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BUSINESS Backing up your computer verses archiving Daily Quote: When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car. Related Links Seanology Make Money Video Blogging	6 Reasons Not To Show Up For Your Radio Or TV Appearance Here is a super article on business success and business leadership. Sho Read More...
The Best Internet Advertising is Free Internet Advertising Ryan is a small business owner that has utilized the techniques at financialincrease.com to generate thousands of dollars in a short period of time. Find out his secrets at: http://www.financialincrease.com/products.html Read More...	Create HUGE keyword lists in seconds Generate High Paying Adsense Keyword Lists Of More Than 10,000 Keywords In As Little As 2 Minutes And 57 Seconds. Read More...	Andy\'s Outtasite Blog: Pride in Work Our website is dedicated to researching Internet home business ideas and opportunities that can help you start a new Internet home business or grow the one you already have. Browse our site to find the right Internet home business for you. When searching for an Internet home business be careful because there are many scams out there. However, the information and opportunities listed on this site have passed an intensive screening process and have proven themselves to be legitimate and effective. Feel safe and enjoy Read More...
UML Tutorial - Activity Diagrams Activity diagrams describe the workflow behavior of a system. Activity diagrams are similar to state diagrams because activities are the state of doing something. The diagrams describe the state of activities by showing the sequence of activities performed. Activity diagrams can show activities that are conditional or parallel. Read More...	Software Review: Enterprise Architect Here's a review of a cool program called 'Enterprise Architect'. If you are interested in data modelling, SOA, UML, or even just designing your business processes..check this out. Read More...	Quality - 8D (Eight Disciplines) Problem Solving Process 8D is a problem-solving methodology for product and process improvement. It is structured into eight disciplines, emphasizing team synergy. This article by National semi-conductor describes this process and how to use it. Read More...
Six Effective Ways To Build Backlinks The Wrong Advices: By Dan. Here is an interesting article for blog enthusiasts with tips to your site visibility using backlinks. Read More...	An intro to online affiliate programs By: Steven Gerber. Here is an article about how to make money with your website. Read More...	Has Honesty Become Too Old-Fashioned? I think it's funny to survey people about their honesty, but here's an interesting article that does just that. How honest are people in their electronic business communications ? Read More...
Has Honesty Become Too Old-Fashioned? I think it's funny to survey people about their honesty, but here's an interesting article that does just that. How honest are people in their electronic business communications ? Read More...	Get a free caricature of yourself Ever wanted to see what you would look like as a cartoon ? Here's a really cool idea. Enter into Matt's contest to win a free caricture of yourself. Read More...	FunkyThoughts: Naughy things not to do with your iPhone Checkout the linked video. It combines two of my "favorite" new things tied together "BlendTech" and that new fancy iPhone thing. If you got a lot of $ to burn... Read More...
Is the toner in Laser printers a health risk? From: CNET News. Here's an interesting article that suggests you might want to be careful around your laser printer Read More...	Earn money referring business with Google Maps Here's an interesting money making oppertunity from Google. They pay you to take pictures of buisness's in your area and submit it to google maps. However, so far you must be a US resident to participate. Read More...	Tip: Getting yourself noticed Even if you have a great job. It is important to keep your resume up to date on an ongoing basis. Check out this article for some suggested sites to help you manage resume and career management for yourself over the long term. Read More...
There are ALWAYS 2 sides to EVERY story ! I have always been taught, "you can only believe 1/2 of what you read". Perhaps as this article suggests, we should believe only 20% of blogs Read More...	Book prices in Canada As the Canadian exchange rate continues to get closer (and surpass) the US dollar you might be tempted to think you can get things cheaper in the US. But as you can see from this article, things are not always as they appear. Read More...	Managing Diabetes In this weekly Podlet, I dicuss my diabetes and what it means to me. I start with a simple dicussion of diabetes and my thoughts about it. The good and the bad. I'm not sure which came first, my inner desire for personal self managment, self organiation, and will power which then helps me to manage my diabetes. Or did I learn these things as part of living life as a diabetic? Either way, the events in our live shape us and determine how we grow, so this is me relating one of my "personal growth experiances". Click the play button below to give a listen. I hope you enjoy it. Read More...
