Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
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10 Tips for Twitter Awesomeness
Feb 2nd
Every once in awhile I get together with a bunch of friends where I get asked about the secret sauce of social media domination.
But the truth is, there’s no real secret sauce other than you really need to treat twitter less like a vending machine for attention and more like a venue for finding more people to talk to about the things you love.
I have a primer presentation that I give to clients called The 5 C’s of Social Media Engagement which tries to present a formal framework for social media activities to pursue. But if you really just get some basics down, you’ll be on your way to some Twitter Awesomeness.
So here’s a bunch of tips I recently shared when asked what they should be doing on Twitter. Take a look. . .
Here’s this month’s 10 TIPS FOR TWITTER AWESOMENESS: Read the rest of this entry »
How To Optimize Your YouTube Videos Online
Sep 16th
By the time you finish reading this post, over 48 hours of new video content has been uploaded to YouTube.com — that’s a lot of videos each and every minute, day after day.
So the question quickly becomes, how do you make your videos stand out from the crowd?
The first answer is the make sure each video you upload is nice to look at and good enough to pass along. The actual video quality matters.
YouTube has wised up and added one feature I’ve long said they need to give casual users like you and me who want to upload periodic videos to the site. They’ve finally added an EDIT capability. Yea!
Now, you can do some *very basic* video quality optimization so that your iPhone vids get a little polish before others see them online. The video stabilization feature is one of the most interesting options so that your shaky camera footage calms down a bit during playback.
I’d love for YouTube to add features like Animoto offers so that you can go to YouTube as a one-stop-shop for actually creating and editing your work and then publish online all in one spot. But till then, we’ll take whatever we can get that helps us share better quality videos…for at least some of that 48 hours of new content, minute after minute of the day.
7 Secrets of a Social Media Maverick for Creating Killer Content on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr
Jun 18th
Today we have a guest post from a social media manager colleague of mine, Tim Cox.
I asked him what are some of the fundamental approaches that he believes separates newbies and mavericks on the various social media platforms. Enjoy his 7 social media management tips!
___________________________________________________________________________
On my personal accounts, I hide a lot of Pages on my Facebook Newsfeed.
I even created a video documenting how to hide those annoying Mafia Wars and FarmVille updates on Facebook.
If you visit the actual video landing page on YouTube, you will find that the comments section makes it sound like I just cured malaria.
Getting such rich interactivity isn’t that hard if you have some key insights and intentionality in how you manage your social media presence.
This below, is the actual video example I wrote about above — you can hop over to the YouTube page if you want too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBxXetlR3x4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Being great at posting content just takes a little bit of extra effort. . .
Here are some tips to help you create exiting new content for your next post.
Blogging On My iPad with Blogsy App
Jun 12th
One of the biggest challenges in becoming a successful blog author and publisher is to figure out ways of integrating that actual sitting down and writing a blog post into your daily workflow.
And usually, producing posts take longer than your really think it will take, at least when you’re first starting out – mostly for the little things that add up like formatting, making sure you have appropriate graphics or photos accompanying each posts, etc.
This is why with my coaching clients, we spend a lot of time upfront trying to reduce the friction in getting things out of the blogger’s head and into the computer. If you can solve that ongoing battle for your time and attention’ you are in a for a great blogging experience. The question is just how can you do that?
So I was very happy to hear about the Blogsy app for iPad the other week. The developer was kind enough to let me take the app for a spin for this review and so far I’m impressed.
This just might do the trick for my writing praxis while I am out and about with my iPad.
Out of the gate, there are a couple of things I really appreciate about the Blogsy app. Here are 3 of them:
- You can easily search for video/images on Flickr, Picassa, YouTube, or even search on the web for images — all right from inside the app. This is a huge time saver since on the iPad, you would normally have to jump out of the app, launch a new one, find the image or video, copy paste the copy for it and then go back to the writing application. You don’t understand the convenience until you do it yourself with Blogsy.
I do wish Blogsy supports Vimeo soon. It seems like it is on the to-do list to add for new capabilities by the developer. But at least you can use the in-app browser to go to vimeo.com and grab the HTML embed code.
- You can manipulate any inline embeded image and video size via pinch and zoom. Again, one less hassle which actually takes advantage of the iPad platform touch screen controls.
