IS Magazine Blog

Senior Citizen Phone Plans

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 18:02:51 GMT

If you've ever tried to help your parent or grandparent find cell phone service, you know reasonably priced senior citizen phone plans can be a nightmare to find. We've taken all the guesswork out and broken it down so you can find the best senior citizen phone plans available.

From The Major Carriers

T-Mobile

Unlimited Magenta 55+

Cost: $50/month with $25 due at signup, requires auto pay for this price

Calls: Unlimited within US, Mexico, and Canada

Texts: Unlimited worldwide

Data: Unlimited 4G LTE

Contract: None

This plan takes the Essentials plan and adds unlimited 4G LTE data. Good for someone who likes to use the web or Facebook. Taxes and fees are included with this plan.

Unlimited Magenta Plus

Cost: $65/month with $25 due at signup, requires auto pay for this price

Calls: Unlimited within US, Mexico, and Canada

Texts: Unlimited worldwide

Data: Unlimited 4G LTE

Contract: None

The extra $15/month gets you unlimited video streaming in high definition. Also, if you sign up for 2 lines for $90/month, you get free Netflix. You can add a 2nd line for only $20/month. Also, there are no added taxes or fees with this plan.

NameCheap Auctions Buy and Sell

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 19:21:00 GMT

Looking to buy or sell a domain name? Head over to NameCheap Auctions!

Millions of domains have been registered over the past couple of decades - and many of them are now up for sale.

Are you in the market for a domain name? Are you looking to sell a NameCheap domain name you no longer need or want?

Check out NameCheap Auctions - THE place to buy and sell old or expired domains. Our searchable platform receives thousands of hits, every single day. And while .com domains are available, you'll also find other options including .net, .us and loads more. Scroll through the NameCheap Auctions marketplace and you might even find the perfect domain name you've been searching for!

Domains can be listed from as little as $1, right up to $1,000. The seller sets the price when listing the domain name and the purchaser can buy it for that price only - there is no option to haggle and potential purchasers cannot make direct contact with sellers. The transaction is complete in as little as a few hours and the money received by the seller can be transferred to a registered Paypal account within a few days (charges from Paypal may be incurred).

Our system is quick, easy and user-friendly. Buyers can filter their selection by category, price, content or length to find a domain name that meets their requirements.

For those looking to sell, using NameCheap Auctions makes it easy to promote your unwanted domain names to people who will be interested in buying them. Perhaps you registered an interesting domain a while ago, but haven't needed to use it. NameCheap Auctions is the ideal place to advertise it for sale AND potentially make a profit. You can choose up to five categories for each domain, for example business, advertising, technology and so on. This will help prospective buyers to filter their search and find the domain name they're looking for.

BigCommerce eCommerce Platform

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 18:56:00 GMT

If you want to setup an online store and sell products over the Internet, you'll need an ecommerce platform like BigCommerce. The hosting service provides everything that you will need to setup your store and run it. You can design your store simply with a range of templates that are provided or dig in deeper with HTML and CSS customization. Like other hosted solutions, you are dependent on the platform for operation, so make sure you look at all options before making a final conclusion. Other options include Volusion, Jimdo, Squarespace and Shopify.

Long-Term Solution

Companies that currently use BigCommerce include Gibson Guitars, TravelPro and Toyota, so you know they will be around for the foreseeable future. The other option is build your own store on top of a free solution like WordPress. But that requires additional costs, time, and expertise to get everything running and to keep it current.

BigCommerce Plans Available

The Standard package is only $30 a month, while the Plus is $80 and the Pro plan runs $250 a month. The Plus plan comes with additional marketing tools and an abandoned cart tool to recapture sales. All plans come with 10 templates, payment option integration, account creation, SEO options, image optimization, email marketing services, coupon and voucher features, review of product functionality, blogging and reporting. In comparison to other eCommerce options on the market, the standard package is very good for the low introductory price.

PortfolioBox.net Review

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 19:27:00 GMT

If you are looking to get noticed, PortfolioBox.net might be the site to get your work out to potential clients. You can quickly create a page that shows your work and professional talents and share that work with the world. If you want to blog and/or share images online, take a look at this one. Similar in ways to ArtStation, Squarespace and Behance.

Templates and Designs

Professionals will love your site and the tech support is quick and helpful. The templates and designs are perfect for photographers. Well suited for a portfolio of photos, with many photographers finding the site of great help. Your photographs will be live within seconds of you moving them to the web and your clients can quickly find your latest pieces of art.
You also have the option to modify the Site Footer, JavaScript Code and CSS Code when you become a pro member.