How to Get Free Business Cards I love Business Cards , I haven't yet recieved any from my current job but I am hoping they will be on the way soon. If you are trying to start your own small business, are an essential marketing tool, almost like a 'mini-resume' that you can give out in lots of interesting ways. I have my own small business with 1 employee (me), and I simply created by own business cards from Avery labels, which comes with free label software, or you can use any word processing (M$ or OpenOffice). But as you get bigger it becomes much more convient and cheaper to use a company that specializes this activity. There are lots of interesting ways you can use your business card as a marketing and promotion tool that you may never have imagined For example, if your an Ebay seller, remember to include a business card with your website inside each shipment you send. This is free advertising and may help you spread your website to multiple locations while makign a sale at the same time. Many stores (eg: fast food) will allow you to drop your business card into a dish for a weekly drawing on a free lunch. How could would it be if you could do this electronically and automatically? Someday, I imagine we will all have e-business cards. If you have a bluetooth enabled cellphone you may have one already and not even know it. You can easliy exchange contact information with other phone users, or even setup your phone to scan for and swap contacts with nearby phones/services. Until then, we will have to continue to do things the old fashioned way. Read More...	Is Confidence Fickle? In this weeks podlet, I talk about the idea of "false confidence" and the illusion that we often feel that we are in control, when really we are not. So, in the end is confidence really something that is usefull? How can we tell the difference if we are truely confident about something or falsely confient about something. Here are some of my thoughts. Read More...	Bad Facebook advertising? I had seen this facebook advertising myself the other day, but didn't really pay attention to it, as I was just on for a quick moment. These types of nudie advertisments are common all over the web, but it is the first I've seen it on facebook. Read More...
Bad Facebook advertising? I had seen this facebook advertising myself the other day, but didn't really pay attention to it, as I was just on for a quick moment. These types of nudie advertisments are common all over the web, but it is the first I've seen it on facebook. Read More...	The duality of passion In this weeks podlet, I discuss the good and the bad of passion. That thing that gets us up in the morning, that motivates us and maintaining the balance between order and organization. Have you ever experienced this yourself? What are the sort of things you are passionate about? Does inspirational passion take a hold of you only to leave you to pick up the pieces afterwards? Read More...	Just Do It This reminds me of that Nike commercial. I think the trick is to strike and approperiate balance between quality and deadlines. In the end you need to be producing work that you and your clients can be proud of, but not killing yourself doing it. Still these are some good tips, and a very nice article. Read More...
Excellent guide to using Flickr Images This is an awesome Guide that explains the ins and outs of images and licensing in general. I feel much more prepared for using images in the future ! Read More...	Watch out if passing pagerank for money Google is restricting page rank? I don't think this is really new, it was just a matter of time. I think the articles here make a good point. I certainly would not want to be confused when researching something I know nothing about by possible misleading ads. I would be interested to know how many advertisers that pay for posts, actually expect to pass page rank. Not all pages in a blog have high PR, and the PR number on the toolbar isn't real anyway. The highest PR is usually it's just the main page. Once I've written say 20 entries, there isn't really any more google juice being passed is there? Read More...	Help Bella win a $25,000 Scholarship from LeapFrog Here is a cute video I recieved from a collegue. Leapfrog Enterprises is holding a contest in the US. $25,000 to the video that gets the most votes of their child enjoying Leapfrog toys. Please check out the video, and give it a vote and help Bella win some of her education. (Which can be very $ive in the US) Read More...
5 Hard Questions You Should Answer Before Starting a New Project These are some great ideas everyone should think of before starting that new project. First you get a serge of inspiration, and then you check yourself to make sure you're not biting off more then you can chew. Read More...	Universal USB Harddrive Adaptor I often find myself with old hard drives lying around, or sometimes friends ask me to copy stuff from their old hard drive. The problem is sometimes, it's a laptop hard drive, sometimes is an 'old fashioned' IDE and of course today there are SATA drives. With this little universal USB adapter I an easliy attach to any device I need quickly and easily, get the information I want and then put it back in my computer toolbox Read More...	A sucker is born every minute "There's a sucker born every minute" is a phrase often credited to P.T. Barnum. It is generally taken to mean that there are (and always will be) a lot of gullible people in the world. Unfortunately, this includes me. Here's a story from my childhood, when I was younger and I was duped. Thinking back I'm glad I learned my lesson when I was younger and wasn't out too much money. Read More...
