Archive for May, 2011

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Weekly Tech Roundup – May 27, 2011

Friday, May 27th, 2011

Weekly Tech Roundup

I read a lot of blogs. I subscribe to a lot more blogs than I have time to read. Sound familiar? If you're like me, you don't have time to read everything you want (if you do, please tell me your secret). In an effort to reduce the chaos of life, I do two weekly article roundups: one for technical things and one for small business things.

Here's a roundup of the most interesting tech articles I found this week. Enjoy!

Scientists set record in data transmission speeds – 26 terabits per second!! Can you even imagine?

With 26 terabits per second, it would have been possible to transmit up to 400 million telephone calls at the same time.

Technology is such an amazing thing when it’s not driving us crazy!

Lack of IPv6 traffic stats makes judging progress difficult – We’re approaching World IPv6 Day (June 8) so I think that’s why I’m seeing a huge influx of IPv6-related articles. In my previous career I spent most of my time managing IP address space and caring about IPv6. Not so much now, although IPv6 availability was the tiebreaker for my choice of a new hosting provider. This is still an important topic and one of the struggles I saw in my previous capacity was getting the folks that weren’t in the middle of it technically and politically to understand the issue and care. It really can’t be wrapped up in a soundbite. Bottom line is this: everyone needs to support IPv6 and if you don’t start thinking about it soon, it’s going to be really painful down the road. I tried to find a good, simple explanatory video on YouTube but had little luck. This is the best I could find: What is IPv6? The video is from 2009 so all references to “when we run out of IPv4″ are actually now.

If you’re interested in more: What if IPv6 simply fails to catch on? and The 6 biggest misconceptions about IPv6. If you have any questions or concerns about your IPv6 readiness, please feel free to contact me or post a comment below.

Now More Than Ever: Just Write – WordPress.com has dropped support for IE6. Maybe WordPress.org self-hosted sites are next?

Internet Rules At Center Of ‘E-G8′ Forum In Paris – The G8 is discussing Internet governance. Another part of my previous career. Boy, I don’t miss talking about policies and Internet governance! This is a big deal, though, and something to keep an eye on. This isn’t just about net neutrality in the States – this is Internet governance on a global scale. Also: Sarkozy Seeks Global Net Rules and G-8 Leaders to Call for Tighter Internet Regulation.

Lost Type Co-op – A new font foundry. It’s a very cool idea: you pay what you want and the font designer gets 100% of what you donate. Which means, yes, you can get an awesome font for free. But, really, if you like it and use it wouldn’t you like to give the creator a little something? I’m certainly going to consider it for my new projects.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Have a great weekend! Hope yours is a long one. (Don’t be like me and work the whole time!)

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Weekly Small Business Roundup – May 27, 2011

Friday, May 27th, 2011

Weekly Small Business Roundup

I read a lot of blogs. I subscribe to a lot more blogs than I have time to read. Sound familiar? If you're like me, you don't have time to read everything you want (if you do, please tell me your secret). In an effort to reduce the chaos of life, I do two weekly article roundups: one for small business things and one for technical things.

Here's a roundup of the most interesting small business articles I found this week. Enjoy!

6 Work-Life Balance Blunders To Avoid – These are excellent tips and reminders. I like that the #1 blunder is “Trying to always maintain work-life balance.” I envy folks that seem to do this well but, especially for small business folks, it’s really not easy to do and sometimes it’s just not possible. I know the hardest one for me is #4: “Not devoting time to professional development and personal enrichment.” That is always the lowest on my priority list. How do you maintain a reasonable work-life balance?

5 Practical Tips for Getting More from Facebook – Really great, simple things-you-can-do-now tips for small business Facebook marketing. There is a particularly interesting tip at the end for Facebook’s new Sponsored Stories. It might be an interesting way to promote your page or a special. I know I’m gonna check it out in more detail.

Opposite Day – I really love this brief about a company that has dress-up Friday instead of casual Friday. I spend most of my days in jeans and t-shirts and really enjoy dressing up occasionally so this is super fun to me!

A Day Without Distraction: Lessons Learned from 12 Hrs of Forced Focus – After all the years of drilling multitasking into our heads we discover that it’s actually better to single-task. Now to rewrite those patterns… This is a really cool experiment. I’d like to try it someday. The author forced himself to work in minimum 30-minute chunks of time throughout the day. The result was some serious productivity but it was hard to avoid distractions – as can be expected. When I need focused productivity, I use the Focus Booster app. What methods or tools do you use to maximize your productivity?