Cargo Collective for Photography Websites

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 18:48:00 GMT

Cargo Collective is an accumulation of programming solutions and toolsets intended for blog composing, website portfolio building, and web distributing. The WYSWYG Interface is something everyone will get used to quickly and like for CMS publishing.

The cloud-based platform is broadly utilized by a wide scope of capable content designers, inventive experts, and specialists as it enables them to exhibit their portfolios to the online network utilizing a solid portfolio website creation suite.

Advantages: User-Friendly

Utilize Cargo Collective to fabricate a portfolio site. While Squarespace can be extremely confounding to utilize, Cargo is easy to use and exceptional on the grounds that there are more layouts to choose from for your site. The vast majority of the formats are spotless and simple to move through. You can pick between 30+ pre-made layouts before structuring your portfolio site.

You can modify layouts to make your site look the style in which you need it to. To do this, it's just required that you know a little HTML and CSS, nothing excessively complex.

The Cargo interface additionally offers a wide assortment of simple to utilize, yet moderately mind boggling, tools and applications to enable clients to show their content in the manner in which they need to.

Advantages: Customer Service

Cargo Collective's client help and instructional exercises are strong and their updated Cargo 2 interface is one of the more easy to use available.

This is How Shoplicate Can Boost Your Revenue!

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Mon, 06 May 2019 21:18:00 GMT

Ecommerce is one of the most profitable activities that you can perform on the Internet. Many e-commerce site owners sell physical products. While this is popular and has immense profit potential, it is quite difficult. That’s because you are bound to have stiff competition. Hence, the consumers have more choices of where to buy the products. Thankfully, there is a way to beat the competition. You can use Shoplicate. This is a special system that can help you to launch promotion campaigns which are profitable and deliver a high Return On Investment (ROI). Read on to discover the features and immense benefits that you can enjoy after you Buy Shoplicate.

The amazing features of Shoplicate

• In-depth research

Shoplicate performs automatic research throughout the Internet. After that, the tool hands you details about the best-selling products. The tool ensures that these products are not too competitive and have a demand that is trending consistently. With Shoplicate, the objective is to sell items that have low competition and a high demand. This usually leads to success in e-commerce.

• Training modules

The Shoplicate tool comes with a combination of 4 training modules. They equip you with knowledge on how you can sell products effectively through advertisements on Facebook. The modules cover material such as:

◦ Setting up the Shopify Store

◦ Creating ads

◦ Boosting your rate of conversion

◦ Mastering the Facebook ads

• The Spy App

This is a feature within Shoplicate that helps you to get information about the hottest selling items in any Shopify store. The Spy App is located within the tool’s dashboard. To use it, begin by searching for a keyword or a niche in the general search tab. The tool will give you a list of topics or keywords which are trending in that niche.

Within this same dashboard view, there’s a tab indicating Shopify Spy. To use this feature, enter any keyword which you want. The tool will scroll through the Internet and give you details on all the popular Shopify stores, their best selling products and traffic statistics too!

The tool informs you about the number of visits that the site gets every month, the length of time that is spent on the site and the origin of the traffic. This helps you to get an accurate understanding of that particular niche. The Spy App is highly versatile. Therefore, you can also use it to get information from other e-commerce sites including Ebay and many others.

Coinmama The Global Cryptocurrency Broker

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 18:45:00 GMT

Coinmama is a global cryptocurrency broker that was launched way back in 2013. This exchange service is owned by New Bit Ventures Limited, who have their headquarters in Israel. Although Coinmama is deemed an exchange service, users are limited to just buying specific cryptocurrencies, as opposed to trading them. Presently, the only cryptos available to buy on Coinmama are Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Advantages

The advantage of using Coinmama is that it’s available in a large number of countries. In fact, it supports the widest range of nations; almost 200. These include countries like Algeria, Belgium, Kenya, Thailand, UAE, just to name a few. The only countries that aren’t supported are those that have been sanctioned. Coinmama also supports states in the U.S. including Colorado, Kentucky, South Carolina, Texas, etc. Coinmama also allows buying cryptocurrency with credit cards and offers some of the highest limits among brokers that accept credit cards. You are able to buy up to $5000 worth of Bitcoin in a day and up to $30,000 per month.

DSLR Photography - Tips and High-quality Models

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 21:26:00 GMT

Looking for a tutorial on DSLR photography (Digital Single Lens Reflex)? Want to know about some reviews on DSLR cameras? Want to get some tips? If so, you are in the right place at the right time because we will give you what you need down the road.