Social Bookmarking in Plain English Here's a great video from CommonCraft to understand the basics of social bookmarking. Although he talks about del.iciou.us. You can also use ArticleSwap.biz to submit your articles and bookmarking links, and automatically have your submissions sent to several other social bookmarking locations Read More...	Take the Illusions of Entreprenurship Quiz Scott Shane of Case Western recently published The Illusions of Entrepreneurship. This is a link to an online test of your entreprenership skills. Well, actually it's a bunch of questions on new startup facts mostly related to the USA. I only scored 35% so maybe I should buy the book. Read More...	The power of Hyperlinks I remember my first experience with hyperlinks. It was before the web and was with an old DOS version of Norton Utilities. Back then, windows 3.1 was still new and internet explorer hadn't even been invented yet. Much of the jargon used today like HTML, Web, and IM were not even known. I used to carry my copy of the Norton Utilities, along with a few other apps on a set of 1.44MB floppy disks. Friends of Friends were always asking for help with this/that about their computer, so I could easily whip out my floppies and diagnose there problem quickly. One of my favorite apps was called 'NDOS'. It was a DOS shell extension, that provided many new extensions to batch programming not included with the version of DOS on many computers of the time. NDOS also included a context sensitive help. Whenever, I pressed F1 it would pop up a help window. You could almost imagine this window as a tiny version of Internet Explorer, because inside it certain words were underlined and you could click on them to find out more information. None of us knew at the time, that this little idea of highlighting words, that could be clicked on for more information, would be a major part of forming the web as we know it today. Now, of course, not only are words just hyperlinked, but we have Smart Hyperlinks, you can click or hover over them to find out even more information, and control where you want to go next. I'm always wondering...what will be the next thing we take for granted that will become the next BIG thing in our little world? Read More...
The future of Keyboards Sci-Fi? Nope it's real. A virtual keyboard you can take wherever you go. Just take it out and turn it on. Like typing in thin air. It must feel odd not getting any feedback from typing the letters, but it would be a cool gadget to have either way. Read More...	Trying to understand SPAM Back in the "old days". It was easy to recognize SPAM. Now it seems to be getting harder to identify. Here's a post from Digital point forums trying to figure out what SPAM is today and how to identify it and deal with it properly. Where I used to work, they often sent out "Marketing DM Campaigns". Product advertising send out to a massive directory of contacts with a grey area of whether or not they requested to recieve such information. SPAM doesn't seem easy to identify these days or seems subjective, I think we need to form some consensus we can all agree on. All opinions welcome. Read More...	Backing up your computer verses archiving I often find people get confused with the idea of backups vs archives. Both are very important ways to keep information, yet each has it's own unique characteristics and purpose. I found this article on multiply.com that helps clear up the mystery. To summarize, if a record is copied for protection, we can probably call it a backup. If the same record is stored on some media with particular concern with immediate access, it is probably safe to call it an archive. Read More...
Want a N64 System (N64 2 Controllers with Zelda)? This was my first attempt to sell an item on Ebay. At the time of writing this blog there are still 2 days left, if you want to make a bid yourself. Though by the time you read it, the auction maybe over. I found it very easy to add an item to auction. The two lessons I learned was a) Sell in an alternate category if possible and b) be sure to include international shipping cost calculator which I left out by accident. The item description is also very important for users doing searches on EBay. In this example, I never used the world Nintendo in the short description, and it doesn't show up as easily on searches. Definitely something to pay more attention to in the future. Read More...	Watching your online personna We all make mistakes, and I am certainly NO exception to this rule. However, I am not a largely public figure, and my mistakes are not made widely visible. Temptation can be a very powerfull thing. In my role as a sysadmin there were sometimes requests for me to perform perhaps unethical activites. For example, installing software we did not have the approperiate license. It can take years to buld a reputation, but only minutes for it to be trashed. You mistakes can easily be spread all over the internet for anyone to see with a simple google search. In a previous post on Managing your online identity, I dicussed how important it is that your internet presence or image is clean. The more popular your services, the more clients you have. Just like a large co-operation you need to keep an eye on your public image to ensure it cannot hurt you. Often the bigger you are (or your company is) the more opinions people will have and the more scrunity you will be under. Let us take for example this wiki about Dr. William Heyward. Here we find a very dedicated individual with multiple degrees including Johns Hopikns and a very impressive work history. Certainly, we must acknowledge and apprecaite the work and effort this man has put into fighting the ongoing AIDS epidemic, including his formation of Quattro Clinical Research devoted to ongoing research of infections diseases As I am sure you are aware, the formation of any new venture requires startup expenses and perhaps the attraction of potential investors. One can rest assured that any investor would want to research Dr Heyward, his company, and his activites before potentially providing the necessary funding. So let us suppose someone does a quick google search of someone's name. This might reveal many details regarding a person (eg: William Heyward). Not all of the results might be flattering comments. Regardless of whether or not it is even the same Dr. Heyward who worked as the V.P. for International Clinical Research with VaxGen, Inc. and and spent over 20 years working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . And even if should such search results reveal this is same William Heyward, and reveal this man's mistakes. Is it really fair? Remember there are always 2 sides to every story. Now let me ask you, if you made a mistake, and it was splured all over the web with no references to the good you have done, would you try to rectify it? Could you figure out how rectify it? Is trying to fix your reputation/image ethical. I do not have all the answers but I try not to judge others until I have all the facts in front of me, and I hope others do the same. Read More...	Firefox..You web browser of choice? There has been large debate on the web, a fight over which is better Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer? Most people who use Internet Explorer, do not do so as a "choice". It is shipped automatically with most computers, and most computers shp with Windows. People get on, can do there web browsing, it functions, and they never try anythinng different. Some people like to switch things around and try new things while others will maintain the status quo until there is a 'pain' to change. If you are still using Internet Explorer, and have never tried Firefox. Might i suggest giving it a try? Read More...
