Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
Entreprenuer/Small Biz
Twitter 201: What Can You Do With Twitter?
Feb 10th
Once you get past the initial learning curve required to really understand that Twitter is not just knowing what everyone eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you start to ask, what else can I do with Twitter?
There’s actually a TON of stuff for which Twitter is useful. That’s why there’s a social media revolution afterall. But the Twitterverse isn’t so easy for newbies to get on what seems like a speeding bullet train at times.
The best place to start for most is to understand that you can control what you get out of Twitter. It is not just a continuous moving feed of random tweets from all that you follow. Once you find Twitter Search, your imagination starts to open up for what you can do with Twitter.
Here’s a quick video that explains just a few practical things you can do with Twitter beyond monitoring your network’s latest moves and ponderings:
Outsource Your Work With Freelancers
Dec 7th
Not enough time in the day? Too much to do, too little time?
It’s time to look at outsource some of your workload. Hiring freelance coders, designers, proof readers, presentation specialists or even plain old virtual assistants can help save the day.
Nowadays, there are online marketplaces where you can go to find the help you need. You are able to submit a job description for small jobs (I’ve done jobs as small as $15) to full blown long-term contractor jobs. You can look to outsourcing as a virtual workforce or like a place to get digital handymen to fix the small things that you just don’t have the time nor people to do it in house.
Three in particular worth a look are among the biggies:
oDesk
oDesk’s angle is interesting – this service tries to ensure that every minute billed to your project is actual work. So you’re not getting billed for when they go to the bathroom, go outside to check their mail, fix a snack in the kitchen, etc. In fact, they offer per minute pricing via a proprietary remote desktop contractor interface that monitors keystrokes, provides periodic screenshots so you can actually see what your contractor is doing if you so wish to.
Rentacoder
I’ve been using rentacoder.com for smaller jobs. They have a lot of coders around the world that offer decent pricing. Like all of these marketplaces, you have to decide for yourself if you’re willing to open up your bidding to contractors where English is NOT their primary language, etc. Their communication interface keeps track of all discussion you have back and forth so that if there is a need to dispute in the end, a record of everything agreed to is available. They escrow your money for the job and won’t release it until the entire project is done and you approve the release.
eLance
This marketplace got bought out by eBay several years ago, and got a lot of attention – quickly making it one of the “big guys” in the outsourcing marketplace marketplace. The key to any job listing is that you have a lot of coders that are available so that you can get quality help – and also increase competition. Elance fits this picture. Although sometimes because of its prominence, sometimes the overall pricing might come out a little high (vs. if you listed the same project elsewhere). Worth testing to see if you like their platform for some jobs.
There are a bunch of other coder marketplaces too like scriptlance.com, guru.com, etc. All worth checking out. The key point is that you should identify a small job in front of you and test the waters to see if outsourcing is for you.
How To Boost Your Ebay Sales With A Single Click
Nov 2nd
With so many listings, it is vital to capture your audience at first glance when you are selling your merchandise on eBay.
Customers often become inundated with the overwhelming number of like items available for sale on eBay. Your job is to catch their eyes and pull them in. The best way to do this is, take better photos.
If you just take a little extra time to setup a simple photographer’s set, it will be worth it. The best part is that you don’t need fancy equipment or dedicate space in the house. You can achieve this by using everyday items found around the house, you will be able to sit back and watch as your eBay views and sales skyrocket.
The best part about this competitive edge is that you can create your own professional looking photo set with items that probably are already in your home. Here’s a look at how to boost the look of your eBay listings with ease . . .
• table/stool
• white sheet/table cloth
• 2 chairs
• rope – about 10ft
• light (softbox if possible)
• white pillow case
First, place your table near some large windows with one chair on each side of the table. Between the chairs tie your rope — this is used to create a white backdrop by draping the table cloth over the cord.
Use a very light table cloth that will diffuse the light from the window, but be careful not to use to thin or thick of a sheet. This could result in a gray background, or over exposure from the sun.
Then place a light/softbox in front of the table. If you do not have a softbox use the pillow case to cover the light. This will help create a soft lighting effect. Lower and adjusted lighting as needed. While shooting be sure to keep make sure only the white from the sheet is in the photo. Also keep an eye out for random shadows.
When shooting your eBay product photo, be sure to get as much light as possible on the item you’re selling on eBay. This will allow users to view small details better.
That’s it! This is a really quick and simple way to create a better product shoots with every day household materials. Once you start to post some better photos of your items, they’ll stand out in the eBay gallery and search listings.
Hope this mini tutorial teaches you about one CLICK (of the shutter!) that you’ll want to master which leads to more sales and higher winning bids!
Matt Johnson – Social media guru, with a love for connecting with people around the world. His passion for food and photography are evident in his two personal blogs BibleDogMan.com and NoGrilledOnion.comHow To Bulk Submit To Social Bookmarking Sites
Oct 26th
Social media is all the rage these days.
Anyone with a website knows they should be submitting their website pages to the various social bookmarking sites to gain better visibility on the web.
But we’re also talking about a time consuming task to do the repetitive submissions to the top social bookmarking sites like: Digg.com, Propeller, Delicious, Reddit.com, Stumbleupon, Technorati, Mixx, Twitter, Furl.net, etc.
There are completely automated tools that submit in bulk, but sometimes they can be seen as spam. The next best thing to manual hand submissions one at a time is to use a semi-automated tool. . .
SocialPoster.com allows you to set-up the basics first and then go through various filtered lists of social bookmarking sites and quick-click-thru to the posting page with the main data pre-populated for you.
Here’s a video walk-through tutorial of the process of using socialposter.com:
It won’t completely eliminate the time-consuming task of manually submitting to dozens of social bookmark sites, but it certainly will shave off a decent portion of time spent on the task. Moreover, it will help you to consistently submit to the top sites using socialposter.com’s list of sites.
How To Send A Fax Via Internet For Free
Jun 25th
There’s tons of free incoming e-fax services out there.
Personally, I have been using k7.net unified messaging lately which gives me free inbound faxes and voicemail.
However when you want to SEND A FAX, that’s a completely different story. This is where the online faxing companies make their money.
TrustFax.com, efax.com, faxaway.com all charge different rates for outbound faxing capabilities – per page, per minute of transmission, monthly fees, etc.
S
ince I don’t send faxes often, the two services I use are www.faxzero.com and now www.myfax.com — as you guessed, both are free faxing services.
But one of these two internet faxing services is the clear winner. Here’s why: Read the rest of this entry »
Pencil Pushing Made Easy
Jun 5th
This just might be the right moment for you to go it your own way and start your own business.
You know you’ve been thinking about it on and off for awhile now.
Well, since the time is right, where do you start?
When you open for business, one of the first critical steps is to make sure your books are in order.
Accounting is so important in business. Not just for tax purposes, unless you know exactly where your money is coming from and where it is going, you won’t be able to make strategic decisions to keep your business afloat and succeed in the future.
While it’s no replacement for a good accountant that can be a great advisor on your side, bookkeeping software can really make your daily business life a little less stressful. Seriously.
Here’s one strong suggestion I have for all entrepreneurs when they open the doors to their new business and haven’t paid any attention to the numbers side of business yet. . . Read the rest of this entry »
Stop Paying Your Pal Any Money
Mar 19th
PayPal was revolutionary in online micropayments. It made life on eBay so much easier – in fact, eBay ended up buying PayPal in the end.
Although it is an easy and convenient way to pay someone money or receive money electronically, you’ll end up paying for it.
Here’s an alterative way for those that don’t want to pay all those PayPal transaction fees. In fact, you can send or receive money and 100% of it gets moved, there’s no fees or charges to do it.