Since 2004, Vstore.ca has been a host to free e-commerce stores for small businesses. These stores were supported by ads that Vstore placed on these e-commerce sites.They also offered premium versions of the stores that were ad-free. They offered a free auction service for the stores they hosted, as well.Offering a free service such as this isn’t a cost-free process; the servers and maintenance are expensive. The costs have to be covered by advertising or by upsells to a significant portion of the clients, or the service isn’t economically viable.Sadly, Vstores.CA has concluded that... [...]

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court affirmed Colorado’s right to require online merchants to collect sales tax from Colorado residents who buy from them.Until now, buying online from a merchant located in anther state has required the buyer to pay sales tax directly to the state, rather than requiring the merchant to collect tax, in behalf of the state. States prefer the latter because individual payments directly to the state are a “hit or miss” proposition. The state can more easily hold a merchant accountable than it can hold thousands of individuals accountable.If other states... [...]

Here are a few tips on building a business online. Many people try and fail. Maybe these will help you succeed.Be professional in all you do. You don’t want to make a quick buck; you want a long-term business. First, always take the high road. Sleazy marketing will bite you. It’s no way to build a real business.Second, carelessness in your work or lack of serious, concentrated action can kill an otherwise profitable business. Procrastination, at best, delays your success. And it can do more, killing your business completely.Understand the “landscape”1. Know where... [...]

I recently received an email from a marketer with the subject line: Download Ten Kindle Courses With PLR For Free, Philip! (Worth $1,379)This sounded interesting. Even if I didn’t want to use the PLR, I might learn something about creating a Kindle book.So I opened the letter. This was one of those cases of “What the large print (in this case, the headline) giveth, the fine print taketh away.”The text of the email said that if you buy a particular product, then you could receive the “Ten Kindle Courses With PLR For Free”.So they were not actually free; they were... [...]

Microsoft is recommending that users of Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) (called Windows Defender on Windows 8) look elsewhere for their future antivirus needs.Originally, it was a top-tier antivirus product, but over time, Microsoft has reduced support for it and have said that they are providing all the virus information they find to 3rd-party antivirus software makers and are no longer seeking to be at the top of the heap.In fact, a Microsoft spokesperson, Holly Stewart, says it’s normal for MSE to be one of the least effective solutions, since by definition other vendors would take... [...]

You’ve hear the saying, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. That’s true online, too. (IM NewsWarch is still the exception.) Free services have bills to pay, just like everyone else. They will find a way to pay those bills; almost always from their users.One extreme example of this is the Hola service (http://hola.org), a proxy that anyone can use at no charge. Wonderful;right?Well, not necessarily. When you sign up for the service, you are agreeing to their terms and conditions and their privacy provisions.In the terms, they say that they can use your PC... [...]

If you are running an online company, it’s critical that you have a reliable computer. If your computer goes down and you can’t write or place ads, if you can’t respond to orders or inquiries, even if you can’t check your email, that’s a big setback.Some people treat their computers like they treat their cars, replacing parts whenever something breaks, and staying with what they have. Around here we keep ours 6-7 years. However, no matter how frequently you upgrade, eventually you must upgrade.Maybe you are at the place where you need a new computer. You want to... [...]

It could be on a business account, but more likely it’s on your personal social media account that you say something dumb. You may make a racist remark; criticize a friend in intemperate language, or take a political position that infuriates a big portion of your readers.The best defense if not doing it, of course. But if you don’t realize the dangers, you may act without thinking.Parents are starting to warn their teens and even younger children of these dangers. Future prospects for college admissions and jobs may be harmed by careless social media use. But the problem will be... [...]

Since many marketers use Microsoft Outlook to manage their email, we want to make you aware of this new article in InfoWorld, by Woody Leonhard. Microsoft just released a patch to correct problems in their Outlook email client. While it may correct some problems, unfortunately, it reintroduces other problems in the calendar function.An initial patch in early December solved some earlier bugs, but caused some users to only be able to use Outlook in “safe mode.” In mid-December, Microsoft released another patch to correct that bug. But that patch wasn’t widely available until... [...]

Microsoft says that 200,000,000 computers, tablets, phones and Xboxes have used Windows 10 in the last month. And, with their marketing push and free conversion for most users (the vast majority of Windows users use Windows 7), they expect a lot more to use it, too.They have been aggressively pushing users of earlier versions of the software to convert to Windows 10. They are expected to become even more aggressive, adding it to the list of updates that get installed automatically.Some users, ourselves among them, are finding the conversion doesn’t go smoothly. Even though the Microsoft... [...]