Keeping It Simple Here's a great article by Brad Bollenbach about simplicity. I especially like his comment that "simple is not easy". I love the philosophy, but it takes a lot of pratice to simplify, to make things easily understood. Especially as we grow older and learn more about the world around us or specialize in certain areas, we may loose touch with the simple things in life. I have often found myself doing things the 'hard way', but sometimes this is the only way, after I have finished a project, that I truely learn. Very enjoyable indeed. Read More...	A day at the office This is one of those times, when you just come across something funny and you just have to share it. Read this story about a guys first day at the office and see if it tickles your funny bone. I can safely say this has never happened to me, but you know you company might be getting a bit too big if... Read More...	Everyone deserves an assistant I've been trying out Sandy, an interesting little (somewhat intelligent) virtual assistant. The account setup is free, and then you get a special email that you can send to Sandy and she will email you reminders and other items that your prompt her to do when you send emails to her or cc her on emails to someone else. Sandy also connects to Twitter and SMS (phone). I'm a big fan of AI like things so I'm interested in how this app works out. If you are the kind of person who likes to have their own personal assistant..but can't afford to pay for it, why not give it a try? I do wonder, if it works well, can I nominate her for an award? Read More...
Cellphone fun - Tips and Tricks Are you a road warrior? Do you take your cell phone whereever you go? Has your phone 'mysteriously' ended up in the toilet? Here's a few tips to help you get the most of your cell phone, if you don't feel your getting enough of it already. Read More...	Money = Information Are you the master of information or a slave to it. Today we live in a world where money doesn't really exist. How man of us really look at cold hard cash? If you like most people today, you probably use a credit card and debit card and are hit with interest or user fees. The fees increase, but what can you do, you are addicted to the convenience, and you put up with the fees. So in today's world, money is nothing more then information and is subject to the same vulnerabilities all information is. So what does it mean when you money literally flows through the airwaves around you? Read More...	A tool is only as good as the person who weilds it I'm pretty much all thumbs when it comes to using any tool. Even a hammer, I hit my fingers, but I'm a pretty good programmer, and I think I write pretty good applications. Here is an interesting article from secretgeek.net about Workflow software. This is the kind of software that lets the business analyst, designer understand process flows within an organization. It allows us technical folks the ability to design or customize a software solution to meet a particular set of business needs. Just like a hammer, if used properly, workflow software can be a very valuable tool. Combined with good knowledge and training it can help a business be more efficient and effective. To often, however, the software may get billed as a magical solution. At the bottom of this article is a funny parady . The 'IF' server, an excellent example of how a sales pitch can potentially sell thousands of copies of a software product, to the 'wrong' individuals and end up causing more problems then it is worth. Read More...
