At the launch of Google Buzz, Sergey Brin, one of Google’s co-founders, highlighted an example of using their new social network within a business. Brin explained that when writing an op-ed for the New York Times, he posted a draft of his article on Google Buzz and invited his network to respond with their own ideas and edits. Shortly after posting, Brin says he received around 50 comments. With the ability to obtain all of that feedback in such a short amount of time, Brin introduces the idea of real-time collaboration in Google Buzz.

Here are some ideas on how businesses can take advantage of Google Buzz:

With the option to post privately to a small group of users, Buzz can be implemented among employees. They can use Buzz to toss ideas around with one another, schedule meetings (or lunch dates) and share informational articles through Google Reader.

Buzz can also be used externally, to reach out to customers, using the public settings. Unlike Twitter, Google Buzz does not limit users to 140 characters, which is an advantage for businesses looking to utilize the social network.

With Buzz, customers can interact with the company, as well as with one another. In this format, customers can address the company with product reviews and concerns. Then other customers can jump in with solutions or discussions, creating a forum-like atmosphere.

Companies can also use Buzz to update customers with current specials, upcoming promotions, product reviews and news updates pertaining to the company or their products.

What other ways do you think companies can utilize Google Buzz for business – have you seen any doing so? Or, do you think it will be too noisy and just not a fan of Google Buzz?

Let us know in the comments!

Think you can spare a few minutes to give your printer a little TLC? Doing so can assist in prolonging the life of your printer. By removing dust particles or ink smudges, your printer will work better and hopefully last longer as well. Cleaning your printer eliminates paper jams, ink blotches and abnormal lines. However, if you are careless when cleaning, you can permanently damage the printer.

Before you start cleaning, make sure the printer is cooled down. Unplug the printer also, just to be safe. You might want to try cleaning out the printer when you are replacing ink or toner cartridges, to avoid damage to existing cartridges.

Use a soft cloth to wipe the exterior of the printer. Dampen the cloth, not the printer, with a light liquid. Try distilled water or a light cleaner, but stay away from ammonia or alcohol as they can crack or damage the surface. It’s best to clean the outside of the printer first, while the cartridges and trays are still inside. This way, dust and other small debris don’t make their way inside.

The way you clean the inside of the printer will vary a bit between laser and inkjet printers. Most inkjet printers have cleaning processes that can be initiated from the software that accompanies the printer. This cleaning unclogs the printheads that shoot the ink. Other inkjet printers have cartridges with printheads on them, so the printhead gets replaced with each cartridge change and does not need to be regularly cleaned.

To remove dust and debris from the rollers, paper trays and other parts inside of the inkjet printer, use a small duster or damp cloth to gently wipe all of the parts down. If you are a fancier cleaner, you can use purchase tools such as a computer vacuum or cleaning sheet for a sparkling printer. For example, many printer companies manufacture their own cleaning supplies, such as the Xerox cleaning wipes shown here.

With laser printers, you can clean the inside parts the same as you would an inkjet printer, except a soft brush is recommended instead of cloth or a duster. If you don’t have a brush, make sure to steer clear of the mirror inside to avoid damaging scratches. Also, the transfer rollers are the only part of a laser printer than cannot and should not be cleaned!

The bottom line is that you have to be very careful when removing and replacing all parts. Remember to be gentle and leave out the elbow grease. Again, taking just a few minutes to detail your printer can improve the performance and add pages onto your printer’s life!

Printing on the run now has a new meaning. New iPhone apps now allow you to print just about anything directly from your smartphone! The top apps are reviewed, in no specific order…

Print App

1. “Print” by EuroSmartz – Price: $4.99

Tired of transferring your iPhone pictures to your PC for printnig purposes? “Print” for iPhone lets you print information from your iPhone/iPod touch to a printer connected to your computer, via network or local.

When you install “Print” on your iPhone and download the free WePrint software for your desktop/laptop computer, you can then print directly from your iPhone. You could even print remotely to your home or office printer. Imagine taking a photo while on vacation and then printing it on your home printer.

“Print” for the iPhone prints web pages, contacts and images. “Print & Share” also prints emails, stored files and also shares files with your desktop computer.

This app requires both an app installed on your phone and on your pc.

2. “Print Magic” by Wellala – Price: $5.99

Print Magic is the first application for the Apple iPhone & iTouch products, which allows for wireless printing through IPP.

