Archive for September, 2011

« Older Entries

Weekly Tech Roundup – September 30, 2011

Friday, September 30th, 2011

Weekly Tech Roundup

This week’s Tech Roundup includes net neutrality, browser speed tests, and innovative uses for WordPress.

FCC’s net-neut rules now official – Net neutrality is, at its essence, about keeping the internet open; that’s how we got here. Now the FCC’s rules are official and the legal, uh, crap-storm has begun. You can read about it yourself (PDF alert), but basically, the FCC’s Open Internet rules are about transparency, not blocking content, and not discriminating against network traffic.

Browser Speed Tests: Firefox 7, Chrome 14, Internet Explorer 9, and More – In Lifehacker’s browser speed tests, Opera was the big winner. Firefox tied in a few categories. I’m surprised Chrome didn’t perform better, only winning one category.

The Interactive Vim Tutorial Teaches You How to Use Vim, the Fast, Mouseless Text Editor – I’m one of those weird geeks that loves vi. The emulator is a little slow but probably perfect for learning.

Issue discovered with Firefox add-on upgrades – Apparently there were some issues with the add-ons not showing up in Firefox 7. If you upgraded to Firefox 7, you might want to update to Firefox 7.0.1 for the fix if you haven’t already.

5 Innovative Uses of WordPress for Business Owners – These aren’t just great suggestions for what business owners can use WordPress for, but also what designers and developers can market to the clients. These are all themes or plugins that need customization. Great ideas for business tools and design/development.

Make Sure the Problem Is Not in Your Chair – Anyone that has done tech support of any kind – professionally or for friends/family – or are self-aware enough to recognize this in themselves will appreciate this great article. It covers some regular problems that come up and how to prevent them.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Have a great weekend!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Technical, Weekly Tech Roundup | No Comments »

Weekly Small Business Roundup – September 30, 2011

Friday, September 30th, 2011

Weekly Small Business Roundup

Can you believe it’s the end of September already? Enjoy the first days of autumn with this week’s Small Business Roundup including Google Analytics tips, getting paid on time, QR codes, and writer’s block.

The Stupid Things You Do at Work (and How to Fix Them) – Five very true things we all do, including procrastination, excessive pride, and psyching yourself out. I know I’ve done all of these at one time or another.

7 Ways Google Analytics Will Improve Your Small Business Website – A great article if you’re still on the fence about using Google Analytics to monitor your website traffic or if you have it set up and don’t know what to do with it.

How Can I Protect Against Late Payers and Get Paid Faster? – Quick video (1:42) with excellent ideas and policy tips to make sure you get paid – and on time.

Few Consumers Are Cracking The QR Code – It does seem like we’re seeing more and more QR codes in ads and around town – but apparently not many are using them. If you are looking to incorporate QR codes into your marketing, consider your audience. Are they likely to use them or even know what they are?

How People Learn About Local Communities: 5 Takeaways – If you needed more proof for why you need a website. This is it! These are impressive numbers, showing just how much of the population is using the Internet. Particularly if you have a local business and want that competitive edge, a website and a mobile app or website are a must!

Talker’s block – Or, how to get over writer’s block. Funny and true: no one gets talker’s block. Really great suggestions on how to get started or keep writing. All the small business folks out there that think they can’t write or don’t have time, this is for you.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Tech news is up later. Have a great weekend!

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Business, Weekly Small Business Roundup | No Comments »

Weekly Tech Roundup – September 23, 2011

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Weekly Tech Roundup

This week’s Tech Roundup includes a security hole in HTTPS, Windows 8 in-depth, and the Lifehacker Hackintosh guide.

Researchers to detail hole in Web encryption – It was bound to happen eventually. Interestingly, no one seems all that concerned about it. Still, I’d expect to see a patch in the next update of your favorite browser. Another reason to always keep your browser up-to-date. Read more about it here: Hackers break SSL encryption used by millions of sites.

The Always Up-to-Date Guide to Building a Hackintosh – One of these days I’ll build a Hackintosh. It’s on my “someday” list. For those that don’t know, or can’t tell from the name, a Hackintosh is a computer running OS X on non-Apple hardware. This guide takes you through the entire setup process. It’s pretty slick. Take a look!

Lifehacker put together an in-depth four-part series this week for all of your Windows 8 curiosities:

Create Sticky Notes To-Do List In CSS And JQuery – I thought this looked like a fun tutorial. It comes with a demo and a download so you can skip the hand-coding and just use it if you prefer.

