Uploaded on authorSTREAM by merkal2005authorSTREAM is a great website for those of you who wants to share and present your Powerpoint presentations online. The website allows you to publish and share your Powerpoint presentations. It also embeds your presentations and create a thumbnail If you want to post it in your own website or blog.

Whether you’re a blogger trying to promote yourself and your blog, a small business owner looking to communicate with your clients and staff, or just want to share your travel photos, you can use authorSTREAM completely for free.

You can make your presentations public or private. The good thing is authorSTREAM even converts them into a YouTube and iPod compatible version if you have met the criteria stated in this section when you created your presentation.

I signed up to authorSTREAM and built a presentation to test the website. I wanted to see how long it takes for the upload to be processed. It normally takes a few minutes (depending on your file size it may increase!) to upload your Powerpoint presentations. Currently you are limited to files up to 1GB size.

You’ll get an email when your presentation is uploaded. You will find a link to your uploaded presentation in that email. Or you can logon to your account and click on My Account and the Uploaded Presentations link to get a direct URL. You will also find your presentation as embedded which can be copied/pasted as HTML code to your blog or website.

Here is the authorSTREAM link to my presentation : The Story of SearchForBlogging.com

Conclusion:

I uploaded my presentation and within 10 minutes the view number reached to 23. If you are looking for alternative ways to promote yourself, your website or blog, then authorSTREAM could be a good platform for you. To get the most out of it, convert your presentations into a YouTube and iPod compatible version.

Today it is necessary for every problogger or small business owner to make some business cards because it’s a great promotional tool. It helps you to build your brand. Don’t think that it is not worth investing. It definitely is. If you still believe you don’t have enough money to spend on a business card, then here comes a very nice solution.

VistaPrint are offering 250 full color business cards. All you need is to pay for the shipment. You are allowed to customize the design of your business card as well. You may pick one of the 42 background design templates, and then enter your contact information. You may then place your order by paying the shipment fee. This is what i came up with by using the completely free service

If you never used a business card before, then you should evaluate this opportunity. You can hire a local printing agency and get 1000 business cards less than $100 as well. However, the VistaPrint Offer is great if you don’t have enough money in your pocket and start to build your brand from scratch. If you don’t need business cards, VistaPrint also offers a free rubber stamp, personalized notepad or 100 postcards.

Do you want simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools for your organization without the usual problems and cost?

If your answer is “Yes” then you should immediately check Google Apps–Google’s suite of hosted services for communication and collaboration–to make it easier for local businesses, educational institutions and organizations of all sizes to share information and improve their productivity.

The business that fails to plan plans to fail

Your small business will surely benefit from a clearly written business plan. According to my past experiences there are a few core reasons why every small business has to have a business plan :