Benefits of using Google Places

Benefits of using Google Places

Reach millions of Google users, quickly and for free, with Google Places

More people search for businesses online than anywhere else, so it's important to make sure your local business listing can be easily found on Google.com and Google Maps. With Google Places, creating a great listing takes just a few minutes and doesn’t cost a thing.

Edit your listing and speak for yourself

Your business probably already shows up on Google, but you should still verify your listing and make sure its details are accurate and thorough. Your improvements will start appearing soon after you verify them through Google Places. Also, you can add notifications

Practical and easy to manage

Your Google local business listing is an easy way to maintain an online presence even if you don’t have a website. You can visit Google Places anytime to edit your information or see how many people have seen and clicked on your listing.

Premium options, all for free

Make your listing really shine with photos and videos; custom categories like your service area, brands you sell and how to find parking to encourage customers to make a first-time or repeat purchase.

Create your listing today using Google Places.

Tesseract + gImageReader – How to Add English Dictionary

This tutorial is in continuation to Get Optical Character Reader – English. Please go through this tutorial to Download, Install and Use Tesseract OCR Engine and gImageReader.

Now we should add English Dictionary for spell check.

1. DOWNLOAD ENGLISH DICTIONARY

2. UNZIP THE EN_US.ZIP

3. COPY THE DICTIONARY TO APPROPRIATE FOLDER

Go to Windows Start ,

Select All Programs,

Open gImageReader Folder
and Select Spelling Dictionaries.
A Folder will open, copy the en_US.dic and en_US.aff files from the Extracted Folder to this folder.

4. DICTIONARY IS INSTALLED!!

5. HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY

You will need to reopen the gImageReader to See the dictionary into action.

Now when you Recognize a Document, the Output Panel will highlight the incorrect spelling with a red underline.

If you right click on the incorrect spelling, alternate suggestions will be given.

You can also add the word to the dictionary.

You are ready to use the OCR with the English Dictionary

Get Optical Character Reader – English

This tutorial will show you how to use Tesseract OCR and gImageReader to read (Recognize) text from a PDF file or Image File.

Steps to Implement Optical Character Reader (English)

1. Download Tesseract OCR Engine

The Tesseract OCR engine was one of the top 3 engines in the 1995 UNLV Accuracy test. Between 1995 and 2006 it had little work done on it, but since then it has been improved extensively by Google and is probably one of the most accurate open source OCR engines available. Combined with the Leptonica Image Processing Library it can read a wide variety of image formats and convert them to text in over 40 languages.

2. Install Tesseract OCR Engine

1. Double Click on the downloaded exe to install the Tesseract OCR Engine
2. Allow the setup to install the Tesseract Engine
3. Click Yes for Do you want to install Tesseract-OCR 3.0.1?
4. License Agreement
   • Check I accept the terms of the License Agreement
   • Click Next
5. Choose Components
   • Keep the settings as it is
   • Click Next
6. Choose Install Location
   • You may change the destination folder or just keep it as it is.Just Note down the destination folder for later
   • Click Install
7. Let the Setup Install all the files
8. Completing the Tessaract-OCR 3.01 Setup Wizard
   • You may check or uncheck Show Readme
   • Click Finish

We have Downloaded the OCR Engine. This Engine process the pdf files. however, for ease of use, we still need a Graphical Interface for OCR

2. Download gImageReader

Install gImageReader

1. Double Click on the Downloaded Setup exe to install the gImageReader
2. Welcome to the gImagereader Setup Wizard
   • Click Next
3. License Agreement
   • Click I Agree
4. Read Me
   • Click Next >
5. Choose Components
   • Keep the default settings
   • Click Next >
6. Choose Install Location
   • You may change the destination folder. Note down the destination folder for future
   • Click Install
7. Let the Setup install all the files
8. Installation Complete
   • Click Close

You are ready to use the OCR. To read a pdf file, follow the following steps

• You can Open a originally scanned pdf file or image file.
• Or can Acquire by selecting your scanner
• After you select the file, Click Recognize All

There you go! Simple and useful. Tell me if you find this useful.
Currently, we have not added English Dictionary. I will soon post a tutorial on adding the English Dictionary

Creating (+ Maintaining) a Website

What do you need for a website? The following is an overview of what you will need to create a website that includes five components and a brief explanation of website basics for creating a website.

Website Basics

• Website Design and Development
• Domain Name Registration
• Web Hosting
• Promotion and Marketing
• Web Maintenance / Webmaster Services

Website Design and Development

Before you start working on the actual design of your website , you need to plan first. You will need to determine your Internet objectives and who your audience is. The types of websites you may consider include:

An informational website

An informational website is similar to an online business brochure. The objective of this type of site is to offer business information including the “who, what, where, when and how” of your business or organization.

An E-commerce website

An e-commerce website is for those who would like to sell products including goods or services online. This type of site displays products and provides the ability to complete the purchase transaction online.