How social are you? "The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few..or the one" - Spock (Star Trek II) Do you consider yourself a social person? Today we have social networking tools, blogging, instant messaging, emails, cell phones. Everyone no matter where in the world is literally a click away. We are social beings, we enjoy the comfort of others. But what does it mean to be 'social'. Is it simply being friendly?. Does he/she with the most friends on facebook win?..I don't think so. Consider the case of my aunt Mary, who is using attempting to raise $5,000 to fight cancer. Here we have, I believe, what it truly means to be social. It is the power of society, to use social networking, and related tools to spread a message, a message to help others, to understand that we live within a complex structure of people. People, who are just as deserving as you or I, but, who have been dealt a different set of cards in life. When we take time to consider the needs of others, yes that is a start to being social..and when we take action to help others, to help society. When we realize that we are all individuals interdependent upon one another..the world we live within, and the creatures we live with...it is only then that we can truly consider our selves "social". So my challenge is this, instead of trying to have more friends then your neighbor on facebook, or more people in your 'group'. Take a lesson from my aunt, find a way to use the technology we have today to help fulfill the needs of the many. Please give, we are all social beings, in a social world, and thus the benefits of giving will return to you tenfold. - The law of Tenfold return Spread the Message -> Join Mary's facebook group Read More...	Protect Your Wi-Fi Connection Many people don’t know how easy it is for people to connect to their wifi and steal their internet and bandwidth. Why sharing your home internet with everyone that is near your house if you don’t want them to? Now, don't get me wrong, it is nice to want to be able to share your Wifi, or perhaps you and a few of your neighbours want to get together and share your high speed bill. Wifi can be an excellent way to makes this happen. But even in this case, it might not be advisible to just let anyone come in, snoop your traffic, steal your information and move on. This is the risk you present yourself with if you are not using proper Wifi security. Well it is quite easy to prevent this from happening and this article from TheComputerMaster walks you through the necessary steps. The basic idea is you define a wirless key using a security known as WPA-PSK. Then only give the key to those you trust to access your machine. Choose a long key to prevent brute force attacks. Don't think you are safe using the old, outdated WAP security, or trying to configure mac address filtering. Neither of these give you any real security. Always go WPA-PSK as a minimum for your WiFi needs. Read More...	Hidden Video Courses in Math, Science, and Engineering DataWrangling.com has put together an awesome collection of university level free coursewhere from all around the web. So if you are looking to brush up on your ecomonics, engineering, or physics, this is the article to check out. Unlike, other sites, all of these videos are free [while available]. Many of which seem to go over my head, but nonetheless, if you are looking for online training and have the right discipline you may find these very usefull. Read More...
Bigger Computer Monitors = More Productivity I have been using a dual monitor setup for several years now, so it comes as no surprise to me at all that multiple monitors or different screens sizes improve productivity. Here is an article from the Wall Street journal that helps validate what many of us have already felt for a long time. Once you get into a dual monitor setup it is VERY hard to move back. Read More...	Google and Salesforce Join to Fight Microsoft I've had the oppertuninty to use both Salesforce.com and Google Apps. In this new york times article, you can read more about google and salesforce joining forces to implement customer relationship managment software linked to existing google applications. From a programmers perspective, Both Google apps and salesforce, have nice, easy to use API's, so I see a lot of promise here. No word that this will be free though, but someday maybe. Salesforce.com licenses can be a bit pricey. Read More...	Can the state force your marital status? In this weeks podlets, I rant about my opinions of "common law". I've had very strong opinions on this matter. Way back, when I was first staring my first job. I was chatting with a collegue about university, taxes, etc. The collegue was also very opinionated (or at just trying to yank my chain) about how important it was that I filled my taxes out as common law. Anyway, in this audio podlet, and the article below you can read about my thoughts on the subject, and application of necessary and sufficient conditions for common law status. Hope you enjoy it. One of the debates, I often find myself involved in is the idea of "Common Law" Marriage. First of all, let me clear up the first misconception. Being 'common law' and being 'married' are not the same thing from a legal point of view. There are similarities. In Canada, many couples who have declared themselves as common law are guaranteed similar rights and privileges under the law as married couples. Although specific local laws can vary. The basic premise is the same. If you're in a loving committed relationship with another individual, live in the same household, you should get the same rights as those who sign a piece of paper and pay for a 'marriage license'. Read More...
