FireFox … I’m Going To Miss You

But, you never know, I might be back (smile). I have been a FireFox user for a very very long time and have always been crazy about it. However, this slobbering love affair started to head south with the introduction of Version 3.5. The latest and the greatest. Fastest ever. Unfortunately, for me it did not work. I had nothing but problems in a variety of areas so, reluctantly, I managed to find a download site and converted back to Version 3.1. While I was disappointed in not being able to take advantage of the new features, I didn’t know what those were anyway so there really was no need to even upgrade.

So there I am, happily back to running a FireFox that worked. My reasoning was that maybe when they came out with 3.6, I’d try that. Then, and without warning, my latest version of 3.1X went totally buggy on me. Every time I did a Google Search, it asked me if I was “sure that I wanted to leave the page?”. Even worse, it started popping this message up all by itself and in a totally random manner. Incidentally, all this time I am reporting these issues to Bugzilla and none are being resolved. Finally, in an act of desperation, I did upgrade again to 3.5X and, quite by magic, everything worked again. Sweet.

Fact is, it still works. And works. And works. And works. For whatever reason, particularly around the end of the day or in the evening, it is so slow it makes me want to tear my hair out. Given the current crop on the top of my head, this creates a problem (smile). The lag time (latency) in typing is unbearable. I was advised to completely uninstall FireFox and then re-install the latest version to correct this issue. I thought that may have done it but it did not. I’m now doing this post with Google Chrome. I don’t know, I have heard that toolbars wreak all sorts of havoc with FireFox so maybe that is the issue. Problem is, toolbars are one of the things I like best about it.

Things I am going to like about Chrome:

1. This sucker is blazing fast. I mean blazing. As of yet, I have not seen the typing latency.
2. I can use the one bookmark toolbar to hold all of my “sharing buttons” as well as my most common webpages. One click to this site and to our Ning pages. I really like that.
3. I also discovered the “new tab” feature where you can open a tab and it will call up page views of some of your other favorite sites. You can delete or pin these sites to this tab but, at least as of yet, I can’t figure out how you can manually specify one. For what it is worth, as I was giving FireFox the heave-ho, I discovered that a version of this is also available with that browser.

Things I will need to get used to:

1. Thank God I still have Zemanta. In FireFox it just popped in whenever I opened up to compose a letter or start a blog post. Now I have to activate it with a button. No biggie.
2. Gmail signatures are back to plain old text with spelled out links. WiseStamp is not yet available on Chrome but they are supposed to be working on it.
3. No PowerTwitter. Once again, should be available on Chrome soon. I really like this tool for two reasons…. it makes it easy to retweet messages and it also shows link content from URL’s regardless of how it may have been shortened. Twitter is supposedly introducing a retweet function and there is probably another work around for this anyway that I have not yet found.
4. I have to reconnect my FaceBook gadget every time I load my iGoogle page from scratch. What is up with that? FireFox connects a Google gadget to FaceBook but Google’s own browser will not? Lame (smile).

Oh well, there are a number of FireFox add-ons that I liked but, in retrospect, I can do without them. They probably were the ones causing the problems in the first place (smile).

Thanks for visiting!

Craig

P.S. If you can not print Gmail when you go to it from your iGoogle page … you are not alone. Major bug that cropped up about a week ago. Does not seem to care if you use Vista or XP. If you are a Mac or a P.C.. Hates every browser equally. It just flat-out sucks and Google isn’t doing a damn thing about it. Don’t believe me? Check this out at the Google Forum.

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Your First New Investment Should Be In “You”

The economy continues to languish and, if you are like me and a lot of other folks, whatever investments you did have prior to this recession took a major hit. Suddenly, your plans for early retirement have been …. “modified”. Certainly, there are signs of life and we all know that things will someday be back to “normal”.

Personally, and I tend to be very conservative, I am watching the economic indicators climb back up and am awaiting the right time to jump back in. The real question is … “Jump back into what?”. I’m a little queasy on stocks and not that much more comfortable with real estate. Precious metals are interesting, I just really wish that I had bought gold when it was at $400. Regardless of what I choose to do, I have this agonizing feeling that whatever that may be, I’m going to get slaughtered. Again (smile).

