Posted by: Nathan on January 31st, 2007
Category: Hardware
Viewed: 3,300 times
As we surf this article on our new iPhones and email it to our friends on our Blackberries, it is easy to see the effects that up-to-date electronics have on business. What is behind the scenes, but is becoming a major threat to the environment and our health, is the waste that is generated in keeping up-to-date.
According to Environment Canada, an estimated 140,000 tonnes of e-waste are discarded annually in Canadian landfills, and this number continues to increase.
E-wastes contain toxic materials such as lead, mercury, arsenic and chromium, all of which are known or suspected to harm wildlife and human health.
There are a number of non-profit and for-profit organizations that are trying to reduce the harm done by the huge volumes of discarded electronics and possibly benefit the less fortunate in the process.
Below I describe some of the resources for BC residents and business owners who would like to upgrade their technologies in a more sustainable manner.
- Check out E-Waste Canada’s website for some details about e-waste recycling (http://www.ewastecanada.ca/research.htm).
- Computers for Schools-BC has donated over 85,000 computers to schools and libraries all across British Columbia (http://www.cfsbc.ca/).
- The Electronic Recycling Association is a non-profit that donates computers to charities (http://www.era.ca/donations/recycling/).
- Electronics Product Stewardship Canada is a not-for-profit organization created by the Canadian electrical and electronic industry to represent industry producers in provincial stewardship programs for electrical and electronic products. The schedule requires submission of the stewardship plan by February 2007 and implementation of the program by August 2007 (http://www.epsc.ca/).
- Electronics Recycling Canada specializes in the management of e-waste in an environmentally friendly manner (http://www.electronics-recycling.com/canada/).
Tags: e-waste, electronics recycling, electronics pollution, electronics environment, business environment
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Posted by: Nathan on January 17th, 2007
Category: General eBusiness, e-Business Basics, Legal / Accounting
Viewed: 3,060 times
Many Canadians have recently received a fraudulent email claiming to be from the Department of Finance Canada. This email contains a link to a form that, if filled out, will compromise your credit card and SIN information.
Go to http://www.fin.gc.ca/fraud_e.html to learn more.
While on the subject of internet fraud, it might be a good idea to go over a few basic no-no’s.
- NEVER open an email from someone you don’t know. Unsolicited email is one of the primary mechanisms of internet fraud and computer virus transmission.
- ALWAYS read the privacy and/or legal statements on any website that asks you for personal or financial information before you give it to them.Be wary of international transactions, especially if the seller is suggesting free shipping
- Try to obtain a physical address rather than a post office boxSend them an email to see if they have an active email address and be wary of buyers/sellers who use free email services where a credit card wasn’t required to open the account
- Consider not purchasing from sellers who withhold any of this informationInquire about returns and warranties
- Check with the Better Business Bureau from your seller’s area Make sure the transaction is secure when you electronically send your credit card numbers
- If it looks fishy, DON’T DO IT!
If you are not convinced, I found some stats from the US Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The following excerpts are taken from IC3’s 2005 Annual Report.
- Internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offense, comprising 62.7% of referred complaints. Non-delivered merchandise and/or payment accounted for 15.7% of complaints.
- Credit/debit card fraud made up 6.8% of complaints.
- Check fraud, investment fraud, computer fraud, and confidence fraud round out the top seven categories of complaints referred to law enforcement during the year.
- Electronic mail (E-mail) and web pages were the two primary mechanisms by which the fraudulent contact took place. In all, 73.2% of complainants reported that they had e-mail contact with the perpetrator and 16.5% had contact through a web page.
- Recent high activity scams seen by IC3 include Super Bowl Tickets scams, phishing attempts associated with spoofed sites, re-shipping, eBay account takeovers, natural disaster fraud, and international lottery scams.
The internet is an amazing source of information and entertainment. It is also a great medium with which to conduct business. Don’t be discouraged by reports of internet fraud, just do your research and be smart.
You don’t give personal or financial information to strangers on the street unless they can prove to you that they are reputable. The same rule applies to the internet.
Check out http://www.e-bc.ca/pages/resources/ebiz-guides.php#fraud for more tips.
Tags: Internet Fraud, Tax Fraud, Online Fraud, Internet Scams, Online Scams, Email Fraud, Email Scams
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Posted by: Nathan on January 16th, 2007
Category: General eBusiness, Internet Marketing, e-Business Basics
Viewed: 1,690 times
Fewer and fewer people are looking to the paper YellowPages when they need to find a business’ contact information. Online directories are more convenient to search and many of them also offer links to websites and driving directions as well.
If your business has a physical storefront or phone number that you want clients to find then you had better make sure that you are listed in the online directories most popular with Canadians. If you are not listed, you are losing customers … guaranteed!
The following are some of the most popular places online where people look to find businesses.
