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Creating images with transparent backgrounds using freely downloadable software

FREEBIE: We thought we’d share this demonstration video with you because it is very handy when working with images for your website.

GIMP is an open source image editing program that gives you very powerful functionality for editing images. Get to know a little about this program and you won’t need to struggle with Paint or pay for Adobe professional image editing software. This video is one of the free videos in our online WordPress training course.

You’ll want to use this when you want your logo to appear in a WordPress website. There’s nothing quite so unprofessional as a logo with a white rectangle background behind it.

Enjoy. If you receive this information via email and cannot see the video, click on the title to read this at our blog site.

 

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Another 11 training videos about image editing, featured images and WordPress premium themes

WordPress online training course

NEWS FLASH: Yet another 11 training videos have been added to our WordPress Training Course!

Only recently we announced the addition of 23 new training videos for our online WordPress training course and that is only shortly after the launch of our exciting new website design and blogging course. Why are we populating this course so vigorously? Because we are working with 3-4 students who are building their live sites right now using the content of our course, everytime they come across a stumbling block, we solve it and create more content for our online course. LIFETIME student membership means that you get access to all these new training videos at no extra charge EVER.

This time we’ve focused on teach you how to work with images to get a really professional looking website using a featured slider. We’ve provided  great sources online for royalty free images, show you how to get images in just the right size for your website AND get the featured slider working with our recommended premium themes.

Here the video list and if you are an existing student you can simply click on the link, login and get straight to the new learning resources:

If you are not a student yet, but you want to learn more visit our website dedicated to our WordPress online training course.
Remember that you can subscribe to these blog/news posts by visiting our blogsite at www.ezylearn.com.au/wordpress.
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We’ve just added 23 training videos to our online WordPress Training course

NEWS FLASH: If you are an existing WordPressCourse.com.au student you’ll be thrilled to hear that we have created and made available 23 new videos about becoming an expert in WordPress. These new videos are available to you at no extra charge and they are part of our growing range of WordPress, Google and Social Media topics that are coming shortly.

The topics we have covered in this videos includes:

  • Blogs, Posts and RSS Feeds
  • File Management and File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
  • Website Statistics and Google Analytics
  • Backing up your website
  • Features of Elegant Themes Premium Themes
  • Social media and commenting
Nareev Bhatt was one of Australia’s top bloggers back in 2009 and he and other top bloggers like Karen Cheng use a simple website with Google Feedburner to deliver their news to anyone who wants to read it. This course will show you how to have your own newsletter using your WordPress Blog and FeedBurner.

This video from Channel 10 in 2009 explains how three popular bloggers make a lot of money by working from home.

 

 

Read more about our WordPress Training Course and join in to take advantage of our current prices and LIFETIME student access

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Navigating the EzyLearn Online Training Site

Come on a short journey to learn how to navigate the EzyLearn Online Training website. We’ll take you on a quick tour so you know what to expect as a student when you start your training with us. You’ll see one of the great benefits of joining and having at your disposal a learning resource for the rest of your working life.

Your student administration area enables you to quickly jump from course to course if you wish and the bread-crumb menu at the top gives you complete knowledge of which course you are in and gives you the ability to get back to your home page and course outline.

Take a look at our popular online Courses in MYOB Accounting, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and WordPress website design and blogging: http://ezylearnonline.com.au/courses/

Here’s the video on how to navigate our training website.

 

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How valuable are words?

It seems that Google has brought back the magic of words. Why? Because they can be indexed and used in search results.

Can you index an image or a video? You can, but you need to index them using words.

You can find almost anything on Google but you need to use words to do it. When you click on a paid Google Adwords advertisement its usually due to the words the advertiser used to catch your attention. If you want to improve your Google organic search ranking you need to use the right “key”words on your website, they call that Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO).

Keywords, SEO, marketing, Google Adwords, resumes

Can someone in the Phillipines, India or Eastern Europe Write Like You?

You might be aware of the value of words these days because you need this skill to be effective in marketing your business online. The role of the copywriter is often undervalued because you can now hire someone in the Phillipines, India or Eastern Europe to write the content of your website or blog for a couple dollars per hour, but would you? After testing out individuals, copy-writing services and other international contracting companies we realise that the quality of the words we use and the ability to relate to other Australians is something only another Australian can truly do effectively. With all the talk about workers in developing countries taking jobs away from Australian workers, we realise that it’s their knowledge of Australian lingo, Australian tastes and Australian attitudes that makes their writing style truly Australian – and that makes it valuable to other Australians.

Work at Home

There is a way of getting good quality words for your website or blog for a reasonable price and that is by using a Virtual Assistant (sometimes called a remote worker, home worker or a remote contractor). There are some great writers out there who choose to work from home and if you use the services of an organisation like Virtually Yours you’ll find top quality writers and remote contractors with many other skills that are part of an organisation designed to find good virtual assistants and promote them as well as provide them with tools to be effective small business owners.

