Some of the large changes are:

• Now scales to 512 sim calls and 2000+ extensions
• Integrated text chat
• Improved MyPhone Portal & 3CX Assistant
• Improved IP Phone Management & provisioning
• New Call Center features
• New phones and gateways supported

Nick Galea, CEO of 3CX has also released a Video with release notes:

• FAX SERVER FIX for crash on numerous incoming faxes
• Restore procedure for prompts
• Fax configuration of files form the edit templates – fax over poroviders with Nat support
• Myphone bug in forwarding rules not showing.
• Improved call assistant Speed, performance, freezing issues fixed
• Fixed Install bug in Voip phone dll
• Italian prompt sets NEW
• Added VAD server components to the build
• Fix in call reporter and sql queries
• Voip providers added – G711 IE and voip voice IT

You can download RC3 here: http://www.3cx.com/downloads/3CXPhoneSystem8.exe

You can download the latest 3CX Assistant (with optionally integrated CRM and 3CXPHone) here: http://www.3cx.com/downloads/3CXAssistantSetup_80.exe

Getting Setup

Surprisingly enough, everything you need to do an automated backup of your 3CX system is included with the basic 3CX installation. What you may not know is that the 3CX Backup and Restore tool can be called with command line parameters so you that you can easily do a backup from a very simple batch file.

3CXBackup.exe

You can actually customize your backup to suite your needs. For example, you may only need to backup the configuration once a week or even once a month, but you may want CDR data and voicemails to be backed up every night. The different options available at:

• /callrecordings
• Backs up call recordings for extensions
• /voicemails
• Backs up stored voicemails
• /voiceprompts
• Backs up voice prompts and music on hold files
• /callhist
• Backs up call history tables from the 3CX database
• /exit
• Exit the 3CXBackup.exe program when finished

Using these parameters we can create a simple backup script and even have the backup file stored on a network share.

@echo off
echo Launching 3CX backup system…
"C:\Program Files\3CX PhoneSystem\Bin\3cxbackup" backup \\fileserver\backups\3CXBackup.zip /callrecordings /voicemails /voiceprompts /callhist /exit

Once you have this backup script you can then schedule the task using Windows’ Scheduled Tasks manager.

Remote Phones and SIP Trunks

Remote phones and SIP trunks use two sets of ports. The first port is used by the SIP protocol to establish the phone call and set up the communication. The SIP communication uses UDP 5060.

Once the SIP protocol has established the call, the audio portion of the call can begin. The audio portion of the call uses RTP to send the voice packets back and forth. Each call will require two ports to be available. Usually its recommended to forward UDP ports 9000-9049 to the PBX.

3CX Tunneling

3CX has a tunneling protocol built-in for use with the 3CX Softphone or for bridging machines together. This tunnel requires that a single port be forwarded. You will need to forward port 5090 with both UDP and TCP to your PBX server in order for the tunnel services to work properly.

Testing your setup

If you would like 3CX to test your firewall configuration, go to the 3CX Services and stop the 3CX Phone System Service and the 3CX Tunnel Service.Next, go to Settings, and Firewall Checker and let the tests run. If everything goes right, you should get a page of messages telling you if things are working properly or not. When finished, start the services back up again.

For Windows administrators who have been looking for a real native Windows application and have been disappointed in the few lackluster products that have been available, things are about to change.

Early this year 3CX released version 7 of their IP PBX software for Windows-based systems. Version 7 was a milestone for the 3CX product in terms of functionality and reliability but was just a little lacking in some features and endpoint support. Within the next few weeks, 3CX will be unleashing version 8 which is set to really put 3CX on the map with enhanced features and third-party hardware support.

Why is 3CX Important?

Other people can tackle the Linux versus Windows debate but the fact is that most small-medium businesses run Windows exclusively and there are many thousands of IT consultants out there that don’t know and don’t want to learn Linux. While products like trixbox CE certainly opened the world of business telephony to many, many people, a solid product like 3CX being available on Windows could turn out to be an even bigger game-changer.