A Simple Way to Calculate Social Media Return on Investment
 – Not sure if social media is worth it for your company? Use this article to help you calculate your ROI. You can either use this to justify your current social media efforts or as a nudge to get moving in another direction if your current system isn’t working.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Next up is tech news. Have a great (hopefully long) weekend!

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Weekly Tech Roundup – May 20, 2011

Friday, May 20th, 2011

Weekly Tech Roundup

I read a lot of blogs. I subscribe to a lot more blogs than I have time to read. Sound familiar? If you're like me, you don't have time to read everything you want (if you do, please tell me your secret). In an effort to reduce the chaos of life, I do two weekly article roundups: one for technical things and one for small business things.

Here's a roundup of the most interesting tech articles I found this week. Enjoy!

Make Your Own Chromebook On the Cheap by Installing Chromium OS on Any Netbook – This is an awesome way to get a Chromebook without having to fork out the big bucks. The article linked here takes you through all the steps you need, from finding the right netbook to installing Chromium OS. A great geeky weekend project if you need one.

Choose the Best Font and Color for Your Message – Very interesting article on choosing the right font for your project. We usually pick what we think fits the material and looks nice, but it turns out there is also a psychology to it.

CHART OF THE DAY: Netflix Is Eating Up More Of North America’s Bandwidth Than Any Other Company – I know we stream from Netflix and Amazon from our Blu-ray player at my house. I know lots of folks only watch TV and movies through their computer and don’t even own a TV. Nothing we didn’t already suspect here but it’s always cool to see it in a chart like this.

Many browsers run insecure plug-ins, analysis finds – Not really surprising considering most of those update requests we get are for security fixes. A good reminder to keep your browsers and plugins, extensions, and add-ons up-to-date. I found this stat surprising, as I thought more of the security concerns would be with the browser itself:

Overall, around 80 percent of browser-related security flaws now lie with plug-ins and only 20 percent with browsers, regardless of which browser was looked at.

FCC: Small Businesses Need to Increase Cybersecurity – More startling news on the security front.

A 2010 Symantec study revealed that 74 percent of small and medium businesses were targeted by cyberattackers in the past year. And the FCC said U.S. companies lose about $8 billion annually to cyberattacks, with the average attack costing a small business $188,242.

Um, yikes! Just because a business is small doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t make the effort to secure its website, network, and data. Ignorance, cost, and inexperience are not excuses; a responsible effort needs to be made. If you don’t know how to do it, it’s best to find someone that does. It’s better to be safe than sorry and security is the kind of thing where you get what you pay for.

All right, that’s it for this week. Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Small Business Roundup – May 20, 2011

Friday, May 20th, 2011

Weekly Small Business Roundup

I read a lot of blogs. I subscribe to a lot more blogs than I have time to read. Sound familiar? If you're like me, you don't have time to read everything you want (if you do, please tell me your secret). In an effort to reduce the chaos of life, I do two weekly article roundups: one for small business things and one for technical things.

Here's a roundup of the most interesting small business articles I found this week. Enjoy!

How to jump into the social media pool without drowning – If you know me personally, you know I love pro/con lists. This article has an excellent pro/con list for the various social media outlets. Don’t miss the guidelines below the pro/con list. They are just as valuable.

Not Blogging? You’re in the Minority – Sixty-five percent of small business respondents have a company blog. That’s an impressive number! Of course, we know only about half of all small businesses have a website so while these numbers aren’t completely representative, they are telling. Essentially, you should have a company website and you should have a company blog. If you do it right, you could pull off using your blog as your website.

Five Time-Saving Tips for Updating Web Content – Excellent tips for keeping your website up-to-date on a time budget! I try to do most of these, although considering I’m in the middle on a major redesign of my site right now… I guess I’m not really doing any of them! Are there any others you do to keep your content fresh without spending a lot of time?

7 Not So Obvious Habits To Maximize Your Productivity – Some very interesting, somewhat unconventional ways to help you stay productive. If you are stuck and your typical productivity methods aren’t working for you, or you just want to try something new, take a peek. I think it’s particularly interesting how they’ve broken it into different methods for different days of the week. Interesting to mix it up that way.

New Legislation Aims to Simplify Home Office Deductions – The US is considering simplifying the home office tax deduction, allowing for a standard $1,500 deduction in lieu of itemization we have to do now. That could be pretty great, especially if your itemized expenses wouldn’t make $1,500 for the year. Many of the small businesses in this country are home-based businesses so it makes sense to simplify things for those folks that don’t want to itemize. I’m not saying I’d do it but I like having the option. It’ll be interesting to see if this passes.