While we are on the topic I want to share the success of Terry from Ramancorp. He operates a small wholesale business supplying a range of framing, hanging, display and packaging materials and he lists them all on his website. Because he has gone to the trouble of providing as much information as possible he uses some very niche words that attract customer looking for the exact product they need. As a result Terry is getting a good amount of NEW customers EVERY month without having to pay a cent in Google Adwords advertising.

Words are Valuable in Resumes, Website and LinkedIn

Words are just as valuable in your resume so the next time you think about what kind of job you are looking for, think about the words that the advertiser might use to attract the right candidate and make sure your resume has these words in it.

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EzyLearn Provides Online Microsoft Excel Course for Bookkeepers Institute

Institute of Certified Bookkeepers - online Microsoft Excel Training CourseAs an Accredited Training Provider for the Institute of Certified Bookeepers, we are proud to provide our online Microsoft Excel course to the institute as part of their Professional Development Program.

Along with all levels (beginners to advanced), members of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers also receive the LIFETIME Membership and other benefits that come with being an EzyLearn student. Microsoft Excel is a perfect companion for accounting programs like MYOB Accounting.

For more information about EzyLearn Online Microsoft Excel course, please visit our Excel course website.

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Microsoft Excel Online Training Course: LIFETIME Student Access & Start Tomorrow

Common Questions for Computer Courses

Can I repeat the course if I don’t remember everything that is taught?

This was a common question that came up when we had our three Sydney based training centres. To make it easier for students we offered Free Repeats so that students could come back and learn the skills again. We then created training videos to complement our workbooks and in 2006 we closed our last training centre to focus on Online Computer Training Courses.

Can I start the Microsoft Excel course this week? I have Mondays and Wednesdays available.

This is a question about timing scheduling your calendar for an available course and we overcame this by recording the content of our classroom Microsoft Excel and Office training sessions as screen based videos so that students could come and visit whenever THEY had the time, not when WE scheduled the courses.

Online Microsoft Excel and MYOB training courses

With Broadband Internet and fantastic new learning technology we are able to delivery Microsoft Excel Training to you via our online course. This means you can enrol today and start by 5pm tomorrow. It also means that you can progress through the training course at your own pace using a combination of training video tutorials, training workbooks with exercise files and knowledge reviews to test your skills.

Who uses EzyLearn for Microsoft Excel Online Training courses?

Government departments, insurance companies, private companies and home users all use EzyLearn Online Computer Training courses. We recently interviewed a corporate training customer to find out why and this Case Study reveals how a leading energy reverse auction company, Energy Action, used EzyLearn’s Microsoft Excel training to manage the large amounts of data they receive to save their customers tens of thousands of dollars in energy costs: Energy Action Case Study

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Work at home managing customer’s WordPress websites? Introducing the WordPress Online Training Course!

WordPress is used as a Content Management System (CMS) for millions of small business websites around the world. WordPress is like the Microsoft Word for Websites and we have a course that will teach you how to use it as a blogger, article and news writer all the way up to a WordPress administrator. In fact at the end of this course you will learn enough to get your own website up and running as well as help others create and maintain their own website.

The best part of this course is that it entitles you to the EzyLearn LIFETIME membership feature, so when we update it with new content about marketing your website you can access the new information for no extra cost. For more information and to enrol, visit our WordPress course website.

What’s included in our WordPress Online Course (you can click these links if you are an existing student):

WordPress Pages and Posts

Administration Privileges and Settings

With Administrator priveleges you are now able to affect global aspects of your websites appearance. You can also arrange the website layout and user access permission.

Design options and Themes

Background colours, and header images are just the beginning. Learn to install free and premium themes and then customise them using widgets, plugins, custom menus and RSS newsfeeds

Website Hosting Control Panel – email

Your website hosting control panel provides you with stats about your website usage, but most importantly your email and other applications. Learn how to manage your email accounts and email access.

Blogs, Posts and RSS Feeds

We have all the training videos and they will be uploaded shortly (no extra cost for you to access). Syndication gives you the power to be many places at once. When you write a blog that article can be made to appear in your readers inbox, on other websites and of course at your blog.

Google have a range of tools to help you gain exposure on the world wide web and one of these tools is called Feedburner. This tool will enable you to have your own email list subscribers attached to your blog.

Can I make my own site?

Yes. We’ve thought of that too. When you enrol for the Online WordPress course, choose the option that provides you with a student website hosting account.

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EzyLearn’s Excel Course: Helping Energy Action Show Savings in Energy Cost and Consumption

IN THESE TIMES OF GLOBAL WARMING the need for businesses to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions has never been more important.