- Multiple blogs support. Anyone that is a serious bloger is more likely to have multiple blogs. Having access to all of them from one app is a treat. . .especially when I am on a trip, I won’t have to consider bringing my laptop or not. This makes my iPad just that more productive while I am traveling or out of the office for extended periods of time.
Blogsy just got updated to version 2.0 this week, and I have seen a couple of crashes, but I assume these will be addressed in the coming weeks by the developer.
I have written a couple of drafts already in Blogsy, but this is my first live blog posting by the actual Blogsy app itself.
I will be blogging more about Blogsy 2.0 and beyond as I continue to use it, especially on an upcoming international trip where I will certainly ditch my laptop for the iPad (actually, with TeamViewer, I will be able to use my laptop on my iPad remotely just in case, but that is another blog post).
Are you a blogger with an iPad? How do you write and publish blog posts on your iPad? Please leave a comment below!
How To Create A Custom Mosaic Background for Twitter Profiles
Mar 26th
These days, you need to stand out in the crowd. On Twitter, that means showing others you know what you’re doing and fully embracing the Twittersphere.
But how do you do that?
One small way is to install a custom backdrop for your Twitter profile page. Some people use wallpapers, screenshots, photos, etc.
Then recently, I thought — Would it be cool if I could really tap into the social network and create an awesome mosaic image made up of all the connections I’ve made on Twitter itself?
I couldn’t find a decent way to do this easily, so I decided to make a free mosaic generator for Twitter myself.
Here’s a video walking through the quick 7-step process the free online mosiac generator takes you through to create and auto-install the background for you:
So what do you think? Will you take www.TweepBack.com for a twhirl (for free)?
Backup, backup, backup…
Mar 16th
Doing a backup of your files on your computer is as fun as scheduling a dentist appointment for most people. Yet in both cases, we all know that it is something we really can’t ignore for too long. Scott Adamson of www.1110consulting.com shares with us today, two specific applications that do the trick with minimal effort. If only the trip to the dentist was just as easy. . .Enjoy this week’s guest blog post.
What are your memories worth? What is acceptable loss? What kind of investments have you made into your personal computer (financially or just in the time to make it an efficient tool for everyday use)?
These are the questions that are most frequently asked by people AFTER they have lost years of photographs, countless MP3s or irreplaceable documents.
Recently I had to break the news to a friend that the hard drive that I had to force out of a laptop after it fell from a bookshelf did not appear to be recoverable (at least not by my rudimentary toolkit). Date of the last backup of photos, about 2 years ago. Very little else exists anywhere else aside from this drive and that is a very sad state of affairs.
A rather expensive data recovery company could take a couple of weeks and cost several hundred to thousands of dollars to possibly recover the files from a failed drive. What alternatives and options does the average user have to protect against accidents, loss, damage or theft?
By this time, many of you have seen commercials online of on TV for service like Mozy. More and more backup solutions leverage “the cloud” with the fast and convenient Internet speeds most of us enjoy in our homes or offices to backup key files (or all files if you see fit) to an online storage location. Internet-based solutions are generally very cost effective (running about $10 per month for “unlimited” storage) and give many people the peace of mind of having data outside their home in case a laptop goes missing, a computer is damaged or a flood or fire ravages their home. One key issue with this is as fast as your internet connection may be, backing up everything to “the cloud” will take days or weeks to complete and maybe a little less time to recover (if God forbid you do need to recover a vast majority of your files).
Online solutions are very good options but the truth of the matter is, most often, users are going to be looking for the song they deleted from iTunes last week thinking it was on their iPod or overwriting the wrong Word file and needing to just go back to last hour or last night. This is where local backups are simple, quick and truly lifesavers.
Apple has incorporated Time Machine in the last couple of versions of their system (10.5 and 10.6). Just plug in an external hard drive (costing $50-100 depending on total storage capacity from buy.com or amazon) and Time Machine will ask if you would like to use this “new” drive for backups. Click yes, the system sets up the drive and puts together a schedule. The system is now good to go. If you have multiple computers in a home, check out Apple’s Time Capsule that acts as a wireless network router for the home and backup device for any Mac connected to it. Set it and forget it….