Is 3CX the best IP PBX platform available? No, and nobody is claiming it is….yet. Other systems out there, from companies like Digium and Fonality, have a several year head start on 3CX and while version 7 has dramatically increased the acceptance level to many resellers and integrators, there has still been a few things lacking from it. Version 8, due out soon, addresses many of these issues and brings some the feature set much closer to competing solutions.

Taking a look at 3CX

3CX runs as a set of services and uses a web interface to configuring and manage the configuration. You can either use IIS or the Cassini web server that can be installed during the 3CX setup.

3CX uses the standard SIP protocol so it will work with most every third party VoIP phone that also speaks SIP such as phones from Polycom, Aastra, snom, Cisco, and Grandstream as well as SIP trunking services from companies such as Vitelity and Bandwidth.com.

While the interface may be a simple infinite-tree GUI, it is laid out well and in a logical order making it fairly simple to use with very little training.

3CX Assistant

From a user point of view there really isn’t anything interesting about a phone system. The one thing a user interfaces with is their phone, and even those aren’t that different between the different models that are available.  One thing that 3CX brings to the mix is the 3CX Assistant, a program that melds the desktop and the phone into one handy application.

The 3CX assistant is more than just an app that shows the status of other phones, it also lets you manage incoming calls, call other extensions, make outbound calls, see other people’s status, and chat with other people in the company.

The 3CX Assistant will become an essential productivity tool. While it may not be obvious at first, the more you use it, the more you will depend upon it. Being able to see when something is available or not, chat with them, and manage calls will change the way you interact with the other employees within your company.

No more calling people who aren’t at their desk or having to go through the hassle of sending an email when all you need is a quick answer to something, just chat. Why not just use Yahoo or Microsoft Messenger? Any company that has used an outside instant messenger service knows that inevitably friends and family members end up in employee’s buddy lists. Keeping chat constrained to business purposes helps eliminates those outside distractions.

Pricing

3CX licensing is based on simultaneous calls within the system and not on extensions like most other systems. This can make 3CX much more affordable than other commercial offerings. Inbound, outbound, extension to extension, and voicemail calls all count against the simultaneous calls counter. While this is rather unorthodox for a licensing model, it does mean that every version from the lowest Mini Edition to the largest Enterprise version all have the same identical feature set. There are no extra charges for call queues, bridged servers, conference rooms, or other higher end features that other systems charge extra for.

• Mini Edition (4 simultaneous calls) $350
• Small Business (8 simultaneous calls) $695
• Pro Business (16 simultaneous calls) $1,250
• Pro Business (24 simultaneous calls) $1,695
• Enterprise Business (32 simultaneous calls) $2,250
• Enterprise Business (64 simultaneous calls) $4,295
• Enterprise Business (128 simultaneous calls) $7,495
• Enterprise Business (256 simultaneous calls) $12,50

For more information and to download a free version (see comparison chart for features) for you to try out for yourself, go check out http://3cx.com.

Studiopress
Studiopress is a nice looking theme and is available in several different color pallets. StudioPress is a clean, AdSense-ready WordPress theme. It supports widgets and it comes with alternate comments styling and a customizable “Welcome” section on the sidebar.

Official Studiopress website: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/wordpress-themes/

GreenTech
Another nice theme from Daily Blog Tips is their GreenTech theme. GreenTech is a classic WordPress theme, with a cream background and details in brown and green. It is advertising ready, supports widgets and it comes with author comments and Feedburner integration. Advertising boxes in the right nav bar work well for graphics depicting pages such as About, Contact, Prices, Support, etc or can be used for advertising purposes.

Official Greentech website: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/wordpress-themes/

Yoghourt
This theme is very well designed and can look really good as a general business site with its nice section set aside for logo placement and should be pretty easy to modify for different colors.

Official Yoghourt site: http://web-kreation.com/index.php/freebies/

Fluid Yellow Black
I really like this theme and used it for a while on one of my other sites. Its fairly easy to customize and your logo can be put into the header easily.

Offical Yellow Black Site: http://www.skinpress.com/fluid-yellow-black-wp-themes/

Corporate
This theme can work well as a blog or business site and starts off with a nice clean interface that can easily be tweaked for your exact needs.