Introducing The Smashing WordPress Section – Smashing Magazine now has a dedicated section for WordPress. Should be a wealth of information and a good source for tutorials.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Have a great weekend!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Technical, Weekly Tech Roundup | No Comments »

Weekly Small Business Roundup – September 23, 2011

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Weekly Small Business Roundup

This week’s Small Business Roundup includes my recap of International Freelancers Day, Facebook changes, and how to work with a web designer/developer.

International Freelancers Day 2011 Recap – My recap of today’s International Freelancers Day presentations. It’s hard to beat free, especially when you get good information out of it.

4 Secrets Happy Entrepreneurs Know – Or, how to run your company and not go insane. These 4 secrets are so very true.

Sleep = Productivity – I’ve talked about the power of sleep and napping here before. I’m a huge fan because sleep fixes things. It can help you solve problems. It can wipe out stress. It can give you distance and perspective. It can keep you healthy. It can be like a huge reset button. And so much more. What can you do next week to get a little more sleep each night?

Facebook wants to be big among small businesses – Facebook is going to give away free $50 advertising credits to small businesses. It might not go very far but it might be enough to make a difference. Can’t hurt to try, right?

How To Work With A Website Designer – This is one of the best articles I’ve read on hiring and working with a web designer/developer. The author really nails every point and I could not agree more.

“The bottom line is that unless you are that rare creature who possesses an extremely good sense of design combined with a highly evolved programming prowess — you should not be creating your own website.”

- Karen Leland

Five things to know about the new Facebook – If you’re on Facebook you saw the big changes they released this week and probably had an opinion about it. Whether you like the changes or not, it’s just the first in a long line of changes announced yesterday. If you really, really, really hate the changes to the news feed, here’s how to change it back: How to restore Facebook’s Most Recent news feed.

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Tech news is up later. Have a great weekend!

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Business, Weekly Small Business Roundup | No Comments »

International Freelancers Day 2011 Recap

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

I spent the first 20 minutes of (most of) each hour today watching presentations from International Freelancers Day. If you missed it, you can catch the replays for $29. That doesn’t just get you a one time viewing; that’s a lifetime availability price. Offer’s good through next Friday, Sept. 30.

I took lots of notes, but there were two presentations in particular that caught my attention: The 30-Day Freelance Money Challenge: 5 Money Management Steps Every Freelancer Should Know & Do in the Next 30 Days from Joe D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan and A 6-Step Plan for Confidently Pricing Freelance Projects from Rebecca Matter.

I’m not sure they said anything I didn’t already know, but they reinforced some very important ideas that I’ve forgotten or ignored since I’ve run my business full-time. I’ll be re-examining my business with a focus on those two areas. The first is exclusively internal money management but the other will result in client-facing changes.

Don’t expect any big, scary changes, though! I think the only change you will see is more accurate project estimates, which I’m always striving to improve and I’m sure everyone appreciates. And, if you request a project estimate, it will probably take me a little longer to get back to you – no more quick guesses and then coming back with an estimate later. It’ll just be the estimate later. When I have time to think about and research a project the estimate is the most accurate.

We’ll see what else sinks in from my other notes over the next few days but that’s mostly what caught my attention.

If anyone would like a copy of my notes from these two presentations or any of the others I attended, please feel free to post a comment or contact me.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Business | No Comments »

Weekly Tech Roundup – September 16, 2011

Friday, September 16th, 2011

Weekly Tech Roundup

I’ve had an unusually busy week so this week’s roundups are short & sweet – links only and no comments from me. I’ll be back to full posts next week.

This week’s Tech Roundup includes how to get started with the PayPal API, a trio of Windows 8 articles, and social networks for dev & design.

Getting Started With The PayPal API

14 Social Networks for Designers and Developers

Mozilla, Firefox and the Version Number Chaos

5 Tips for Becoming a Better WordPress Developer

The Best PCs You Can Build for $600 and $1200

A trio of Windows 8 articles:
Download the Windows 8 Developer Preview Now
How Do I Install Windows 8 in a Virtual Machine?
Try Out Some of Windows 8’s Lesser-Known Features This Weekend

 

If you enjoy these Roundups please share with your friends!

Have a great weekend!

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Technical, Weekly Tech Roundup | No Comments »

« Older Entries