Purpose Plans and Passion One of the things, that prompted me to do this weeks podlet was watching my wife fold the laundry. Often times, we are presented with "mundane" tasks. Things we don't give us a lot of excitement (or any excitement) over doing. I'm not a fan of folding clothes [I would tend to just leave them washed in the laundry basket] I once asked my wife how she finds the desire to keep folding the clothes. She told me, she can see (and feel) how good it will be when all the clothes are folded and put away, and this motivates her to get it done. This was key to helping me to put this idea together, connecting our passion with our plans and purpose. Thanks for listening. Read More...	Are you the master of your Inbox Do you live in your Inbox? Merlin Mann has created an awesome article series known as Inbox Zero. You can also watch a video summary. Our inboxes will become overloaded with information. How do we manage this information? How do we use it effectively. Merlin has stuggled with this problem for many years and has some great ideas about getting a "system" for managing your INBOX and taking control back of your life. The video is about 1hr long, so make sure you put aside enough time to watch it, it's well worth it ! Read More...	A simple Mistake We all make little mistakes, but sometimes the smallest of these can cost big money. Today's quiz is about a very small mistake that resulted in millions of dollars. Try the quiz - then reflect on your daily mistakes and the repercussions they may have. A new ship had just been constructed, and everything had pretty much gone to plan. However, near the end of the production, someone spotted that one of the lettters on the small sign displaying the ship's name had been put on back to front. As a result, tens of millins of US dollars had to be spent to correct the error. Today's brain warm up... How could such a small mistake cost so much money? Read More...
What ever became of the CB Radio? In this weeks podlet, I talk about the old CB Radio. Perhaps you've had one of these yourself? We used to have one setup at our house, but there was never anything interesting on the channels. Back in the day, it was fun to just open a channel and chat about whatever you wanted on the citizens band. Of course now with the internet, we live in a much different world, but CB Radio died out long before the internet, what caused this? Will this happen to user generated online content someday as well? Hmm... Read More...	Business Interview Test This one is a classic "Giraffe Test", reportly done by Anderson Consulting. The rumor is they said around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong. But many preschoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting reportedly said this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four year old. So How do you put a giraffe in the fridge? Read More...	The Strangest Items Ever To Sell (Or Not Sell) On EBay As many of you might already be aware, I have recently become an E-Bay addict. I love selling stuff on this site. I'm not making a lot of money, but it's still great. So when I came across this blog entry over at bligit. I just had to share it. People will try anything to sell stuff at ebay. If you want to give it a try youurself please sign up at bwebcentral.com/ebay. Read More...
Vacations and my first ebay sale Family Note: If you are listening to this weeks audio podlet, please note that I recorded it back in February. Since then I have taken a second trip home, and we followed this same plan as explained in this trip, except there was no snow at the end ! In this weeks podet, I talk about my vacation and my sucess with my first ebay sale. In both cases I offer a few tips about travelling with kids and selling things on ebay, yes it's an odd combination, but that's just me I guess ! I'm getting more and more addicated to ebay, and have made myself a little "Ebay sellers kit" that includes things like wrapping paper, a digital scale, packing tape, measuring tape, etc etc. I like to pack everything up shortly after listing it, measure the dimentions for shipping and weight and I write it in pencil on the parcel itself Read More...	You don't have to ditch the Day Job Tony Wright gives some tips and suggestions on ideas for startups and working part time in addition to your full time job. Finding the extra time to start your own business can be a daunting task. Will it be sucessful? How much are you willing to risk? When it comes to starting your own business. Careful time management can allow you to have your cake and eat it oo. Read More...	Understanding Movie Prices If you're like me.. [besides being a bit crazy]..you would be growing more and more annoyed at the advertisements being played in movie theatres !! Haven't seen them yet? If not please let me know, where you live, so I can start going to your movie theatre :-) After paying $10.00 for the movie, plus $15.00 for concessions, then sitting through 30 minutes of adveritsing, finally I get to watch my movie. What's up with that? Read More...
