On September 23rd, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that 19 companies had been ordered to stop writing fake online reviews. These companies were being hired to write fraudulant positive reviews on Internet services such as Yelp, Google Local, and CitySearch. These reviews appear to come from individual satisfied consumers. They were designed to convince potential customers that a business’s products or services are better than real reviews would indicate.

With over five-hundred website clients, including several Fortune 500 companies, Image Management (IM) has been making technology work for businesses in Racine for over twelve years. Image Management combines the latest website design trends with a compassion for the Racine community. “We’re not just a website service provider, but a partner for Racine-based companies,” states Claire Weslaski, President of Image Management.

Many business websites are the online equivalent of a phone book advertisement or a brochure: a straightforward sales pitch, designed to convert a single view into a phone call or an online sale. For some businesses, this is all that is practical or necessary. However, a website can do much more than that for your business. By drawing a regular audience to your website, you can generate lucrative, lasting relationships with your clients.

Over the years, clients with domains registered through Image Management have inquired about a particular letter received via mail. These letters typically come from “Domain Registry of America” (DRoA) or “Domain Renewal Group.” Image Management is not affiliated with these associations. These letters are falsified and a scam.

Johnson’s fountain, tween crowds at North Beach, tribute bands on First Fridays, summer has officially hit Racine. Summer is the season for relaxing, rejuvenating, and recharging. The weather is hot, the pools are open, and the school doors are shut.

At the birth of the World Wide Web, website designs were just that – static, unchanging pages of text connected to one another through “hyperlinks.” Eventually web development came to include images, sounds, and video, but their nature remained the same. When truly interactive features were necessary, website developers often created them for proprietary browser plugins like Java and Adobe Flash. This meant confining the most interesting interactive elements to a small box within the webpage.

For years, Apple has defined success with innovative product releases. What started with the iPod years ago rolled into a cultural phenomenon. But weighty competitors like Google and Microsoft have since upped the ante. They’ve thrown their own products, powered by Android and Windows 8, into the ring. A volatile market has never been more competitive. Now, Apple, the company that redefined branding, has the enormous challenge of branding itself all over again.

It was a snowy, blustery night on March 8th, 1999. I remember it vividly as I walked to the window of the Gateway Technical College classroom just minutes before 7pm as I was about to teach my Medical Terminology class. I recall peering out at a particular tree which was being blasted by the wind. I thought to myself, “What an awful night.” It was at that very moment some 250 miles northeast of me, that my only brother, Allen Saint John Weslaski, age 33, tragically died in a car accident.

Social networking can help a business large or small increase their public awareness, gain contacts, and get their business’ “face” out to millions. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are in a sense a modern concept of the six degrees of separation. A business can follow certain people or companies and those in turn can follow your company. Followers from all over the world can find your company. Being able to increase your viewing public without actually going to each individual person or business is a huge advantage for the modern company.

When it comes to Internet speeds, the country that created the Internet lags far behind much of the developed world. The United States has about an average 6.7 Mbps (Megabytes per second) download speed compared to a global average of 2.6 Mbps. South Korea leads with 15.7 Mbps, followed in order by Japan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and Latvia. One of the primary reasons for America’s poor performance is our obsession with wireless networks, which simply can’t compete with the speed of wired networks.