With the latest versions of Windows (Microsoft did a very nice job of integrating backup into Windows 7) provides an automated backup can be directed to a second drive in a similar fashion to Apple’s Time Machine. Connect a drive, configure the basic backup settings and let the backup do its thing.
Of course there are many options for buying backup software (some come with the drives you get from Amazon, Best Buy or the Apple store), but nothing that I have seen works as seamlessly and smoothly as the built in solutions from Apple and Microsoft.
Before investing in backup software, I would work with what you have from the manufacturer. Next step, seek out some help in getting it set-up once so that you’re good to go….backup!
Scott Adamson is a technology professional having spent most of his professional life in the NYC area supporting everyone from individuals to larger organizations. His goal as a consultant and technologist is to be the helpdesk you always wanted…Connect with Scott at www.1110consulting.com
Internet Faxing 101
Feb 15th
In this demanding world that we reside in today, any successful business person will be able to tell you as to how important communication is for a business to function properly.
While email seems to dominate on a daily basis, sending and receiving faxes is still an option most need to have access to. Instead of investing in dedicated fax lines and machines, the smart thing to do is get a service that allows you to fax via the internet to/from your email.
There are many companies offering these internet faxing services and in case you’re not familiar with them, this is how the entire system operates:
- Such a method of faxing uses the same idea as a conventional faxing but instead of using bulky and troublesome fax machines; it uses the internet telephone lines as an interface which means you don’t need a physical telephone line anymore. Internet fax services usually assign a personal fax number to each person who signs up with a company. When a person signs up for an internet faxing service, they are assigned a fax number which they use to send or receive faxes. It is an incredibly inexpensive and convenient way of sending and receiving messages with the highlighted point being that all that is required to access it is an internet connection.
- Anyone can send a fax to your personal fax number. The fax gets “scanned” and delivered as a pdf or other graphical format like .tif of .png so you can easily print it out on any computer.
- If you want to send a fax, you can either use the service’s website to upload documents and send, or simply email your document as an attachment to a personalized email account. The telephone number indicated in the email subject or body is used to send the fax over the service’s own outbound lines. You’ll usually get a confirmation email about status and delivery success.
- Most of the companies offer free trial periods and money back guarantees. There are no sorts of hardware or software involved in the entire process and sending faxes to multiple recipients has never been so easy! A varying range of trial periods are offered with the usual being of 30 days, except fax87 which has a 15 day trial period and MetroFax which offers none at all.
More information regarding internet faxing in general, it is interesting to read the history of faxes.
So if you want to ditch your local fax line from Verizon or Bell South, what do you do next? Whether you are an individual or a business, human nature dictates that you find the best deal that is offered in the market.
Some of the leading companies are: Fax87, efax, Myfax, Ring central, Metrofax, Rapidfax, and Trustfax. While of these companies provide the same services, there are some points you might want to be aware of while making your final decision.
While Fax87, Myfax, Rapidfax and Trust fax has a monthly charge within the range between $4–$10, other companies like efax, Ringcentral and Metrofax are more expensive with charges ranging from $12 to $24. However all the companies provide an annual discount with the exception of Rapidfax and the process of setting up comes absolutely free. The incoming\outgoing limits are also different for the different companies with the maximum being 1000 free incoming/outgoing pages offered by Fax87.
Fax87 also offers the luxury of saving your documents for an unlimited period of time contrary to the policies of other companies. With Fax87 it is also possible to have unlimited people using the same fax number, thus a feature ideal for office purposes and more details about this company can be found at the online fax company site. For the transmission of excess documents, an extra amount is charged, called overage which also varies form company to company. Local toll fees; however are applicable for all transmissions regardless of the company.
QUESTION: Are fax lines completely outdated / outmoded? Or are they still something you need access to for business purposes?
Internet Faxing Services: The best option for communication.