Where's the iHype? Shhh ! I have a secret for you. Do you own your own company, and have recently launched your own website? Many years ago the company I used to work for launched their website. It took us a long time to build a steady stream of quality traffic to our site. We did search engine optimization (SEO) had the address on all our business cards, and conducted webinars. We watched our traffic like crazy, an increase in traffic meant an increase in profits (in theory). But always there was this question hanging over us. What can we do to get more visitors, more traffic? I was the system admin, and part time web developer. I had some ideas and helped out a little to build traffic, but I figured the real magic was up to the marketing gurus. If only I knew then what I know now. Today everyone has a blog, and wants to be a reporter. Many of these blogs are very popular and receive lots of raffic. So if you have a new website and want to get the word and generate a buzz - this is an excellent opportunity. Today we have sites which combine bloggers and business together, and the best way to maximize this opportunity is to join as early as possible to these programs and get in on the ground floor. iHype.com Launches such a service So what does all this mean for you? Simple! Invest your marketing budget into iHype and let bloggers generate buzz for your business automatically. Before the popularity of blogging, there were really only 2 options - a) Emailing webmasters related to your product/service and asking for links and b) Web advertising which can be expensive. Now it just a few clicks, you can have a large network of bloggers review your products and services and post them to be read by their readers. There are of course, other similar programs, however, as these sites get popular, they can also get more expensive. Therefore, the best time to get in the begging so here's your opportunity. I'm sure once you've tried it you'll see how much easier than traditional website marketing tactics. Read More...	An Ecomonics Lesson I'm no economics expert, and I admit it, but here is an interest article I wrote about my understand of our economy and the interesting forces at play that make us spend and save. The real question is - is the the so-called financial experts that forecast our economy, or is it more likey their forcasts that create self-fullfilling prophocies. Check out my thoughts, and maybe you will think differently, the next time you hear the word recession ! Read More...	The Basics Of Getting Things Done GTD or Getting Things Done is a set of strategies designed to help improve your daily Productivity. In this article by the MacIntosh weblog, we see a nice summary of ideas as presented from David Allen's book "Getting Things Done" A very interesting set of ideas indeed. Read More...
10 Big Myths about copyright explained With recent changes to copyright law, I felt it best to go back to the basics. In this article by, Brad Templeton, he identifies common myths about copyright and gives a clear picture of what is copyright and how it works in laymans terms. The article was orginally written in 1994 and updated in 2004 but many of the things still hold true especially with regards to terms such as 'fair use' and public domain. A great reference when you are trying to remember 'is it okay to copy this?' Read More...	What is your financial literacy? I often wish I had the benefit of understanding basics of managing money and finances that I have come to learn today. I have come to understand Personal Financial wellness is a key to happiness in our daily lives. It leaves of free from the day to day worry about our finacial worry by creating a plan up front on when and how to save our money, spend our money, and where we want to be when we retired. It also gives us to tools to understand how to get there, which does not mean simply making more money, but using how to use our existing finances effectivly. The link below is a perosnal wellness quiz to gauage your financial wellness, with tips and tricks to get the most of your finances. Read More...	The Power of Suggestion? So I was browsing some videos, and I came across this one called "Covert Hypnosis". Now, I know a little bit about hypnosis and one of the "cardinal rules" is that you can't be hypnotized unless you want to. So I blew this off almost as fast as I read it. Especially when I went to the website and it was one of those "submit your email here" to learn more type of things Then I watched the video and my opinion changed almost immediatly. Did the hypnosis work on me? Hmm.. I felt quite enlightened after watching this video, though I'm not sure I would call it hypnosis, as much as manipulation. I know it has happened to me. I would get all frustrated about something (or someone) and walk in to talk to him/her about it. Within 20 minutes I would start feeling re-assured and better so I would walk back to my desk. Then 20 minutes after that I would think, wait a minute - what just happened here? Not only did I not get my problem resolved, I was actually "made" to feel better about the bad situation I was in. Has this ever happened to you? Maybe it's just natural charm, or maybe it's something else - I'm not sure. Some people definitly have an uncanny ability to convince others of total hogwash. After watching this video I can see more clearly now how it is they do it. Perhaps it is not intentional, perhaps they can't explain how they do it, but they do. It does seem we can be influenced (unconsiously?) I suppose if you are unaware you are doing this - it is somewhat acceptable as natural charisma, but if you know you are doing this to someone, actively manipulating them to get what you want is it really ethical? and is there anyway to defend against it. I suppose, when I think about it, this type of thing is everywhere, mostly in advertising and is similar to propaganda. In the end You'll have to decide for yourself. Read More...
Harvard Business Review - Answers to Common Business Management Questions Harvard Business Review put together this nice little faq type system. You select your topic and questions about business management, and it easily finds for your related articles on this subject. A handy reference for anyone interested in this sort of thing Read More...	One dead, dozens sick from bacteria outbreak I'm not one to typically post news stories, but the other evening, I happened to notice a TV advert from the President of Maple Leaf foods, apologizing for allowing bacteria to go undetected in some of the meat products, and although they ordered a complete recal when the problem was detected, it was too late, many people have gotten sick and even died. It is not often that I hear the president of a company admitting to a mistake and apologizing for such a problem. It is very sad day for those that have purchased this products and have (or will) become ill or have died. For the complete story.. Read More...