DSLR photography is here to stay for a long time because it can give you what you want in terms of image quality. Yes, these gadgets can do that and then some, and you will have a lot of fun with them as time progresses. Therefore, read on if you want to find out more about this exciting field of photography.

Tips

Use the Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority modes of the camera. This is important, and you have to do this at all times now and later. Investing in a quality tripod is what you need to do as soon as possible. This will allow you to keep the item still whenever you need to, and that is truly something great for you in due time. You need to know the autofocus capabilities of your machine because this is truly an important part of the process at all times.You have to know how to use the speed settings so you can get the high-quality images that you have been seeking for a long time too.

Best DSLR Camera

Canon EOS Rebel

The Canon EOS Rebel is here to stay for a long time, and you will love what you will get in terms of features. The Canon EOS Rebel has the versatile set of the important imaging capabilities that you have been seeking for a long time too.

Nikon D3500

Nikon D3500 is the DSLR camera that you need to get today because it has the features you have been seeking these days. The Nikon D3500 is truly easy to use and you will get the hang of it in no time with a little practice and patience.

Intuit TurboTax Spanish

steve@srpatterson.com (Steve R Patterson) — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 19:47:00 GMT

Turbotax is among the most popular software programs for tax preparation. It provides a step by step procedure for preparing taxes effectively and ensure every deduction is made.

They are careful with the annual tax updates, ensuring that every customer complies with the constantly changing and confusing tax code. All you have to do is select the best version for you to use, answer some questions and file.

Regarding the complexity of the tax situation, filing taxes with the Turbo Tax will take you about 15 minutes to two hours. This is a very short time compared to how long you would take alone.

Turbotax Spanish is an item of Intuit, they offer their software in the offline and online versions.

PhotoShelter Review – Grow Your Photography Business

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 20:03:00 GMT

PhotoShelter is a site developed for professional photographers who wish to grow their customer base. Over 80,000 photographers use their service to increase their sales. A photographer can use the site to sell prints and packages, as well as manage their digital downloads and stock photos, regardless of whether they are royalty-free as well as rights-managed. Photographers can also integrate their page with with Authorize.net, Netbilling, PayPal, and Stripe in order to set up billing.

Photographers can also use professionally-designed template with full access to the HTML/CSS codes of those templates so that you can customize the design as desired. You can also protect your photographs with watermarks and take advantage of a product fulfillment process. In essence, PhotoShelter is an ideal site for a photographers looking to grow their e-commerce business or just find more clients.

PhotoShelter also provides phone support, e-mail support, knowledge base, and webinars to help you understand what the site offers and how to best use the site as well as troubleshoot any problems that may develop. It is a well-rounded support system, and one that you would expect from such a premium site.

PhotoShelter offers a 14-day risk-free trial so that you can see if the site benefits you. One problem is the site requires you to give your credit card information right at the start so that once the free trial is over the payment is dealt with straight away, so that is something to keep an eye on. That said, they do offer a a free month of service if you sign up for a years service, The three plans are Basic ($9.99/month), Standard ($29.99/month), and Pro ($49..99/month). The most popular plan is Standard, which comes with its own domain name, 50GB more storage than Basic, and discounts from related partners. The Pro plans adds another 1000GB of storage. Combined with the other features this means that you can worry less about the business aspect and worry more about taking pictures.

Our List Of The Best Bitcoin Mining Calculators

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 19:49:00 GMT

Bitcoin exploded in popularity in 2018, and many websites started to launch and offer tools. This led to the popularity of Bitcoin mining calculators. With that said, we've researched calculators and have created a short list of the best ones.

Calculators For Beginners
When you're mining Bitcoins, but you're a newbie, then things can become overwhelming very fast. There is a lot of info out there and many factors that play a role in the profitability of mining. Some calculators are simpler than others, and this includes:

CryptoCompare- When you search Google for Bitcoin Mining Calculator, the first one that pops up is this one. There's a reason why, and that's because you can customize the hash-power, cost per KWh and power consumption, as well as the mining pool fee. You can estimate what your yearly income will be, as well as monthly, weekly or even daily. It doesn't take into account potential difficulty changes that may occur in the future, so it may provide you with over-estimates of profits.

Anything Crypto- We have a page dedicated to showing you profitability of different ASIC miners. This includes skeptical and optimistic predictions, and we take difficulty changes and price changes into consideration.