There is, however, one investment vehicle that has never abandoned me. Me. I am what I have to carry me up to, and into, retirement.  It is going to be what I choose to do now that is going to generate the dollars needed to see me through those, hopefully, golden years. I am my most valuable commodity and it only makes sense that I need to devote the largest percentage of my investment efforts into seeing that this asset performs to its maximum potential.

While by no means a complete list, we can divide your investment into four major categories: family, health, spiritual, and professional. I am by no means even remotely qualified to discuss the first three. Suffice to say that those three houses all need to be in proper order. Being of poor condition in any of these will without question affect everything you either want, or attempt, to accomplish. As to the fourth …..

1. Does this economy find you laying back or aggressively moving forward? If you find yourself to be “coasting”, you are likely headed downhill.
2. What have you done in terms of your professional education and development? Are you taking the steps necessary to get better at what you are paid to do?
3. Do you view books, seminars, and workshops to be expenses that you cannot afford or investments that you cannot afford not to make?
4. Are you taking this opportunity to network with other professionals like you have never done before in the past?
5. Will you be properly positioned to take maximum advantage of the inevitable “recovery”?

Of course, we can’t finish this topic without a more in-depth discussion regarding networking. Networking and referral business is, without question, the most profitable type of transaction you can ever hope to be a part of. Consistently. I am always both puzzled and amused by those who view any costs associated with this activity as expenses vs. investments. Sure, I know that times are tough. If I spend $25 per week on networking activities, that’s $25 that I will not be able to spend at Starbucks, McDonald’s, or Joe’s House of Beer. Pretty tough to argue with those compelling examples. Doesn’t much matter that your $25 networking investment will quite likely generate a return of 10 fold vs. a gain of 10 lbs. (smile).

Short post today. My Monday gift to you (smile). Thanks for visiting!

Craig

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Grabbin’ Your Piece of the Free “Digital Pie”

maitskireport.com

There is a great big pie out there and it is called “the internet”. It’s a tremendous source for both research and for entertainment. It’s also where folks can go to learn more about you and your business. Better yet, a great deal of it is free. Let me say that again …. FREE. This being the case, why is it that more business people are not taking advantage of it?

I have been studying this phenomena known as “social media” pretty heavily now since probably the first part of this year. During this journey I have gone from .. “that’s about the stupidest thing I have ever seen or heard of” to ….. “this stuff really works!”. I’ve also been every place in between and my feelings about this medium, and my expectations, sometimes shift on a daily basis. You should also know that I view these tools pretty much strictly from a business point of view. Honestly, I’m just not that “social”. I’m probably even less “interesting” (smile). I know that I am very “private”. When people play these inane games on FaceBook and, to make matters worse, are always asking me to “give” them something to help them win their game, I either hide the game, them, or both.

That does not mean for a minute that I do not care about relationships. Quite the contrary. Fact is, I am all about relationships. Creating them. Building them. Maintaining them. It’s what I do and it is what I do for a living. I’d like to think that I give to others at an equal to or better rate than I get back and, I love doing it! I think that a lot of business people are not embracing social media for the exact same reasons that caused me to do the same. I don’t understand it, it’s nuts, I don’t have the time, and I don’t see how I can get the results I need from my efforts.

So, let’s assume for a minute that social media is all of that and more. You won’t get immediate results. You maybe won’t get any tangible results ever. It will take some of your time and just how much of that time it will take is entirely up to you. But, and I just can’t help myself, it’s free. Why in the world would I not want to take advantage of something that costs me no more than the time it takes to learn the fundamentals? I can’t think of any good reason especially when I consider:

1. If people want to know more about Craig, whereas I used to be ranked 1,499,999 out of 1,500,00 on a search, I now take up the first two pages and this is without any SEO or formal optimization efforts.
2. Want to know about my professional background? Find my resume on LinkedIn along with my recommendations.
3. More interested in my idiosyncrasies? Visit my FaceBook page.
4. Would you like to know what I find interesting? Take a look at my Twitter stream or this blog.

