Archive for July, 2011

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Weekly Tech Roundup – July 29, 2011

Friday, July 29th, 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!

The State of the Web – Seriously, laugh out loud hilarious (and true). As expected from The Oatmeal.

WordPress 3.3 Proposed Scope – See what is scheduled for the next version of WordPress. Some of it is wishlist, but there are a few things that are slated as top priority, such as updates to the media uploader, that I’m excited for. They’re planning to drop support for IE7, too, but not in version 3.3. We’ll have to wait for 3.4 for that.

Most IT pros say their websites, networks will support IPv6 by 2013 – Well, this is huge and pleasantly surprising news. I guess that whole “we’ve run out of IPv4 addresses” finally sunk in! Some key figures from the report:

  • 70% of IT departments plan to upgrade their websites to support IPv6 within the next 24 months
  • 65% say they will have IPv6 running on their internal networks by then (24 months)
  • more than 90% said IPv6 is “fundamentally important to the Internet”

Do you have IPv6 yet? Do you have plans for IPv6? (No idea what I’m talking about? Contact me.)

Girls Go Geek… Again! – As a fellow Geek Girl, I found this article fascinating! Did you know 42% of the software developers and 34% of the systems analysts in America were women in 1987? The article includes a Q&A with an incoming senior at Johns Hopkins University about her history and experience with computer science.

A simple introduction to web accessibility – A quick primer on web accessibility, covering visual, hearing, motor, cognitive disabilities.

Comic Sans Criminal – Another fun website to close the roundups this week. Are you a Comic Sans Criminal? A little history, a little fun, a little true.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Small Business Roundup – July 29, 2011

Friday, July 29th, 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!

Creating Killer Calls to Action – You’re probably familiar with calls to action. They are the “Buy now” and “Sign up for a free trial” buttons and links you find on websites. This article has some great tips for improving your calls to action to help you get more people signed up for your list, buying your product, or clicking your links.

Five Ways to Improve Your Website — Now – Some good tips for improving your website. I would add to #4 “Update your website dates,” to actually update your content, not just the dates! Content is a very important part of your website (after all, what else is the point of it?) and having recent and regular information is key.

How to Make Your Email Newsletter a Must-Read for Your Customers – Excellent advice if you are starting a newsletter or already sending one out. It covers 5 areas you need to consider when planning and writing your newsletters. In addition to these tips, a good rule of thumb is to think about the newsletters you receive: what do you like and dislike about them? Make a list so you have it for future reference and apply it to your own newsletters.

Tight Times Boost Business Credit Cards – Congress is considering extending the same consumer protections for personal credit cards to business credit cards. (Did you even know there was a difference? I didn’t.) Some banks are threatening to drop small business cardholders if the CARD Act protections are applied to them. But others are already applying the rules to their business cards. If you have a business credit card, it might be good to check your terms to make sure you are protected.

Simplify Your Productivity Tools To Get More Done – Who would think that you could have so many productivity tools that it would impair your productivity? Sounds funny, but I think it happens quite often. This article discusses how to whittle your productivity tools down to the necessities and, as a result, become more productive.

This week is short & sweet as I’m getting ready to launch two ebooks. More details later today or early next week.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Tech news is up this afternoon. Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Tech Roundup – July 22, 2011

Friday, July 22nd, 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!

Virgin sets cable broadband world record – Can you imagine having a cable Internet connection that is 1.5Gbps down and 150Mbps up? It will happen one day in the not-too-distant future.

Power, Outlet: U-Outlet, Dual Socket/ Dual USB, 110V, TruePower – I don’t normally post products but this is something I ran across this week that is too cool not to share. It’s a power outlet with built-in USB ports. It’s perfect for charging your USB devices (smartphone, iPod, etc.) and only $23. Sounds like a great weekend project!

Internet Explorer 9 hammers rivals in download blocking test – Internet Explorer is finally catching up on (and, in this case, passing) other browsers in the security realm.

Rating the browsers against a sample set of European malware URLs over 19 days in April, IE 8 achieved a mean block rate of 90 percent, leaving Chrome 10, Firefox 4 and Safari 5 in the dust on 13 percent each. Opera, which uses technology from antivirus company AVG, came in last on 5 percent.

When assessing IE 9 with application filtering turned on, the results were even more dramatic, taking that version to a mean blocking rate of 100 percent.

This is a huge win for Microsoft, but it won’t have me pulling up IE next time I want to browse the web. It does, however, make me a little more wary of my other browsers.

Gui:Config for Firefox Gives About:Config A Proper Interface – This Firefox add-on gives you point-and-click access to About:Config. It’s great if you like to tweak your browser settings but are intimidated by the traditional interface or if you are familiar with About:Config and just like things to be easy.

Microsoft Drop Conditional Comments in IE10 – There’s nothing worse than developing a website that looks beautiful and just how you want it in every browser but IE. Starting with IE10, conditional statements will be no more. In theory, there won’t be any need for it as all modern browsers will render websites close to the same. Don’t get too excited, though. You’ll still have to use conditional statements for IE7, 8, and 9 (and 6, if you’re still coding to it).

Quickly Create a New Text Document Anywhere with the Right-Click > W > T Shortcut – I love useful time savers. This is super handy if you use Windows and create a lot of plain text files.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Small Business Roundup – July 22, 2011

Friday, July 22nd, 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!

Business owners band together, offer advice – This is a great story about a group of business owners in New Jersey with a free networking group. These business groups are excellent for those of us that don’t like traditional networking because it doesn’t feel like we’re networking, it feels like sharing stories and helping each other out (but, of course, that is networking). There are a lot of these kinds of groups around (and even more of the “Eww, networking” variety). The great thing is if there isn’t a group in your area that meets your needs you can start your own!

