If you’ve lost your Google Chrome history and you’d like to avoid the frustration of having waste time trying to find those useful and interesting websites that you remember looking at, here’s how to back-up your history so it doesn’t happen again:

Enable Sync

Enabling sync on Google Chrome history copies your history (and bookmarks) to your other devices (where you’re logged into your Google account), thereby stopping you from losing it. To turn on sync:

– Open Google Chrome and sign in.

– In a new tab, go to the 3 dots (top-right) an select ‘Settings’ from the list.

– Click on “Turn on sync” and click yes to confirm.

Backup The History File

To backup the history file itself, so that Chrome automatically stores your browsing history in a MySQL database file on your computer so you can then store it in a secure location e.g., OneDrive or Dropbox:

– Open a browser and paste the following in (substituting your own username): C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default.

– Find the file in the list called ‘History’ and copy it and paste it into another secure directory/drive as a backup.

In this article, we look at how Zapier and other alternatives can be used to link apps together and create automated workflows that can carry out daily/weekly marketing tasks for you in the background while you get on with running your business.

Zapier

Zapier (https://zapier.com/) is a tool that can automate repetitive tasks between two or more apps, without any extra coding or human intervention being necessary. It is a way of automating workflows which tells your apps to follow this simple automated workflow command: “When this happens, do that” (known as the Zap), meaning that when an event happens in one app, Zapier can then tell another app to perform (or do) a particular action.

Zaps

Each Zap, therefore, has a trigger and one or more actions. The trigger is the event that starts a Zap, and an action is what the Zap does for you. When a Zap runs, each action it counts as one task.

Good For Certain Types of Tasks

Zapier works well for tasks that are needed frequently e.g., sending out weekly reminders as well as for any situation where information needs to be moved from one app to another e.g., adding tasks from a project management app into a personal to-do list app. Zapier also works well for the kind of tasks that don’t require much thinking e.g.  copying emails of events to spreadsheet or collecting emails from web forms on landing pages and adding them to audience lists in Mailchimp.

Working on Automated Tasks in the Background

The great thing about Zapier, therefore, is that it can be set to work on low level tasks (i.e. labour intensive but not necessarily complicated tasks) in the background, thereby freeing up valuable resources and saving time.

Templates and Customisable

Zapier users have access to templates, and actions are customisable.

Alternatives to Zapier

There are many different alternatives to Zapier in the market for automating workflows by linking apps.  Popular alternatives include Automate.io, IFTTT (free), Microsoft Flow, Integromat, CloudHQ, Actiondesk, Huginn, Workato, Elastic.io.  Each are more suitable for different types of work and have different levels of integration with apps.

Examples of What Can Be Done – Integrations

Here are some examples of what kind of automated workflow tasks (integrations of apps) that can be achieved with a few different alternatives to Zapier.

Integromat – https://www.integromat.com/

– With online ads, Integromat can be used to streamline what happens with leads from online advertising (i.e. after a lead form ad has been filled-in). Automated worklows can be set up to automatically add contacts to a CRM as leads or enrol them in an email or SMS drip campaign.

– Using a pre-defined template, each time a new tweet is posted on Twitter, Integromat can automatically publish a new post on LinkedIn.

– Every time a new review is added to your ‘Google My Business’ location, Integromat can automatically store it in Google Sheets.

– Each time you publish a WordPress post, Integromat can be used to automatically publish the new post on LinkedIn.

– Any mp3 audio files added to Google Drive can be automatically transcribed with Google Cloud Speech and the text saved to a Google Docs document.

– Every time a Google Doc is created, it can be automatically converted to an audio file via the Google Text-to-Speech API.

– Automatically reply to a ‘Google My Business’ review depending on the rating, with a personalised response.

– Automatically create a new meeting in Zoom every time a new event is created or updated in Calendly.

Leadsbridge – https://leadsbridge.com/

Leadsbridge offers highly specific integrations for advertising and marketing. For example:

– Sync Facebook Custom Audiences with your Zoho CRM.

– Linking ActiveCampaign and Hubspot together e.g., to create new HubSpot contacts in forms, or create new HubSpot companies in smart lists.

Automate.io – https://automate.io/

Great for integrating cloud applications and automating your marketing, sales and business activities.  For example:

– An integration to sync between Mailchimp and Shopify that can automatically subscribe customers to a particular list in Mailchimp and send targeted emails.

– Sending an email in Gmail on a Successful Sale in PayPal.

– Scheduling Salesforce events on Google Calendar.

– Sync new Stripe payments to QuickBooks as customers.

– Get Slack notifications for new tasks on Microsoft SharePoint.

IFTT – https://ifttt.com/

IFTT, short for ‘If This Then That’, offers different ways of connecting services using Applets.  For example:

– Create an event on your iPhone’s calendar using your Google Assistant (Amazon Echo).

– Make your Instagram photos show up in your Twitter feed as a full image rather than a link (for single photo posts).

Microsoft Flow – https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/

Microsoft Power Automate helps to streamline repetitive tasks and paperless processes. For example:

– Save all Outlook.com email attachments to a folder in your OneDrive, or save all Gmail attachments to Google Drive.