Technically speaking, you could establish a presence on the big three (LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter) and do little, if anything, more than that. This would not be the optimum or recommended course but hell, something is better than nothing (smile). These days, life is more and more about being “found” and being “recognized”. Nothing that I am aware of is more effective than social media in establishing and building your “brand”.  And, did I mention that it’s FREE (smile)?

Still, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. NetWorks! Boise presently has two distinct groups, Bing! and Business Minds. Each has a dedicated website featuring the members and their companies as the “public face” for each group. Each also has a closed, private, and secure FaceBook group page where they can collaborate in total confidence. These sites have been up for a few weeks now. These also have something else in common. Only about 50% of the membership of each group has taken the time to create their presence on their pages let alone provide more than the most basic of their professional credentials.

All this free pie and nobody wants a piece. Go figure (smile). Thanks for visiting!

Craig

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My Top 12 Choices For Social Media Productivity

search1x.com

When it comes to Social Media, I devote a lot of attention toward making the time I spend as productive as possible. Being active in this medium is, I believe, essential. Trying to do so without taking advantage of the myriad of tools that are available … well, that’s just plain dumb.

Mind you, there are literally 100′s of these apps and, certainly, there are some really great ones that I am either not using or, quite likely, not even aware of. Got to go with what I know and here are my top 12. Today (smile).

iGoogle: This is my home page and this is my command center. Many of the tools that we are going to discuss are found right on this page. Google has a tremendous selection of gadgets that you can bring onto your iGoogle page and what this allows me to do is communicate and coordinate with Twitter, FaceBook, and even LinkedIn without ever having to open a new tab unless I wish to.

Gmail Gadget: Until I find someone to “Wave” to, email remains king. Maybe even after Wave becomes widely adopted which is, for that matter, still a question very much remaining to be answered. The gadget does reside on my iGoogle page. Google has many to choose from including those for hosted Gmail accounts as I have. Yesterday, the look and feel of this app was updated making it even more functional in its ability to allow me to conduct, if I wish, all email activities without even going to my Gmail page.

TwitterGadget: Also on my iGoogle page. This is actually a very functional Twitter client much like TweetDeck, Seesmic, or HootSuite. Not as sophisticated, mind you, and it does not have the added capability to post to or monitor FaceBook but, it’s a great little gizmo none the less.

Google Reader: Again, you guessed it, on my home page (smile). I probably subscribe to 15-20 news sources and blogs that I find to have consistently interesting articles. Whenever a new article is posted on one of these sites, it gets added to my reader which I can them peruse at my convenience. My iGoogle gadget allows me to get a quick look at all items in my reader by title and source, drill down to get a synopsis of the article, or click to go to the original source. If I wish, I can go to my full reader and check articles based on everything that is in there or by folders that I have established for each to be filed under. I also have the ability to, right from within Reader, share any article to Twitter, FaceBook, Posterous, or many other sites. Pretty cool.

Google Alerts: I am using Google Alerts to scan the internet for articles that may be of interest to me. Alerts are generated based on keywords that I have specified. All articles pulled by alerts are fed to …. my Google Reader.

ReadTwit: This is a very cool little tool! One of the frustrating things about Twitter is that you have all of these folks posting links and 99% of these are in a url shortened format which makes it impossible for you to determine what that particular link might be about, or might take you to, without having to click on it. On top of that, folks are tweeting so fast that there is an excellent chance that you will miss that one really cool link that could make or break your day. ReadTwit monitors the tweets of those folks that I follow on Twitter, grabs the links from each tweet, moves them into my Reader, and actually gives me the title and a synopsis of each. Very cool (smile).

PowerTwitter: This is a FireFox add-on that actually installs itself as an overlay onto your Twitter home page. I know it does a number of things but what I really like is that it takes those shortened urls and translates them and actually shows me the source and the title of the link. When I go to somebody else’s Twitter page it does the same. It also allows me to re-tweet that article from that person’s page if I so desire. I find this invaluable combined with my Reader and ReadTwit. When I view an article on my Reader that was generated by a Tweet, I follow that article back to the Tweeter, find that tweet, and then re-tweet as opposed to just sharing that article. Credit where credit is due. I have also discovered that re-tweeting is scoring me big points in the Twitter community and is also increasing visits to this blog. A win-win.