Best Places To Get Startup Funding Online

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 18:34:00 GMT

You probably have seen the television show Shark Tank and heard of the site Kickstarter, places you can get your product and startup funded. The crowdfunding industry has taken off in the US with entrepreneurs getting tens of thousands of dollars in funding to millions of dollars. There are hundreds of crowdfunding sites online to get your startup funding, but only a few have a track record of success and the community to fund your product or project. If you money is stopping you from starting your company, look to these startup funding sources.

The collaborative economy has been made possible by the Internet and has boomed in recent years. In 2012 the industry funded $2.7 billion in projects and $5.1 billion in 2013. The Jobs Act of 2012 kicked off the industry so growth has continued every year since for the young market. As an investor in a crowdfunded startup you get either a share of ownership in the company, rewards, products, or perks. Businesses and individuals get to step all the overhead involved in bank financing or Venture Capital.

Sites to Choose From:

Kickstarter

Kickstarter allows for donation based funding on creative projects. This site is not for charities or businesses, its for creative projects like art, films, designs or a music album. The site has helped get 143,000 projects off the ground. You have to pay a fee to Kickstarter if you get funded in addition to a processing fee. And you only have a certain period of time to get your funded. Make sure your submission is good as not all projects make it past the approval process.

How Do Scooter Companies Lime and Bird Make Money?

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 20:14:00 GMT

Bird Scooter Columbus Ohio

You have probably seen the scooters spread across your downtown if you live in a major metropolitan city. Our city of Columbus Ohio recently had the scooters added to our streets in addition to the Ohio State University. They look like fun and they seem inexpensive, but with charging and tracking, and breaking there’s no way they can last. So how do these scooter companies like Bird and Lime make money?

Lime offers bikes too so you have that option. They bicycles seem less popular, more expensive to rent and not as much of a burden to maintain than an electric scooter. And the bikes aren’t all over the sidewalks making it difficult for some to get past.

With the any new technology there might be money backing it, but there isn’t always profit being made.

According to some sources, there are 5 different companies offering scooters. The bikes are $1 per half hour. The Lime and Bird scooters are $1.00 to start and 15 cents a minute to ride. These prices look great for consumers but how can a company survive with these low rental fees?

How the Transaction Happens

Users start a rental by downloading an app onto their phones and entering a credit card prior to scanning the QR code on the vehicle. When they have completed their ride, they click on a button on their phone telling the company you are done, then the bike or scooter locks up until the next rider comes along. There is no need to dock, just leave it where you completed your ride.

Scale

The companies purchase their bikes and scooters in scale and therefore are able to obtain low purchase prices. Bikes that dock can cost up to $5,000, not a cheap price. Dock-less bikes are less. And the new dock-less model also saves the company from having to install and maintain the docks. But the scooters cost only a couple of hundred dollars and can get 20 rides a day in a busy city. They can pay for themselves in a week if the demand is there.

Namecheap Expired Domains Now Processed Through GoDaddy Auctions

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 20:21:00 GMT

In the past, domain name registrar auctioned off expired domains through Tucows. A spat with Tucows, which owns competitor NameJet,has lead to a change for Namecheap. One reader of Domain Name Wire recently found domains registered to Namecheap in the GoDaddy Auctions expiry stream. On subsequent searches, more Namecheap expired domains can be found in auction listings.

H&R Block Debuts Tax Reform Checkup

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 18:42:00 GMT

There have been many changes in the tax reforms. IRS is encouraging everyone to do a quick tax reform checkup. That's why H&R is in the forefront by offering a free tax reform "Checkup service." It's an excellent program that helps you to track whether your tax obligations are smaller or bigger than usual. This will help taxpayers to change their financial or family situations in the next tax season.

There is a lot to do much ground to cover by taxpayers. The current reforms drastically decreased their taxes while increasing their paychecks. It requires taxpayers to check and fix their W4 forms.

A single taxpayer with one withholding allowance, with no children and a salary of $35000 was entitled to a $600 in refunds in 2017 returns. Changes in withholding tables in February saw a paycheck increase of 32$ in March. However, by next year, April the refunds will be 600$.

Square Acquired Weebly: What Does It Mean For Other Website Builders?

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 18:31:00 GMT

Weebly has a substantial amount of subscribers at 625,000. Merchant payment processor Square acquired Weebly for $365 million. Square intends on global expansion via this acquisition. A great portion of Weebly users lie outside of the United States, allowing Square to address a bigger audience of entrepreneurs. Revenues are expected to rise from $744 MM to $764 MM. The team members are also included in the merger. Most of the team from Weebly will be joining forces with the Square team.