– Send an email when an item in a SharePoint list is modified.

What Does This Man For Your Business?

Zapier, Integromat, and similar platforms offer businesses the opportunity to save time and money, and make better use of their resources, and work smarter through automating workflow tasks so that they are carried out in the background. With these platforms, the existing templates mean that businesses don’t need technical expertise, APIs, custom scripts, or often unmaintainable solutions to be able to connect their different marketing tasks and get apps to communicate with each other in a way that can add value and possibly create sources of competitive advantage. At the very least, they can save a lot of time and effort and can help businesses to punch above their weight in terms of marketing processes and the level of in-house technical skills.

Vodafone has become the second big operator to announce the re-introduction of roaming charges in Europe for new and upgrading customers from January 2022.

New, Upgrading, or Changing After 11 August 2021

New customers of the network, those upgrading, and those changing their call plans after 11 August will qualify for the new daily charges for roaming in Europe. There will be no roaming charges for any Vodafone customers travelling to the Republic of Ireland.

How Much?

Depending on tariff, the charges will be £1 per day, with roaming passes for Vodafone’s Europe Zone priced at £8 for 8 days, £15 for 15 days, or £2 for just a single day pass.  Those with Unlimited or Limited Data Xtra plans won’t be charged.

Why?

Despite mobile operators originally saying, prior to Brexit, that they had no plans to re-introduce roaming charges, the Brexit trade deal from December 2020 gave UK mobile operators the ability to start charging again for roaming because, although the deal encouraged transparency reasonable rates, it didn’t impose a total ban on roaming charges.

What Are Roaming Charges?

Mobile operators apply roaming charges as a way of covering the costs of a mobile phone being used outside the range of its home network and connecting to another available ‘visitor’ network. Mobile operators have legal roaming agreements with other roaming networks that cover aspects like authentication, authorisation, and billing.

Half of Vodafone Customers Don’t Roam Beyond IRE

In the case of Vodafone, it says that roaming is a service that costs the company money, and that including it in every plan while fewer than half of its customers roamed further than the Republic of Ireland in 2019, means that half the customers are paying for something they don’t use anyway and are, therefore, paying for someone else’s roaming.

EE The First

UK operators have been allowed to introduce the charges since January 2021. However, they chose not to do so until recently, when EE broke ranks and started to charge. In June, EE became the first mobile operator that announced that for those who took out a pay monthly handset or SIM plan (from 7 July onwards), there would be a daily charge for using their mobile phone in what it defined as the “European roaming zone”. However, EE said the new roaming charges wouldn’t apply until January 2022.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The December Brexit deal gave the go-ahead for mobile operators to re-introduce roaming charges, probably because it simply encouraged operators to be transparent and reasonable with their rates rather than actually forcing them to, thereby leaving the door open for them to make a commercial decision. The fact that it currently only affects new and upgrading customers after a certain date and that the charges don’t come into force until next year has enabled EE and now Vodafone to soften the blow and limit the potential for negative publicity. After EE announced its re-introduction of roaming charges, Vodafone, Three and O2 said they ‘no plans’ to re-introduce the charges, so now that Vodafone appears to have changed its mind it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect that the others may follow.

On 12 August, the Poly Network DeFi platform announced that, following the theft of $610 Million in digital coins, the hacker thieves had returned $342 million. However, it’s been reported that more recently, almost all of the stolen crypto has now been returned.

The Hack

The original theft, which had taken place just two days before (10 Aug), saw hackers stealing an incredible $610 million in different cryptocurrencies from the Poly Network, a decentralised finance platform (DeFi) that facilitates peer-to-peer transactions.

Returned

After calls to return the stolen currencies, amazingly, the thieves decided to return just over half the next day (11 Aug).  The returned currencies were $3.3M of Ethereum, $256M of BSC, and $1M of Ploygon. Poly Network Tweeted that this has left $269M on Ethereum, and $84M of Polygon still outstanding.

How?

According to blockchain forensics company Chainalysis, the hackers were able to exploit a vulnerability in the digital contracts Poly Network uses to move assets between different blockchains.

For Fun & To Expose Security Issues

It has been reported that the (unknown) hackers have sent messages to say that the hack and theft were carried out for “fun” and to “expose the vulnerability”, and that it was always the plan to return the stolen currencies. There is also speculation that the hackers have (so far) returned most of what they stole because of the complications of trying to launder stolen cryptocurrencies on that scale because of the transparency of the blockchain, and the broad use of blockchain analytics by financial institutions.

DeFi Platforms

DeFi platforms, including the Poly Network, handled more than $80 billion worth of digital coins last year and are valued by people and businesses because they offer free access to financial services without having to go through the usual gatekeepers such as banks or exchanges and, therefore, help to cut costs as well as boosting economic activity.

Vulnerabilities and Previous Hacks

As highlighted by hackers in this recent $610 million hack, DeFi platforms tend to have technical flaws and weaknesses in their computer code that can make them vulnerable to attack.