It’s National Small Business Week! I’d like to say thanks to all of my clients and all my fellow small business owners. And say good luck to all the folks out there just getting started. It’s exciting and rewarding and lots of hard work but it’s so worth it! I love what I do and it’s a pleasure to work with the folks I get to team up with. Most days it doesn’t feel like “work” at all!

Up next is tech news. Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Tech Roundup – May 13, 2011

Friday, May 13th, 2011

Weekly Tech Roundup

I read a lot of blogs. I subscribe to a lot more blogs than I have time to read. Sound familiar? If you're like me, you don't have time to read everything you want (if you do, please tell me your secret). In an effort to reduce the chaos of life, I do two weekly article roundups: one for technical things and one for small business things.

Here's a roundup of the most interesting tech articles I found this week. Enjoy!

US politicians push for ‘do not track’ internet laws – US lawmakers want to protect users’ privacy by allowing them to block companies from tracking them online. The system would be similar to the “Do Not Call” list. Who knows if anything will actually come of these hearings but it is a very important conversation to pay attention to. I know I have some serious concerns about implementation. Here’s another: Online Privacy: Can the U.S. Get Its Act Together?

Top 10 Fixes for the Web’s Most Annoying Problems – This is a great list. I think Lifehacker did an awesome job picking these hugely annoying problems and coming up with excellent solutions. They have fixes for Mac/PC and across browsers, where applicable. Are there any other huge web annoyances you’ve found a good solution for?

CSS3 Generator Helps You Create and Learn New Complex CSS Code – I prefer to do this kind of thing on my own but this is a fun little tool. The preview is so smooth! Great for beginners or if you just need to do something quick and don’t want to think about it.

Google Finally Delivers On Promise Of Admin-Free Chrome Frame Installs For IE – This is excellent news for those folks stuck using IE6 or 7 at school or the office. You can now install and use the Google Chrome web browser without needing administrator privileges on your machine. Use Internet Explorer to download the Chrome Frame plug-in.

For Microsoft, Skype Opens Vast New Market in Telecom – There are a ton of articles on this deal but this is one of the better, with more in-depth coverage. It discusses details and implications. I’m not a big Skype user so while this doesn’t directly impact me I’m curious to see where it goes. If this deal makes you want to immediately find a Skype replacement , here’s a great resource: 9 Great Alternatives to Skype for VoIP and Video Chat. What do you think of this deal?

That’s it for this week. Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Small Business Roundup – May 13, 2011

Friday, May 13th, 2011

Weekly Small Business Roundup

I read a lot of blogs. I subscribe to a lot more blogs than I have time to read. Sound familiar? If you're like me, you don't have time to read everything you want (if you do, please tell me your secret). In an effort to reduce the chaos of life, I do two weekly article roundups: one for small business things and one for technical things.

Here's a roundup of the most interesting small business articles I found this week. Enjoy!

Killing Giants: A Small Business Must-Read – This is an interview with the author of Killing Giants, Stephen Denny. The book is all about the little guys taking on the big guys. Very inspirational for this small business owner. I’ll be picking up a copy. On a related note, The Rise Of The Micro-Enterprise And Why It Matters talks a little more about what it means to be a so-called “little guy.”

7 Steps to Disciplined Business Blogging – This is an excellent guide to get you started with blogging. Or to keep it up if you already do it. Be sure to click through to the editorial calendar template. It may seem overwhelming to add one more thing to your list but you’ll be totally set if you spend even 15-30 minutes per day on your blog (or other social media for that matter). I know it really helps me to have a deadline for posts and I work on them just a few minutes a day. It takes a little longer than that to get them ready to publish at the end of the week but I think it’s worth it. I get such great feedback on these posts!

Chart: Mandatory Paid Time Off Around The Globe – The US is alone (on this chart – I’m sure there are others!) with China in not requiring paid time off. This is a good reminder that we need to plan for time off. As small business owners we think our businesses can’t survive without us, even for a day. That’s simply not true. The sky will not fall if you take a break occasionally. (Yes, I need to be reminded of this regularly!) You can find a way to make it work. Your body and mind will thank you! How do you sneak in a break from your business? A day here and there or a week or two all at once?

More Terrifying Facts About How Sitting Will Kill You – There have been a lot of stories about just how bad it is to sit all day. Take a look at this infographic for some startling facts and some tips on how to get active if you must sit. If you have a job where you sit all day, how do you stay active?

Facebook’s Best Practice Guide (PDF) – Facebook released a 14 page “best practices” for marketing on Facebook. Although the guide is specific to Facebook, the principles work anywhere in social media or marketing in general.

Tech Roundup coming next. Have a great weekend!

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