The merger occurred during late April 2018. The merger is slated to help businesses all over the world. The services of both companies will line up well together. The CFO of Square stated that she feels both companies are culturally aligned. Backers of the acquisition include Floodgate, Sequoia Capital, Tencent, Felicis Ventures, and Y Combinator.

AT&T And Time Warner Merger Is Approved

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 20:52:00 GMT

So now Alphabet and Netflix will have to become ISPs, quickly.

The video industry was turned on its' head this week, and the ramifications of this will take many months to fully play out.

Firstly, the district court decided to allow AT&T and Time Warner to merge. This will produce one of the world's biggest content creation firms, once it goes through. Also, it is predicted to push Comcast to offer a similar proposal for Twenty-first Century Fox, to consolidate the market further. Chip Pickering, who is the CEO of INCOMPAS - an advocacy organisation that supports competition - said: "AT&T will get a merger that nobody supports, but will have to pay for".

However, the second big story is the last repeal of the FCC rules on Internet neutrality, which will enable telecom firms, such as AT&T, to promote their content instead of their competitors. Previously AT&T did not have a lot of content, but now they have acquired Time Warner, they have a huge library including Warner Bros, TNT, TBS, CNN and HBO. All of a sudden, that ruling about prioritization is looking extremely lucrative and potent.

The Top Seven Website Builders For Photography Sites

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 19:10:00 GMT

Not surprisingly, most people judge a photography company by the quality of the images on their site. If you are trying to break into the business or build upon an existing clientele, you need a website builder or CMS provider capable of supporting huge galleries without compromising the quality of your stunning photos. You should also look into platforms that make uploading new images easy, ensuring that you regularly update your content.

That's a lot to look for, especially if your search is up against a time crunch. We've curated the top seven photography website builders below to help you focus your search on only the providers that can meet your needs. Happy hunting!

1. SmugMug

SmugMug is the standard others are compared to for photography sites because it is focused on photography and nothing else. They recently acquired Flickr, the online photo giant, adding yet another tool to its impressive repertoire for photographers to consider.

2. Weebly

Weebly is an excellent choice for all of the technophobes out there. Its interface is incredibly intuitive, allowing you to design a beautiful site without ever working in code. This makes it accessible to nearly any photographer interested in showing off their work.

3. Duda

Duda's platform places a strong emphasis on mobile, widely considered the future of the internet. They also offer powerful collaboration options if your company consists of more than one photographer. Its drag and drop functionality is also helpful if you're uncomfortable with computers.

4. StudioPress Sites

If you've ever wanted to use the popular WordPress platform, this is the way to do it. StudioPress Sites is hosted by the highest-rated WordPress theme developer, giving you SEO-friendly themes through the popular Genesis framework for maximum visibility. It also offers a long list of additional features to help you customize your site to your liking.

Introducing The HTC Blockchain Phone

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Wed, 16 May 2018 18:59:00 GMT

The HTC blockchain phone is a work in progress.

Several weeks before its' upcoming flagship statement, HTC recently disclosed another item of hardware. Although the Taiwanese firm has consolidated most of its' mobile products, it said at the 2018 New York Consensus Blockchain event that its' Exodus handset will embrace everyone's favorite technology buzzword.

What is a blockchain phone then? Primarily, these phones are characterized by cryptocurrency support and security. The landing page for HTC Exodus says: "Our aim is to grow the blockchain network by producing the first ever phone centered on security and decentralized applications. Once the HTC Exodus is released, this ambition will be realized".

FaceDate by Facebook Looks To Transform Online Dating

steve@srpatterson.com (Patrick Stevens) — Fri, 04 May 2018 19:25:00 GMT

Facebook launches 'FaceDate' a dating service on Facebook (yes that's the name of it), Clear History for your data, and more at #F8, their annual developer conference. Here's everything important they announced in an easy-to-read bulleted list 😁 https://t.co/4ItaN1jZLm pic.twitter.com/j1ai48Adle
— David Cogen (@theunlockr) May 3, 2018

Facebook Introduces Dating Service to Meet non Friends

Tinder now has some competition, as Facebook has announced a new raft of dating services. It will allow people to create a profile for dating on their platform. Only non friends, who have also registered for dating, will be able to see this. Facebook matches people by a range of preferences. Because it holds more information about people than other websites, it should provide more suitable matches. This service will begin later in 2018.

Facebook says that "prospective matches will be advised depending on mutual friends, personal preferences and common interests. They will be able to find like minded people via their Events or Groups". Sites like TechCrunch recommended that Facebook set up a dating service in February.