Australian company, Energy Action, prides itself on helping businesses reduce energy usage and save money. Energy Action provides an innovative flagship service it terms the ‘Australian Energy Exchange’ through which energy suppliers can competitively bid against one another for the supply of an organisation’s energy. With a best-fit contract usually secured in only 15 minutes, more than 5000 businesses have now partnered with Energy Action to maximise their energy savings, culminating in more than $5 billion worth of energy contracts.

Energy Action provides their clients with quality monthly reports showing clients’ energy demand, power factor, load factor, energy consumption, emissions and more. Their daily monitoring flags when clients’ demand targets are approached or exceeded.

Microsoft Excel Online Course 308 - pivot table value field settings
Microsoft Excel Online Course 308 - pivot table value field settings

Read how Energy Action staff learnt about Pivot Tables and Charts, Conditional Formatting, VLOOKUP and much, much more to provide a higher level of knowledge to their customers: Energy Action Case Study

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MYOB Training Course: Dedicated video tutorial server

Are you happy with your current skills?

Do you like to learn new things?

We’re the same. We love to come into contact with new software and internet technology and anything that will help us to remain a market leader in online MYOB training. We also like to receive feedback (positive and negative) from our students so we know what we are doing well and what we can improve on.

Recent feedback has been about the navigation around our online training video tutorials. These videos are full audio visual demonstrations using the software, just like you would expect in a training classroom using a data projector.

With online training video tutorials you can go over our material again and again until you understand it. You can also go over it in the future when you come across a problem you need some help with. Combine it with our step-by-step training exercises and knowledge reviews and you have a complete learning solution.

So, what’s the news?

[box] We’re putting all new content and upgraded training course materials onto a new dedicated video hosting server![/box]

What does this mean?

It means that the videos are hosted on a separate service to the learning course so that both will operate much faster. All new training videos will also have a navigation panel and the ability to scroll through the video to the place you want to be and finally you’ll be able to expand the video so that it takes up your entire screen.

What the video below to see what we mean.

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How-To Guides: Writing a killer resume?

Example of a Resume CVIf you are like a lot of students who enrol into our online MYOB and Excel training courses you probably haven’t used your CV in quite a while. I had a situation in 2008 when I needed a CV for a project I was presented with and it was a time consuming task which took a lot longer than I expected.

We’ve been talking to a man who operated his own head-hunting business and he has plenty of experience in not only presenting himself to potential employers, but also as a person who reads resumes, and conducts interviews on a day to day basis.

We also spoke to a professional writer and a rehabilitation consultant and they will share their insights as well as provide tips on how to write the perfect resume, prepare for job interviews, write cover letters and much more. Their team even includes a professional bookkeeper who will share insights about how to find work as a bookkeeper.

These career professionals are team members of our training partners, Workface, and you can read their job seekers blog as well as subscribe so you receive the tips via email.

One of the tid-bits that I can reveal is the importance of personalising every resume so that the recipient feels like you are talking only to them. Subscribe to their blog and get some great job seeking skills.

Want to read other blog posts about resume writing and tips and tricks to find employment?

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Selling horse feed in the internet age

We’re in the internet age whether we like it or not. Our internet connection is as valuable to us now as our power supply and our telecommunications and it’s important to have a website if you are in business. In this post I want to introduce you to a small operation in King Island in Tasmania. A company that sells Kelp is learning how to play the internet game and best of all you can learn with them.

Kelli has a WordPress website hosted with 123ezy and we are building our WordPress and Webmaster Course around her growing internet presence. To start with we have created some elementary training videos about the navigation around the WordPress themes and what different parts of the website are called. We’re learning about themes, header images, menus and widget just to get started. As we progress we’ll be talking about Pages vs Posts, tags and categories, working with images, Search Engine Optimisation and much more.

We’ve included our Introduction to WordPress video below so if you are reading this on your phone, click on the heading to get to our Blog page where you can watch the full video.

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MYOB Training Course: We’ve identified problems

MYOB online training course knowledge reviewsDon’t be alarmed, but we have identified problems. We’ve conducted some GAP analysis on our processes and realise that it is taking too long for us to assess the results of knowledge reviews.

There are always ways that we can improve our business and the best way of finding out is by feedback from students who’ve actually completed the course. Like all good businesses we try hard to get better at what we offer and how we offer it and I’ve taken measures to ensure that our assessment issue is rectified immediately!

Stay tuned for news about an addition to our team to handle student knowledge review assessments for the EzyLearn MYOB Course Certificate. We pride ourselves on having a very popular online MYOB training course that you can enrol into today and start by 5pm the next business day and now we are aiming to bring down the time for completion of assessment so that you can have your course completed, assessed and a certificate issued within 2 weeks. That’s our next goal.

