I am going to be doing some writing for Manilla.com. My first post on multi-tasking is live so check it out. If you like it, don't forget to click the "Like" or "Tweet" button at the bottom of the page. … [Read more...] about Post at Manilla
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Influence
Much of what it takes to do anything in life comes down to influencing human behavior. Solving the technical issues is often the easy part. Getting people to use the solution is what takes the real effort. This is important to recognize because it isn't how we are trained to think. We are trained to think that if you build a better mousetrap, everyone will want one. That is simply not true. Lets say you are trying to solve the problem of sickness in a remote tribe. After visiting it is obvious that sanitation is a big problem. You bring in a work crew, build public toilets and feel like you've accomplished something, but you haven't. You may have solved the technical problem, … [Read more...] about Influence
Digital Signature & Encryption
In the past we've talked about how to scan your signature to help go paperless. In this post, we are going to look at the fundamentals behind sending truly encrypted emails and documents that can be verified with a digital signature. The idea is to show you the concepts so you understand what is going on behind the scenes to make a secure communication channel over email. So why spend the time on this? As we switch to doing more business over the internet, secure communications are going to become much more important. Even if you don't have a use for encryption right now, you probably will over the next 3 to 5 years (if not before). There is a lot of value in understanding why email … [Read more...] about Digital Signature & Encryption
Joplin After Tornado
A few weeks ago my wife and I went to Joplin to help with the cleanup. The the pictures and videos you see don't really convey the level of devastation. Last I heard there were around 150 people who died. Just looking at the destruction, you'd assume that thousands died. From what I understand, FEMA is going to pay for 90% of the cleanup if it is done by early August. The city will be responsible for the remaining 10%. However, volunteer hours count toward the city's portion. So if you are in a position to go help, you'll be helping in more than one way. We spent half our day clearing a bunch of trees from a neighborhood near the hospital that was … [Read more...] about Joplin After Tornado
More Efficient Emails
When working with businesses, one problem I see over and over again is people who don't know how to write an efficient email. For example, I was helping a business put processes into place to streamline their help desk. Some of the requests that were coming into the tracking system just boggled my mind. My English 101 classes years ago spent a lot of time explaining that authors need to think about the reader. It doesn't matter what you write--it matters how the reader understands what you write. Unfortunately, people forget this when writing emails. Here are some of the emails I've seen (with names changed to protect the innocent and guilty parties): My computer doesn't work. … [Read more...] about More Efficient Emails
Business is Doing Smart Things
Marketing isn't really all that complicated. If you have a decent product, you simply have to let people know what you are selling and some of them will buy right? Obviously you can be more efficient by focusing your efforts on people who are likely to buy your product. It wouldn't make too much sense to show financial services ads during Saturday morning cartoons.(Assuming that Saturday morning cartoons still exist.) Omaha Steaks probably wouldn't want to mail their flyers out to religiously fanatic vegetarians. If you have two lists, one of people who are deaf and one of people who love to listen to music, which do you think would create more sales for high end headphones? This … [Read more...] about Business is Doing Smart Things
How to Create a Scanned Digital Signature
If you like this article you might also enjoy our post about how to use your signature to sign documents in Acrobat. We also have a number of other articles about going paperless and one on Digital Signatures and Encryption that might be useful. If you want to create a scanned electronic version of your signature, there are several ways to do it. The "right" way would be to send your signature to a company that will create a truetype font of your entire signature so you can print it at any size and still have the beautiful vector drawn lines. The easy way to do it is to scan in your signature and remove the background. If you make it large enough and scan at a high enough … [Read more...] about How to Create a Scanned Digital Signature
Leaps of Imagination
Einstein was a smart, but the world is full of smart people. What was different about Einstein that allowed him to come up with the theory of relativity? Simple. Einstein was able to take a leap of imagination. At the time, everyone believed that time was constant. If you and I synchronize our watches and I wait on the ground while you take off and fly on a very fast space ship, it was assumed that when you came back our watches would still match. It was such a fundamental concept that no one even bothered to question it. However, Einstein realized that something didn't quite seem right. The basis of his uneasiness with the modern theories came when he was 16 years old and began to … [Read more...] about Leaps of Imagination
AT&T DSL Only Option
AT&T is offering DSL without requiring phone service. This is sometimes referred to as "dry dsl" or "naked dsl". For about $29 per month, you can get 3.0Mbps down and 512Kbps up high speed internet connection. This also gives you free internet service from AT&T's wireless access points across the US. This service would normally cost $39 per month, so if you need it, this can work out to be a very good deal. In my area of the country they also offer 6.0/768k internet service for about $34 per month. This is what I used before we bought a house that is a few hundred feet from where AT&T offers service. This "DSL without phone service" package has been around for … [Read more...] about AT&T DSL Only Option
TIP: Logging Instant Messaging
I do a lot of business over instant messaging. Often, these chat sessions have important information that I need later. I used to copy out any important info into a separate file, but now many of the chat clients let you log your instant messaging. Some operating systems make it easy to search through your chat sessions to find a bit of information when you need it. If you use iChat, here is the configuration window where you can save the chats (it is at the bottom of the image). Notice you can also open the folder directly from this window. If you use the web version of Google's chat product that is integrated with Gmail, you can set it to record your chats and make them … [Read more...] about TIP: Logging Instant Messaging