Corporate theme at wordpress.org: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/corporate

Artificial Intelligence
This is a very non-blog style design that could work well for certain businesses. It is updated with features for WordPress 2.7.

Official Website: http://ericulous.com/2007/02/09/wp-theme-artificial-ntelligence

Red Busines
This is another non-blog looking theme from ericulous.com with features added for WordPress 2.7.

Official website: http://ericulous.com/2007/01/13/wp-theme-red-business

Orange Web
And yet another one from ericulous, this is another non-blog looking theme and has also been updated with features for WordPress 2.7.

Official Site: http://ericulous.com/2006/12/22/wp-theme-orange-web-20

Grow Your Business
This is the theme used on this website. It works well and is pretty easy to modify for your own needs.

Official site: http://www.junpak.net/free-wordpress-themes/

Even though the basic tools of it are fairly simple, the rules are not. The system of SEO is continuously changing because the search engines are always working to develop better and more accurate ways of judging websites based on their content and relevance. Only few amateurs have the time to keep up with the evolution of SEO regulations in order to get the most out of their efforts. In fact, their lack of knowledge often leads to the opposite effect and leads to a de-indexed site. Here are some basic concepts of SEO.

Keywords

Effective use of targeted keywords in the content of a website or related articles is the most effective method of SEO today. The biggest mistake people make when employing these words is not choosing the correct set of targeted words or phrases.

Choosing the wrong keyword in optimising the website is the worst mistake you can make. The keywords that you target are what guide visitors to your site. Visitors that come to your site expecting one thing and finding another are counterproductive to your SEO efforts because you won’t make any sales, and they will begin a negative word of mouth campaign.

There is a fine line between effective density of keyword usage and overuse. The commonly agreed upon effective keyword density is about 5% per page. Some search engines permit a heavier density without penalty but Google is hard on offensive methods and will target a site that appears to be trying to manipulate their spiders.

Get your keyword in your title and all search engines take content and relevance into account when they are judging a website and your title should accurately match the content on the page. Using a keyword or phrase in your title goes a long way in making it match up and even makes your keywords carry more influence in the body of the text.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are factors that have been used and misused for as long as the Internet has been up and running. The combination of code and plain English often puzzles beginners in web design and they end up with a useless string of rubbish instead of a useful code to draw web crawlers for search engines. Always use your chosen keywords in your Meta tags and this will help to make them match your page content and gives them reliability with the search engines.

Use Press Releases

Press releases are effective tools to get the word out about your product, service, or information website. Understand the proper PR format and submit your press release to every available online and offline news source available. Always structure your press release in such a way that it provides genuinely helpful guidance so that news sources are more inclined to accept and print your submission.

Use Site Maps

Another tried and true method of SEO that has been around since the inception of the Internet are the use of site maps. These pages are easy to construct and will always guide the search engine crawlers effectively through your website and provide every chance for each page to be categorized on the search engine result pages.

Author: Mark Cijo Jn
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/some-basic-concepts-of-seo-686251.html

1) Keyword tag
A keyword is the beacon of keywords, but not for keywords. You can not just stuff this tag with keywords that your entire site is related. The tags must reflect the keywords only on that particular page, not the entire site and not all of the keywords you think your site could be searched. Also, you should not have more than 20 words in the tag. You should not repeat any word more than 3 times. If you sell tickets, for example, do not write: Broadway tickets, the circus tickets, hockey tickets, boxing tickets, and so forth. Do use Broadway, the circus, hockey, boxing, tickets and so forth.

2) Description tag
It is sometimes used as a replacement for or combined with a description tag. However, more and more people are using these keywords to stuff. Search engines like Google are interested in what is on the page. More specifically, what visitors can see. In my opinion, the abstract tag has no place on a site.

3) Description Tag
The idea behind this tag is to describe what the “page” is about. Keywords related to the page should be implemented as well. The limit on words should be 20 to 25. I see a lot of site owners stuffing this tag with keywords, or having a description that is just as long. Stay within these guidelines and you will be fine.

4) Title tag
This, I believe, is the most important tag. This is the first tag the search engine bed. He tells what the search engine of the “page” is about. Do not put your web address here. Do not add your company name at the beginning of this tag either. It should not exceed 60 characters.