HootSuite: Hootsuite is a very powerful Twitter client that is gaining an increasingly wide following. There are many out there that prefer it to any Twitter client that is available. I use it for the Hootlet bookmarklet. The Hootlet is a little button that sits on my browser toolbar. When I am looking at an article that I would like to share on Twitter, I just click on the Hootlet. A tweet is prepared along with a shortened link. I can add my comments if I wish and based on space available and then ………. I can send it now or schedule to send it later. As I like to say … HootSweet! (smile).

Ping.fm: This app also sits on my iGoogle page. It allows me to send updates to one or a multiple of sites with one single post. I use it when I want to send an update not only to Twitter but also maybe to FaceBook and/or LinkedIn. By the way, Ping.fm can also integrate with HootSuite. HootSuite is pretty much a Twitter client only. Combined with Ping.fm it can become much more.

Share On FaceBook: Also a button on my toolbar. If I am reading an article I like, I can share that directly to FaceBook along with the link, an article synopsis, an image I can choose for the article, and my comments.

TwitterFeed: I am using TwitterFeed to automatically post to Twitter new articles that I have written along with the new articles that some other special folks (ones that I trust to be consistently good and appropriate) have written. At this time, it is the only auto-post tool that I am using.

SocialScope: Twitter and FaceBook for my BlackBerry Curve 8900. Only available, at this time and as far as I know, for the BlackBerry. May not have yet been generally released. I had to request an invitation to a closed beta launch. These invitations, incidentally, appear to be quite easy to get. You may have to wait a day or two for yours but no biggie. Sweet, very sweet, app. I’ve looked at other Twitter clients for the BlackBerry and, in my opinion, the others don’t even come close!

Whoa! I can, and do, drone on (smile). Thanks for visiting!

Craig

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Xobni – Social Media Improves Your Outlook

So, you like the idea of integrating social media into your Salesforce.com account via Gist but there is one little problem. You don’t use Salesforce. You use Outlook. Well, my friend, there’s now an app for that (smile). As a matter of fact, we are going to talk about two and both are free.

Now, in my humble opinion,. Outlook ain’t much of a CRM. Adding Business Contact Manager to it (Microsoft add-on), does not make it anymore so. That being said, I guess it all depends on what you want/need a CRM to do. For contacts, calendars, and emails … Outlook is great. Hell I use it on one of my businesses (smile). For much more than that … not so good.

Xobni makes Outlook better. It makes it a better email vehicle and now it makes Outlook “social”. And it does an excellent job at both. I have been using Xobni since probably the first of the year. It organizes my inbox, threads email conversations, tracks file exchanges, and has a lighting fast search. It pulls up contact information right within its unobtrusive side bar next to my Outlook inbox. Now, they have decided to make it more social. Social as in “social media”.

A couple of months ago Xobni integrated FaceBook, Hoovers, and LinkedIn into their product. A couple of weeks ago they added Twitter. I can look at my contact’s Twitter and FaceBook updates. That on top of everything else Xobni does. Xobni may be “inbox” spelled backwards. I spell it “sweet”.

Here is a partial screen shot so as to not show too much contact information. At the top of Xobni’s contact bar you will also find contact information and phone numbers (not shown). The Xobni bar is the second column from the right:

Since we are on Outlook, I did want to remind you of an excellent tool available from LinkedIn.  If you look in the second column from the left of the above screen shot your will see a little blue blurb above the body of that email. That “blurb” (I’m really sorry about the resolution!) is the LinkedIn “info” bubble. Hover your pointer over that and it will open up and tell you: whether or not that individual is registered with LinkedIn, how may connections they have, what degree connection you might be related, and how many recommendations they have. LinkedIn has also made it convenient for you to invite that contact to connect with you on LinkedIn right from within this interface.

This toolbar is available by clicking here. It also does some other cool things. It has a feature called “Grab” that will allow you to highlight the signature line on an incoming email and create a contact within Outlook automatically. It will also take a look at your inbox and update existing contact information. The dashboard includes reminders of folks you may should be getting back to as it relates to previous exchanges.

I’m going to cut this post off here. These are two great tools for Outlook. I encourage you to go forth and ….explore (smile). Thanks for visiting!

Craig

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