We’ve had some great feedback from students AND we are also listening to what they think we can improve. Here are some of the comments we’ve received from our MYOB online training students when asked about the best parts of our MYOB course:

“…goes into fine detail of all aspect of MYOB”

Sammar Kamar from Victoria

“Liked the fact that I could know if I got the question right or wrong immediately.”

Phillip Sayce from Queensland

“..the convenience of being able to do it in your own time”

Keira Page from New South Wales

“It is all really good I couldn’t pick (the best parts) if I tried. I have tried to use MYOB in the past but it never made sense to me. But after doing your course it makes more sense. Thanks”

Linda Matanovic from Queensland.

Read what other students have to say about our online MYOB training course.

The next improvement on our list is adding more detailed content to our Payroll Course. Oh, and you probably might already be aware, but existing students will have access to this new content for no extra charge because of our new LIFETIME student memberships that come with each course.

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MYOB Online Course Videos — Creating Customer Cards

Click on the heading to view the image or video if you are receiving this via email.

Creating customer cards in MYOB is easy! To enter a new customer, simply click on ‘New’; this will bring up a new window.

It’s also simple to edit customers here. Say you want to change postal or contact details, simply click on ‘Customer’ and hit ‘Edit’.

You will note that MYOB gives you a choice in the designation section to enter a company or an individual. All customer entries are stored alphabetically so make sure if you are entering an individual you use their last name first.

You use the tab key as a shortcut to go through all the fields.

A handy hint: When a customer has a longer address, such as a unit number or a Suite number, hold the Control Key and press ‘Enter’ for a second line.

Also, if you have tabbed past a field you need, simply hold the Shift Key and hit the ‘Tab’ key to go up to the field above.

Video Reference: 501204

Link for existing students: http://myobcourse.com/elearning/mod/resource/view.php?id=359

For information about our Online MYOB Training Course and new Lifetime Membership for all students, please visit: www.studymyob.com.au

Please feel free to send your comments about this video to: sales@ezylearn.com.au

 

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Want to work at home for EzyLearn?

remote contractor and virtual assistant group

remote contractor and virtual assistant groupWe are building the Remote Contractor network of work from home contractors and at the same time, we are recruiting for online marketing consultants. You don’t have to be an expert though, simply go searching through Australian job forums, social networks (on Facebook) and comments on Twitter accounts where you think it would be good to mention EzyLearn’s online courses.

All you need to do is open up and Excel spreadsheet, and copy and paste the hyperlinks of website forums and social networks (like facebook groups) into each row of the spreadsheet.

We’ll go through the list you create and if it looks like a good list, and we pick you as an EzyLearn online marketer, we’ll pay you to inform the Australia jobseekers about our online courses. Simple.

Have any questions? Send an email to Richard at sales@ezylearn.com.au.

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What does a webmaster look like? Could you be one?

Learn how to use Wordpress and social media training course

Learn how to use WordPress and social media training courseIf you mentioned the word Webmaster 5 years ago you would imagine someone slightly geeky, who drinks cola, has thick rimmed glasses and talks incessantly about the latest technology and gadgets. Things have changed. The technology used to create websites was the domain of nerds who enjoyed writing code and getting dirty with technology using programs like FrontPage, DreamWeaver, Flash etc, but now it’s the domain of staff members, marketing people and remote contractors (Virtual Assistants who work from home). Why has it changed?

The most significant aspects of website design are:

  • The template (or theme) that’s used including colour scheme, branding and navigation
  • The  images and copy (text) used to fill the site
  • Promoting and marketing the website

Modern day Content Management Systems like WordPress, Joomla and even older ones like Drupal make everything much easier and here’s why:

  • Thousands of designers create templates that you can purchase for $20 to $300
  • Once a template or theme is designed and setup the content management is the same (just like using Microsoft Word)
  • Writing articles, creating extra pages and adding to your navigation becomes as easy as selecting a check box and picking a category.

So is it really something that you could do?

wordpress themes included in Webmaster course
wordpress themes included in Webmaster course

Have you heard about WordPress, Google, Facebook and Twitter? Can you use your computer to access your email, do internet banking and accessing other online services? Have you heard about or used PayPal? If you have, then you are at least familiar with some of the tools used by a modern webmaster. Combining these new online marketing tools and WordPress CMS driven websites you can get busy and start creating.

The Internet, smart phones, cloud computing and VoIP are making the world a smaller place and allows people to work from home but still remain digitally connected. There has been a significant shift towards remote contracting (virtual assistants) and the concept of mums working from home is now commonplace.

If you want to come on the Webmaster journey with EzyLearn we have the WordPress course. It’s a step-by-step system of setting up, creating content and images, building the contents and then promoting your own business using all the tools we’ve mentioned in this blog post. Best of all you’ll have an internet guru educating and coaching you each step of the way until your website is complete so not only will you have your own website and tools to promote it, but you’ll have the skills to promote yourself to other businesses and help them with their website management.