5) Content
If you notice, I received comments on the relevance of the “page”, not your entire site. Each page has its own keywords. Tag the title tag, description and keywords. All these keywords should be the same. Add it to your content as well. Now your page should be fairly well optimized.

Why is it that the sites fall short? Simple, the content is not optimized. Search engines are, for the most part, pretty basic. You enter a search term and it retrieves sites containing those terms while also taking a number of other factors into account. So if your site does not have these terms, how will you find it? You will not. More to do with keywords and you will experience the same result, but for different reasons. Sometimes, while reading about SEO can be bad. Try too many tricks, tips or methods is like too many cooks spoil the soup. At the end, they may do more harm than good. These rules are very easy to be followed by all. And the doubt? Always consult or hire a professional SEO Expert.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/5-mistakes-with-doityourself-seo-366358.html

About the Author:

Author: Sonu Seo

SEO Expert presents Seo Services that means the webmaster does not attempt to deceive search engines. SEO Services means playing by the rules. The web pages that are created by SEO Expert with white-hat SEO methods are beneficial to the Internet, search engines and clints.

Are you focusing your search engine optimization efforts on getting tons of traffic from the search engines? If you answered yes, then I am about to tell you something completely different from other Internet Marketers. Forget about getting tons of traffic from the search engines.

Get LESS traffic that converts MORE!

The Secret to Turning Keywords into Conversions is to Keep Your Keywords Focused For example, if your site sells an all-natural remedy for acid stomach problems… You start to do your keyword research and you discover that the keyword phrase “natural remedies” has 288 daily searches. But it has over 2,000,000 sites competing for it. While the phrase, “acid reflux natural remedies” has 67 daily searches with just over 11,000 competing sites.

Do you want to spend all your time and effort trying to optimize your website for the first keyword phrase? You may get more searches, but you’ll never know how many of those searchers want to buy your stomach acid remedy. Not to mention the HUGE number of competitors the keyword has!

Or would you go for the second term, which only has 67 people searching for it — knowing those 67 people are looking for EXACTLY what you offer? And, it has a MUCH lower competition number to boot! Obviously, the second term is better! Sure, you might get less traffic — but the visitors you DO get will be MUCH more likely to buy your product.

Why You Will Make More Money with Less Traffic That Converts

More People search the Internet to find a solution to a problem and not necessarily to buy something. So what problems will they solve by coming to your website? Think of a keyword as a “problem statement” that someone would type into the search engines. When you can match your keywords to the exact problems they’re trying to solve. You’ll attract the BEST visitors to your site so you can focus all your optimization efforts on them!

Here are some more keyword research tips that will help you turn keywords into conversions. Top Search Engine Optimization Tips for Finding Highly Focused Keywords That Will Bring the Absolute Best Buyers to Your Website:

- Check your server logs. See what keyword phrases people are actually using to find your site. If there’s something relevant that you’ve overlooked, build a page focused on that keyword phrase. Also look for keywords that are causing people to leave right away because they’re not finding what they’re looking for. Ditch those keywords immediately.

- Look for “intention.” Say you sell cross-country ski equipment. People can come to your website looking for different things.

For instance: * They’re looking to buy a specific product * They’re looking for product reviews * They want information on how to get started in cross-country skiing * They want used or discount equipment * They want to know what kind of equipment will be best for them * They want to know what’s new and hot in cross-country ski equipment Same products — far different intentions!

If you optimize a page (or pages) for each different problem people are trying to solve, you’ll give them what they’re looking for. That means they’ll stay on your site longer — and you’ll have a better chance of getting them into the sales process.

- Check out your competition. What keywords are your competitors optimizing for, and on what pages? You can spy on them by going to their websites and looking at their code! In your web browser, just go to View on the main menu and click on Source or Page Source to “look under the hood” of any competitor’s site. Then you can see what they’re doing right and what you could do better.

- Find your best keywords with pay-per-click advertising. This is the fastest way to find out just how well different keywords perform. Pay-per-click lets you run ads based on two or three different keywords at the same time. This enables you can track which ones convert best. Make sure the ads click through to pages that relate directly to the keywords.