With Print Magic, you can now print images, text, and even web pages directly from your iPhone or iPod Touch.  Print Magic can print almost anything, from any application, with no additional software to install.  If you can select it and copy it using the Cut and Paste feature of iPhone OS 3, Print Magic can print it — including from applications like Mail, Safari, and of course Photos.

This app only requires an app installed on your phone. It connects directly with your printer.

3. “PrinterShare” by Dynamix – Price: FREE

With PrinterShare you can print directly from your phone to anywhere in the world including your own printer. First, you need to install PrinterShare Mobile on your mobile phone and either login with your existing account or create new one of the fly (it’s free).

Then you need to find and select the printer you want to print to. The computer connected to the printer needs to have PrinterShare software installed, just like when you print from computer to computer using PrinterShare. In addition, from your mobile device you may look for printers shared by others, select one and print on it.

This app requires both an app installed on your phone and on your pc.

4. “ePrint” by Microtech – Price: $2.99

If you have ePrint and required printers, you don’t need your PC anymore to print. ePrint has print settings such as paper size or color. Print photos or contacts in your iPhone or iPod touch. You can also check printed image beforehand with print preview.

This app only requires an app installed on your phone. It connects directly with your printer.

5. “Printer Whisperer” by Lunaticity - Price: FREE

The “Printer Whisperer” iPhone app is great. Aside from being a completely free app, it can cause hours of problems for your office IT manager!! Don’t worry, it doesn’t cause any real harm to you printer. Here is what the app can do… If you have a networked printer (unfortunately it can only be a HP Laserjet networked printer) and it has an LCD display, this app is a must download. You simply type in the IP address for the pritner into the app and you can change the display message on the LCD screen. Favorite messages include “Printer Will Self Destruct”, “Pen is Stuck”, “Don’t Panic”, and many others. Have tons of fun while your IT guy scratches his head. The message resets when the printer is turned off.

This app only requires an app installed on your phone. It connects directly with your printer.

Online content theft has become a prevalent problem with the rise of the Internet. Has online plagiarism happened to you?

Photo by amidanyorai

A couple of months ago, I came across a website that had stolen a paragraph of content from our website. The stolen paragraph was this:

“As the 2nd largest laser printer manufacturer, Samsung caters to personal and professional needs. Samsung printers are versatile and reliable, just like The Supplies Guys!! We’ve got Samsung laser printers, including Samsung color laser printers. And what would the printer be without the toner? We’ve got you covered for all of the Samsung toner cartridges you need.”

You can see that the paragraph isn’t anything to get upset over, but it’s still ours. And it says our company’s name used completely out of context. (www.best-color-printers.com/category/best-color-laser-printers/ ). It’s an unpleasant feeling when someone rips off content you took the time to create for a specific purpose.

Yesterday on Daily Writing Tips, they shared their current experience with content theft in which entire posts are being copied and reposted with no acknowledgment or attribution. (You can view the thieving website at http://www.leestringer.net/category/writing-tips/.) Initally, if you visited that site, you would have seen they even ripped off DWT’s post that is about them ripping off posts. However, as of writing, the leestringer.net had removed all plagiarized posts.

All it takes is a little CTRL + C, CTRL + V polished off with a “publish”.  So how do we handle this within our own blogs and websites?

In addition to including a copyright notice in each post, it is beneficial to license your work with a Creative Commons license. With Creative Commons, you choose which type of license you desire depending on how you decide others can use your content. View the different types of licenses here.

But what happens when someone flat out steals your content? I’d say there’s a big difference between stealing a tiny paragraph about Samsung and stealing entire posts on writing tips, as mentioned above. If you’re constantly monitoring your brand, you’ll notice quickly that someone has committed content theft against you.

When this happens, start by contacting the author of the blog/website. Chances are they’ll be a jerk, as they already have a notch on that board for stealing the content in the first place. In that case, try contacting the website’s hosting company and informing them of the situation. You can find all of this information at http://www.domaintools.com/.

If you still aren’t getting any response, submit a notice of copyright infringement as per the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to Google.  Most hosting companies allow the option to submit a DMCA notice of infringement through them as well.

Has your content been stolen? We’d love to hear your story and what steps of action you took towards combating online plagiarism.