related links, etc., all you need is the Toolbar and voila!

If you visit the Alexa.com website you can find a list of top sites available by country, language, or category.

And finally my favorite—Alexa Site Audit—Alexa will crawl and analyze your website to give you an in-depth view of your site’s visibility in search engines, and provides insights into the optimization, monetization and overall health of your website.

Whether you’re just curious about your own site, looking to drive in more traffic, or wanting to see sites that got it going on in the top lists of most popular sites, Alexa will not disappoint.

Here at YVA we’re always striving to be our best and keep up to date with all the new technology, gadgets, and resources to be able to provide our clients with the best possible assistance.

Without going in to too much detail quite yet (because I like to keep you guessing) I’ll just say that we’ve been brushing up on our techie services and are very excited about YVA’s future.

If you haven’t already checked out our services page, hop on over there and discover where our expertise lies and how YVA can assist in your everyday business needs.

Stay tuned to find out what we’ve been up to. And join our mailing list! (Blue box right here —->>>>)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Catchfree which introduced me to Pagemodo. I planned to play around with Pagemodo’s free version of a page builder (I chose a welcome page. With the free version you can only build one page or “tab”.) And as promised I’m reporting back on my thoughts and experience.

I’ve got to start with the fact that I love that they have several different free themes to choose from and all are nicely put together. Also, their step by step process is extremely easy to follow. The first time around I just did the basics–the bare minimum–if you will, and I still came out with a professional looking welcome tab. The second time around I went in to try and tweak my original creation by personalizing it a little more. I was able to use my colors in a lot of areas including background and fonts. I searched Pagemodo for the option to add an arrow at the top to instruct people to “like us” but came up empty handed, I had to get a little creative, but you know I love that, so not a big deal.

Ease of access, use and options put Pagemodo at the top of my list with a definite two thumbs up!

Here’s a screen shot of my welcome page creation. Or you can find it on our Facebook page–just click on the welcome tab!

Hahaha! Nice play on words eh? (Insert cheesy grin here)

Yes, I’m here to tell you about Xmarks, a company recently acquired by my beloved LastPass. Xmarks is an easy to use bookmark and sync tool now offered completely free from LastPass. You can install Xmarks on each of your computers and it will integrate your web browser and keep your bookmarks safely backed up and in sync. They also offer backup and sync your passwords too. Xmarks supports Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari.

Of course there’s more to Xmarks than just what meets the eye, here are some more perks:

• Site Rankings and Reviews

Xmarks will highlight the top sites in your search results based on how other users have bookmarked and rated them. Sites that are ranked in an Xmarks Topic will show a ‘Rank in Topic’ flag next to the result. Sites that have user-submitted reviews will show an average rating. Simply click the stars to see all the ratings and read the reviews.

• Click through to Xmarks.com and discover more!

Clicking on the ‘Rank in Topic’ flag will take you to Xmarks.com to view the Top 10 sites about that topic. Discover similar sites, read user reviews, and even write your own.

• Site Info built into your browser

Click on the Xmarks info icon in your location bar to see detailed information about the site you are on, and discover other great sites just like it.

• Click through to Xmarks.com and discover more!

Clicking on GET SITE INFO shows you lots more on Xmarks.com. Discover similar sites, read user reviews, and even write your own.

• See suggested tags when you bookmark

The next time you add a bookmark, Xmarks will automatically suggest a list of bookmark tags. These suggestions are based on the tags other Xmarks users chose for the same site.

• Quickly find tagged bookmarks

Type a tag name into the Firefox 3 location bar (also known as the Awesome Bar) to quickly find sites with that tag.

[This feature is only available in Firefox 3+. You can easily turn this feature on or off from the Xmarks settings dialog.]

Definitely an add-on worth checking out!

So many free apps, add-ons, and plug-ins—OH MY!

I love the fact that there are so many options out there to help build your business or to assist in your day-to-day activities. I’ve seen everything from color picking tools to free design tools. But I’ve found myself a bit overwhelmed in trying to figure out what’s what and which ones are best for what I’m looking for. That was until yesterday! While reading another VA’s blog I came across one about catchfree. After doing a little bit of research I realized this was the answer to my questions about which free services are best.

Check out the screen shot of just a few of the popular searches out there and their ratings!

Definitely something to look into! I’m currently playing around with PageModo‘s services, I’ll let you know how it goes.

I want to take a moment to recognize that today is National Stop The Violence Against Women Day, a global movement to stop the violence against women around the world. It’s important to know the facts on such a serious problem. And also know the signs to watch for.

Here are some disturbing statistics:

• An estimated 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States annually for sexual exploitation or labor (US Central Intelligence Agency, 2000).
• One in five women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime (WHO 1997).
• In USA a woman is raped every 90 seconds (US Department of Justice, 2000).
• Somewhere in America a woman is battered, usually by her intimate partner, every 15 seconds (UN Study on the Status of Women, Year 2000).
• Up to 70% of female murder victims are killed by their male partners (WHO 2008).
• In Kenya more than one woman a week was reportedly killed by her male partner while in Zambia, five women a week were murdered by a male partner or family member (Joni Seager, 2003).
• In the Russian Federation 36,000 women are beaten on a daily basis by their husband or partner, according to Russian non-governmental organizations (OMTC, 2003).
• More than 135 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation and an additional 2 million girls and women are at risk each year (6,000 everyday) (A, UN, 2002).
• 82 million girls who are now aged 10 to 17 will be married before their 18th birthday (UNFP).
• In India there are close to 15,000 dowry deaths estimated per year. Mostly they are kitchen knives designed to look like accidents (Injustice Studies, Vol. 1, November 1997).
• 4 million women and girls are trafficked annually.
• An estimated one million children, mostly girls, enter the sex trade each year (UNICEF).
• A study in Zaria, Nigeria found out that 16 percent of hospital patients treated for sexually transmitted infections were younger than five (UNFPA).

The fact is violence against anyone, for most of us, is a sickening, unimaginable thing. But I believe it’s important for all of us to know and be aware of the fact that it is happening more often and to more people than we realize.

To learn more I’ve included a few helpful sites to recognize the signs of an abusive relationship here, here, and here. I also recommend checking out V-DAY if you’d like to get more involved.