Focus your SEO efforts on the specific keywords that describe EXACTLY what problem each page solves. Don’t be tempted by more general keywords with higher traffic numbers. They’ll never send you the traffic you want. Follow these search engine optimization tips and you will turn keywords into conversions.

About the Author

Derek Gehl helps over 1.8 million Internet business owners per month create incomes of $100,000 to $2.5 MILLION or more per year. Now you can discover the exact roadmap – broken into 6 easy-to-follow steps – that Derek uses to make money on the Internet in record time with minimal investment at: http://www.marketingtips.com/tipsltr.html?s_cid=PRLEAD

You may have heard that search engine rankings are crucial – and this
is the truth. If your website ranks well in Google, MSN and Yahoo then
you are exposed to the greatest pool of Internet traffic available. These
search engines together drive over 90% of search market share.

But how to get this rank ? Let me show you very clearly , “How to
rank 1 in search engines in 12 proven steps!”

First , create a text file on your computer and name it analysis.

Step 1: Go to the search engine on which you want high
ranks.

Step 2: Search the term you are targetting. Example
if you want to rank high for “SEO”, then search for it.

Step 3: Look at the number one sites title that the
search engine is showing you . Count the number of times your search words
appear in it. Add this number to your “Analysis” file.

Step 4: Count the number in the description provided
by the search engine. Add this number also to your “Analysis”
file.

Step 5: Visit the site and count the number of times
the term appears there and Add this number to your “Analysis”
file. Don’t forget to count the number in the META DESCRIPTION tag also!

Step 6: Type the URL of that site in the search with
link attribute. Example if www.mydomain.com is number one , then search
for “link:http://www.mydomain.com”. The search engine will show
you the number of other websites that are linking to that site. Add this
number to your “Analysis” file.

Step 7: You can also add the same data for the second
and third results in search.

Step 8: Open your page which you want to get ranks for
in your favorite html editor. Most of the html commands are inbuilt and
I don’t have to bang my head with HTML codes when I am trying to concentrate
on page optimization.

Step 9: Modify your title tags , meta tags so the number
of times keywords appear is just one higher than the number in the analysis
file . Do the same for the BODY of your page. Enclose the keywords in
BOLD tags and sometimes in both BOLD and ITALIC tags .

Step 10: If you have lot of text on the page, then divide
it into paragraphs . Before every 2 or 4 paragraphs add a HEADING tag.
Don’t forget to squeeze in your keywords in this tag! You can use style
sheet to make the heading look better on your page. Example <H1 style=”font-size:
20px”> will reduce the size of the text in heading to 20 px instead
of displaying the ugly large heading . Replace < with < Replace
> with > in the code above .

Save and upload this page to your website .

Step 11: Get your site indexed by search engines . You
can submit a sitemap to google directly at http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login.
Google wants a XML map which is also indexed by other search engines.
Generate this map for your site and submit to google. For other search
engines link this map from your website’s pages. But the XML version is
not for human visitors who will be visiting your site. So create a HTML
version for them and link this from all your pages. It will use your XML
map and create a HTML map from it , count the number of pages on your
site, link to all, divide them in categories and also links to your XML
map for search engines. Best part it also allows you to add your own website
templet so your visitors know that this is the same site. Providing a
sitemap will help you get your site indexed faster. Google says that you
can have 50,000 pages listed in one single sitemap of yours.

Step 12: Start building links for your site. You can
do this by submitting your site to web directories. The more sites link
to you, the better it is. Remember you have to cross the LINK number in
your analysis file. Most directory owners will cancel all your links if
you submit twice to their directory.

Now keep checking your back links frequently in the search engines .
You can use MSN to get the best idea. Search at http://search.msn.com

Some would suggest that you need to submit your site to search engines
but that is totally unnecessary because the back links will keep bringing
search engines to your site again and again. With each visit , they will
index more pages of your site .

You must also link to quality sites as this tells the search engines
that you are providing your visitors a useful resource and your site must
be important enough to refer a quality site .

Best of luck for your site . Always remember , “Write for human
visitors and not for search engines.”