Domain Name Registration

A domain name is an Internet address used on the World Wide Web to locate your website. One does not actually own a domain name as annual fees provide the “right” to use it. Annual fees vary for this privilege depending on the company providing the services and the domain name extension requested. When choosing a name it is important to choose a name that others can remember easily.
For more on domain names: Tips to Choosing a Domain Name

Web Hosting

Web hosting is the actual “housing” where a website is stored. This process may be thought of as the apartment or office that is rented in a large building where the site is conducting business.

Promotion and Marketing

When the website is complete, a marketing plan to promote the website should be devised. Website marketing and promotion fees are separate and in addition to domain name fees, web design and development fees and hosting fees. The following are two website marketing considerations:

Basic Marketing Plan

Includes site submission to the major directories and search engines. Directories include: The Open Directory Project and Yahoo!

Aggressive Marketing Plan

For those who desire an aggressive promotion and marketing strategy, PPC or Pay Per Click marketing options include Google Adwords and Yahoo!'s site submit.

Web Maintenance / Webmaster Services

Keeping your website fresh with current information is an absolute necessity to portray a professional image to your Internet audience. Ensuring that your site is current and relevant is just as important as initially creating the site. You will need to determine who is going to perform the changes and updates to your site. If you anticipate ongoing edits, you may want to consider a cost effective web maintenance agreement. Fees for web maintenance are separate and in addition to web design, domain names, web hosting and promotion.

Why you need a Mobile Friendly Website

Extracted from GOMO from Google

What is e Commerce?

E Commerce

In its simplest form e-commerce is the buying and selling of products and services by businesses and consumers over the Internet. People use the term “e-commerce” to describe encrypted payments on the Internet.
Sometimes these transactions include the real-time transfer of funds from buyer to seller and sometimes this is handled manually through an eft-pos terminal once a secure order is received by the merchant.
Internet sales are increasing rapidly as consumers take advantage of lower prices offer by wholesalers retailing their products. This trend is set to strengthen as web sites address consumer security and privacy concerns.

Benefits of E-Commerce

E-commerce can provide the following benefits over non-electronic commerce:

• Reduced costs by reducing labor, reduced paper work, reduced errors in keying in data, reduce post costs.
• Reduced time. Shorter lead times for payment and return on investment in advertising, faster delivery of product
• Flexibility with efficiency. The ability to handle complex situations, product ranges and customer profiles without the situation becoming unmanageable.
• Improve relationships with trading partners. Improved communication between trading partners leads to enhanced long-term relationships.
• Lock in Customers. The closer you are to your customer and the more you work with them to change from normal business practices to best practice e-commerce the harder it is for a competitor to upset your customer relationship.
• New Markets.The Internet has the potential to expand your business into wider geographical locations.

Flash Vs Jquery, Is Flash really phasing out on web?

Few years a ago a website in flash or flash Content on website is considered to be trendy and upmarket, The Demand of flash was very high and website development & web designing companies in India were using flash extensively.

There has been a change in trend now, JavaScript libraries such as jQuery and MooTools adding animation and interactive features that don’t require reloading a web page were out of reach for many web developers / designers unless they used Flash. Statistics compiled by HTTP Archive, analyzing the world’s top 17,000 websites, show 48 per cent of the sites use jQuery, compared to the 47 per cent that use Flash, Over the past few months jQuery gained 9% while Flash dropped 2%. Of course the two are not mutually exclusive as a site could use both, but more sites using jQuery, which uses web standards, can’t be bad for accessibility. JQuery offer a library of routines that are cross browser compatible which greatly reduces the learning curve. These libraries also offer functions to handle many routine tasks making JavaScript programming faster and easier to learn. Flash still has an array of uses that jQuery simply cannot handle. Some of the plus points include its extensive features, 3D capabilities, unfailing appearance in supported browsers, built-in User Interface, supporting vector artworks, a large array font options, and of course, many free and commercial tools are also available all over the web.

Flash	jQuery
Flash Support Vector Graphics
Extensive features	Features not as extensive as Flash
3D Capabilities	3D features are limited
Consistent appearance in supported browsers
Built-in UI & other features
Many free and Commercial tools available	Hundreds of free professional quality programs
More font options
Adobe Flash Software Licensing fee
Not compatible with all browsers including iPhone , iPad and most cell phones	Compatible with more browsers than Flash including iPhone, cell phones, PS3, PSP
Moderate learning curve to use	Using jQuery or other libraries reduces the JavaScript learning curve
Possible problems with users that have older versions of the Flash Player
Potentially large file size	Small size
Possible security issues with Flash Player
Tracking stats for Flash elements is limited
	Can add interactivity to web page elements and tags
	Skinnable Form Components UI
	Complex features may not perform as quickly as flash
	Users can disable JavaScript support
	Source Code Not Protected