Work Your Profit Margin – Ten Ways To Increase Profit By Working Smarter Not Harder – This article has “10 ways to streamline, automate, and stop wheel-spinning.” Who wouldn’t love to stop the wheel-spinning? The suggestions are tech-heavy but that doesn’t mean you need to be a geek to use them. Think about how you could apply these tips and tools to your business. For example, if you have an appointment-based business, a variation of #2 “Get your calendar online” is to start using an online scheduling system.

5 Ways To Raise Your Rates And Keep Your Clients – These are nonthreatening, non-scary ways to raise your rates. Many of them make so much sense I wonder how I hadn’t thought of them on my own. I love the idea of building rate increases into your business process so it is just how it is. It’s definitely a mind hack but it’s a great one! How do you approach price increases in your business?

Facebook Sponsored Stories Performing 2 Times Better Than Standard Ads – Facebook’s Sponsored Stories are essentially a word-of-mouth kind of advertising because it’s based on a friend’s Likes and check-ins. It acts as a sort of endorsement of a product, service, or company. I haven’t seen any of these ads in my Facebook experience yet but it seems like it would be more appealing to see what my friends like than the traditional ad style. It would also be interesting to see what kinds of businesses are seeing success with it.

How Do I Make the Most of Google+? – This article covers layout adjustments, keyboard shortcuts, sharing plugins, and more. I’m sure it’s not comprehensive but it’s covers a lot. Also on G+, Gphangouts Lists Public Google+ Hangouts for You to Join – If you’re on G+ you’ve probably seen the green “Start a Hangout” button and wondered what that was really all about. Hangouts are kind of like video chat rooms where you can discuss a specific topic. This site will show you a list of current Hangouts and you can publish your own.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Tech news is up later this afternoon. Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Tech Roundup – July 15, 2011

Friday, July 15th, 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!

How to Migrate Your Data From an Old Computer to a New One – Getting a new computer is so much fun! But getting all your stuff off your old computer onto the new one can be stressful. This guide walks you through migrating from Windows to Windows, Mac to Windows, and Windows to Mac. Great article to bookmark for reference.

Microsoft: we’re pulling the plug on Windows XP in 3 years – If you’re a Windows user, have you upgraded to Windows 7 yet? If not, you’ll have until 2014 to make the switch. Don’t worry, your PC won’t all of a sudden burst into flames or anything, Microsoft just won’t support it if something does go wrong. Another piece of Microsoft news: Windows 8 will run on all current PC hardware, so anything that runs Windows 7 today will run Windows 8 when it comes out. That’s pretty good news considering most operating system updates require some hardware upgrades, too (or at least research to make sure everything is supported). Your next PC will still be outdated as soon as you buy it, but maybe a little less so now.

Google Adds Ebooks and Movie Rentals to the Android Market – A convenient addition to the Android Market, especially if you travel a lot or have a long bus/train commute. You can now purchase ebooks and rent movies and have them download directly to your Android phone. There are some other updates to the Market along with these additions. Click through to the Google Mobile Blog for more details.

How to change WordPress editor font – If you’ve upgraded to WordPress 3.2+, you’ve noticed the changes they’ve made to wp-admin and the editor. I’ve gotten used to wp-admin but I’ve been having a hard time with the editor font. This article solves that! Now to pick a new font…

Protecting Your Online Life With Secure Passwords – People tend to be pretty loose with their passwords. I get it: we all have accounts for seemingly every website we go to, we have multiple email accounts, etc. Who can remember all of those passwords? So, we reuse passwords. We pick simple, easy to remember ones. And then we wonder how our accounts get hacked. This article covers what makes good and bad passwords, tips for managing your passwords, and suggests how often to change your really important passwords. Yes, I know it’s all a hassle but it’s easy security that’s worth it!

The Google+ Cheatsheet Is a Quick Reference To Using Google+ – Shortcuts styling, hotkeys for quick navigation, and other handy tips for G+.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Small Business Roundup – July 15, 2011

Friday, July 15th, 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!

Why Small Business Should Jump Onto Google+ Soon – An interesting article on how small business folks can really use G+ to their advantage by getting in early and taking advantage of the Circles feature. G+ has a really short learning curve and while it may seem a little like, “OK, now what?” because not everyone is there yet, that can actually be to your advantage. Use G+ for what you want and have fun! Also, take a look at 5 Ways To Build Your Personal Brand On Google+ for additional tips.

3 Scary Truths About Multi-Tasking (And 5 Ways To Stop) – The concept of multi-tasking was really drilled into our heads for many years. It took me quite a while before I realized just how awful it is. I still have to stop myself sometimes and get on a singular track. All three “truths” in this article are completely spot-on. It also includes 5 simple ways to start single-tasking. The phone example in the third “truth” is my biggest struggle but I’m getting better at it. What are your single-tasking tips?

How to Get a Do-It-Yourself MBA – Wondering if an MBA is right for you? This article will help you weigh the pros and cons. It also lays out an 11-step Do-It-Yourself MBA guide if you want the knowledge but don’t want to spend the money.

How to Pick Up the Blogging Habit – These 6 tips will help you start blogging, or keep it up if you’ve already started. There are good suggestions here. I do some of them and can say they work for me. Others, I know I should do. If you’re a regular blogger, what tips can you add to the list to get others going?

Productivity System Overview: “Getting Results the Agile Way” – You know I have to include a productivity article each week! This one is about applying Agile methods to productivity. The system looks good but I don’t know about picking only 3 things to focus on!

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Tech news is up this afternoon. Have a great weekend!

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