For example, $530 million in digital coins was stolen from Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck in 2018. Also, the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox exchange, collapsed in 2014 after losing half a billion dollars in bitcoin.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

There have been more positive signals about cryptocurrencies in recent years since the last bitcoin crash (e.g. Tesla allowing customers to pay in Bitcoin – before changing their minds over its environmental impact), and PayPal (previously owned by Elon Musk) saying last October that it was ready to allow its users to buy, sell, and hold Bitcoin BTC and other cryptocurrencies.  This recent hack, however, highlights an area that has held back cryptocurrencies and their trading; i.e. technical vulnerabilities / security risks. The volatility and lack of stability of cryptocurrencies, and the negative environmental impact such as the vast amounts of (mainly fossil fuel) power needed for crypto-mining have also acted as deterrents to many potential users and investors. One key technology behind them, blockchain, has, however, proven to be very useful in many different other applications across many industries. Despite the problems that crypto-currencies are having now, their development and wider and continued use going forward seems likely, and more businesses will use them as the big security, instability, and environmental issues are ironed out over time.

In this article, we take a brief look at what Web accessibility is, and how it can benefit Web users and the businesses and organisations that make it a priority.

What Is It?

Web accessibility mean that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and made so that all people, regardless of their barriers, including those with disabilities can use them i.e., perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and contribute to the Web.

Barriers and Challenges To Web Accessibility

The main barriers and challenges to Web accessibility include physical challenges: auditory, cognitive, neurological, speech, visual, and physical barriers (motor disabilities).

Why?

Reasons for making websites, Web tools, and technologies as accessible as possible include:

– Reaching more potential customers and selling more.

– To support social inclusion; e.g. for those with disabilities, older people, and people in rural areas.

– Improving usability and offering better user experiences.

– Helping businesses in other ways by overlapping with other best practices; e.g. mobile web design, device independence, usability, design for older users, search engine optimisation (SEO), and more. Accessible websites tend to have better search engine results, reduced maintenance costs, and increased audience reach.

Examples

Examples (real-life and general) of ways in which Web accessibility can be improved include:

General:

Adding alt text to images to help people who use a screen reader, adding technologies such as speech input for those who can’t use a mouse, and providing transcripts to accompany audio.

Real-Life (Recent):

Twitter recently introducing its first proprietary, new fonts called ‘Chirp’ which are designed to make reading easier when scrolling through tweets. Twitter has also just changed its colour scheme to get more contrast and reduce the amount of blue elements across the interface, thereby making photos and videos easier to spot.

In Law

Web accessibility is covered by some legislation.  For example:

– In the UK: The Equality Act 2010 which says that it is unlawful for service providers to treat disabled people less favourably because they are disabled and that, under this law, service providers must make “reasonable adjustments” not to treat disabled people unfavourably because of factors relating to their disability.

– Also, in the UK, the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations came into force in September 2018. As the name suggests, public sector web sites (for central and government local government organisations, some charities, and some non-government organisations) must meet certain accessibility standards and publish a statement saying they have been met.

– In the rest of Europe: The European Union (EU) Directive on the Accessibility of Websites and Mobile Applications requires those in EU member states to ensure that their websites and mobile apps meet common accessibility standards.

– In the US: Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which stipulates that all Federal agencies’ electronic and information technology should be accessible to those with disabilities.

Guidelines

The recognised common standards for Web accessibility are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), developed through the W3C® process in cooperation with individuals and organisations worldwide. The goal is to provide a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organisations, and governments internationally. The WCAG 2.0 guidelines were published on 11 December 2008, WCAG 2.1 on 5 June 2018, and the latest WCAG 2.2 guidelines are scheduled to be published this summer.

Tools and Resources

Some tools and resources that can help your business or organisation to get up to speed with Web accessibility include:

The W3C® Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/

The W3C® Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/

TechRadar’s Best Accessibility Software of 2021: https://www.techradar.com/uk/best/web-accessibility-software

A UK Government Introduction to Making Your Service Accessible: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/helping-people-to-use-your-service/making-your-service-accessible-an-introduction

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

There are many sound reasons for making your website(s), tools, and technologies accessible to everyone, which includes helping to give those people with disabilities equal rights and abilities in their online life, compliance (with laws and guidelines), improving search engine rankings and usability, and maximising the potential number of online enquiries and customers. It is totally reasonable to expect that physical challenges, for example, should not be a reason why some people are excluded from accessing the same services and quality of experience online as others and businesses should make reasonable efforts to ensure that this doesn’t happen. Meeting accessibility guidelines can bring many different kinds of benefits to businesses as well as benefitting the users of their website(s), tools, and technologies.

Emojis can be a great tool for creating more engaging social media posts and more, so here’s a site where you can find and copy all the emojis you’ll need:

– To find the emoji you’re looking for:

– Go to https://emojipedia.org/.

– Type a name/description of the emoji required into the search field or select the category of emoji you’re looking for (left-hand column) or try the ‘Most Popular’ (middle column).

– Click on the category link and scroll down to find your emoji of choice.

– Click on the link to that emoji and click on the ‘Copy’ button. The emoji is now on your clipboard, ready for pasting.