In this demanding world that we reside in today, any successful business man will be able to tell you as to how important communication is for a business to function properly. Modern technology now offers the facility of receiving faxes via the internet from your email. There are many companies offering these internet faxing services and this is how the entire system operates: Such a method of faxing uses the same idea as a conventional faxing but instead of using bulky and troublesome fax machines; it uses the internet as an interface. Internet fax services usually assign a fax number to each person who signs up with a company. When a person signs up for an internet faxing service, they are assigned a fax number which they use to send or receive faxes. It is an incredibly inexpensive and convenient way of sending and receiving messages with the highlighted point being that all that is required to access it is an internet connection. Most of the companies offer free trial periods and money back guarantees. There are no sorts of hardware or software involved in the entire process and sending faxes to multiple recipients has never been so easy! More information regarding internet faxing can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax
Sounds like great bargain doesn’t it?
Whether you are an individual or a business, human nature dictates that you find the best deal that is offered in the market.
Some of the leading companies are: Fax87, efax, Myfax, Ring central, Metrofax, Rapidfax, and Trustfax. While of these companies provide the same services, there are some points you might want to be aware of while making your final decision.
While Fax87, Myfax, Rapidfax and Trust fax has a monthly charge within the range of $10, other companies like efax, Ringcentral and Metrofax are more expensive with charges ranging from $12 to $24. However all the companies provide an annual discount with the exception of Rapidfax and the process of setting up comes absolutely free.
A varying range of trial periods are offered with the usual being of 30 days, except fax87 which has a 15 day trial period and MetroFax which offers none at all. The incoming\outgoing limits are also different for the different companies with the maximum being 1
Internet Faxing Services: The best option for communication.
In this demanding world that we reside in today, any successful business man will be able to tell you as to how important communication is for a business to function properly. Modern technology now offers the facility of receiving faxes via the internet from your email. There are many companies offering these internet faxing services and this is how the entire system operates: Such a method of faxing uses the same idea as a conventional faxing but instead of using bulky and troublesome fax machines; it uses the internet as an interface. Internet fax services usually assign a fax number to each person who signs up with a company. When a person signs up for an internet faxing service, they are assigned a fax number which they use to send or receive faxes. It is an incredibly inexpensive and convenient way of sending and receiving messages with the highlighted point being that all that is required to access it is an internet connection. Most of the companies offer free trial periods and money back guarantees. There are no sorts of hardware or software involved in the entire process and sending faxes to multiple recipients has never been so easy! More information regarding internet faxing can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax
Sounds like great bargain doesn’t it?
Whether you are an individual or a business, human nature dictates that you find the best deal that is offered in the market.
Some of the leading companies are: Fax87, efax, Myfax, Ring central, Metrofax, Rapidfax, and Trustfax. While of these companies provide the same services, there are some points you might want to be aware of while making your final decision.
While Fax87, Myfax, Rapidfax and Trust fax has a monthly charge within the range of $10, other companies like efax, Ringcentral and Metrofax are more expensive with charges ranging from $12 to $24. However all the companies provide an annual discount with the exception of Rapidfax and the process of setting up comes absolutely free.
A varying range of trial periods are offered with the usual being of 30 days, except fax87 which has a 15 day trial period and MetroFax which offers none at all. The incoming\outgoing limits are also different for the different companies with the maximum being 1000 offered by fax87. Fax87 also offers the luxury of saving your documents for an unlimited period of time contrary to the policies of other companies. With Fax87 it is also possible to have unlimited people using the same fax number, thus a feature ideal for office purposes and more details about this company can be found at http://www.fax87.com/. For the transmission of excess documents, an extra amount is charged, called overage which also varies form company to company. Local toll fees; however are applicable for all transmissions regardless of the company.
So, what are you waiting for? Compare the rates and decide which one of them is the best opportunity for you!
000 offered by fax87. Fax87 also offers the luxury of saving your documents for an unlimited period of time contrary to the policies of other companies. With Fax87 it is also possible to have unlimited people using the same fax number, thus a feature ideal for office purposes and more details about this company can be found at http://www.fax87.com/. For the transmission of excess documents, an extra amount is charged, called overage which also varies form company to company. Local toll fees; however are applicable for all transmissions regardless of the company.
So, what are you waiting for? Compare the rates and decide which one of them is the best opportunity for you!
I love tech, gadgets and the web. Hope you pick-up a useful tip or two here today that helps you use technology to your advantage! Better yet, why not share your own expertise in a comment on a post today to help the other readers that land here for answers!