YellowPages.ca
A Basic listing displays your business name, address and phone number under a heading of your choice. It appears in your local Yellow Pages™ directory, in the alphabetical pages, on their directory Web sites - YellowPages.ca™ and Canada411.ca, and it can be accessed through directory assistance. The listing is free with your business line.
All YellowPages online directory sites will have your basic listing information available in 6 to 8 weeks from when you order your business line through your local telephone service provider.
Check your contact info online! If you search YellowPages.ca and find incorrect or incomplete information for your business, contact them as soon as possible to get the information changed.
411.ca
For business listings, email your full name, phone number, and address exactly as they should appear in their directory listings, as well as your daytime phone number to help@411.ca and they will manually add/update or remove your listing. It takes about 7 business days to process your request.
Canada.com, MSN.ca, and Yahoo.ca
All use YellowPages.ca listings for their business directories.
Unfortunately, yahoo local only takes US addresses and yahoo maps only searches for addresses, not business names.
Google Maps (Google Local)
You need to create an account with Google to be listed in the directory hosted by the world’s most popular search engine. It’s free and gives you access to all of Google’s services such as their new product directory “Froogle” and Google Analytics.
This is what you need to do.
1. Go to http://local.google.com/ and click on Business Owners: Add/Edit Your Business
2. If you don’t already have an account click on “Sign Up for an account now” and submit all of the appropriate information.
3. Once you are logged in you can add as many business centres as you like to under the “Local Business Centres” section.
Now your business can be found and maps and directions printed out from Google maps.
I also recommend that you check out “Google Base” where you can list your products and services in their free database. This is a very new service and is still in the beta testing stage, but it is linked to Froogle and the new services that Google launches have a tendency to take off.
MapQuest
Try as I might, I could not find out how MapQuest gets information for its business database. I am guessing that it is somehow linked to the YellowPages database, since it gets its US information from government sources such as the post office.
There are many other online directories out there, but be careful! Some websites are just out to gather personal information for unethical marketing purposes or worse. Make sure that a website is a legitimate directory service (read their privacy policy) before you give them personal information.
Tags: Online Directories
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Posted by: Nathan on January 9th, 2007
Category: General eBusiness, e-Commerce, e-Business Basics
Viewed: 1,471 times
This post is dedicated to those of you who are thinking about, but have not yet developed a website for your small business.
According to the “Canadian Internet Use Survey” conducted by Statistics Canada in 2005, two-thirds of adult Canadians surfed the internet that year. Of those users, 57% went online to window shop and 43% reported purchasing goods or services online. These statistics increase significantly with higher income and younger populations.
When it comes to finding brick and mortar storefronts, directories such as the paper Yellow Pages are quickly becoming archaic. The generation that is currently entering the workforce uses online directories such as Canada411, MapQuest, or Google Maps to find the services they need.
B2B ecommerce is also gaining strength. 43.36% of private and 82.48% of public enterprises purchased goods and/or services over the internet in Canada during 2005.
Stats Canada also produces a “Survey of Electronic Commerce and Technology”, which gives great insight into what types of businesses currently have a web presence.
I find the following tidbit of information interesting:
“More than twice as many medium-sized (69 percent) and large (79 percent) firms owned websites compared with small firms (32 percent) in 2004.”
Since the internet is available almost everywhere and is a relatively cheap storefront and/or advertising medium, I am surprised that small businesses don’t utilize it more in an attempt to even the playing field.
The only reasons that I can think of why small business owners decide not to operate a website are that they think it is too expensive, they believe that a website is not suited to their business, or they believe the technology is beyond them or too difficult to learn. None of these excuses are valid today!
Web hosting is dirt cheap (as little as $5/month)! You probably spend more on chewing gum every month than it costs to host a basic, yet informative, website.
Every business should have an internet presence no matter what the product or service. A webpage is necessary, if only to provide a means for potential customers to find your contact info (like they used to in the phone book).
Finally, it is true that the technology can be intimidating. However, you do not need to know much to get your website up and running and attracting new customers. Even if you are not an experienced internet user, eBusiness Connection offers affordable seminars that give you the necessary information to take your business online and/or expand your business online.
Tags: ebusiness, website startup, internet business
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Posted by: Andy on January 2nd, 2007
Category: General eBusiness
Viewed: 969 times
Among the many New Years traditions I have I find that looking at the Year End Google Zeitgeist is one of my favourites. The top 10 searches in 2006 on google.com were:
- bebo
- myspace
- world cup
- metacafe
- radioblog
- wikipedia
- video
- rebelde
- mininova
- wiki
Pulling together interesting search trends and patterns requires Google's human and computing power together. Search statistics are automatically generated based on the millions of searches conducted on Google over a given period of time - weekly, monthly, and annually. With some help from humans, and a pigeon or two when they have time, these statistics and trends make their way from the depths of Google's hard drives to become the Google Zeitgeist report.
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