It is a Vostro 1520 (entry level business class notebook) with a Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 3Gb RAM running Windows 7 Professional.

I am going to use Microsoft Office Professional 2010 Beta and Microsoft Security Essentials and see how this turns out. This lowers the TCO for the user (at least temporarily) and gets it up and running faster.

I will publish the results later in the year.

It seems that TuneUp sees Dropbox as something needing to be fixed, and since Dropbox has no Program Files entry, the whole thing goes away.

Supposedly TuneUp Utilities is working on a fix, but so far, no luck.

I didn’t have this kind of luck when I searched Google. You guys have it sooooo easy.

The return window should begin 0.7875″ from the top of the page and 0.5625″ from the left edge of the page.

It should be 1″ tall, and 3.125″ wide. The logo and return address should be completely within this boundary.

The Address window should be 2.2125″ from the top of the page and 0.5625″ from the left edge of the page.

It should be .8″ tall, and 3.625″ wide and the address of the doctor should rest firmly within it.

These measurements allow for an invoice to rest inside a standard #9 Double Window Envelope whether the letter/invoice/statement shifts to the left, right, top, or bottom.

You’re welcome.

DynDNS.com + OpenVPN.net + DD-WRT.com = LUV

All this can do is create entrenched internet media titans akin to broadcast networks whose power is unquestionable – and forces new media creators to seek out these juggernauts to get their media out, thereby creating some oversight/editorial process that will kill the essence of what the internet really is.

The internet is freedom. The internet is the ability to get the word out to millions of people with the click of a mouse.

Save The Internet

DallasGilliam.com – setting up the website for my best bud. helping to get some good pagerank.

www.RDL-USA.com

RDL is a premiere supplier of high-end implant restorations, especially full arch implant supported cases with immediate loading.

We’re still adding content as we go.  Be sure and check out the new “How-To” section see the videos we added.

I have to give a big shout-out to the following commercial Joomla components, though

Phil Taylor’s Phil-A-Form – absolutely amazing customer service – looks like it has been replaced with the new version, FORMS

Artio JoomSEF Commercial Version – lackluster customer service, but awesome component – worth it to not have their embedded advertising

JoomlaWorks Simple Image Gallery – a fantastic all around gallery system.  Easy doesn’t even come close to describing what it is.

Right now, we have the following features:

• Community Calendar
• Marketplace Photo Ads
• Job Board
• Business Directory
• News

All of the above features are free.  This really catches the people around here off guard.  I stopped in three places in the last week and every time they ask “Well, how are you going to make money?!”  I tell them I have a job, and I’m really trying to do something for the community.  I get a funny look…

Beyond that, future plans include having paid home and property listings and possibly a sponsor membership for those that really love it.

This project assumes you are using the following:

1. iPhone or another device that syncs with MS Office Outlook
2. Google’s Calendar Sync
3. Microsoft Office Outlook

Important Note: Make sure you have Google Calendar Sync set to “1 Way – Google to Outlook” in order for this to work.

In Outlook, go to “Advanced Find” (in 2003, the easy way to do this is to hit CTRL-SHIFT-F) and then look for “All Outlook Items” and hit the browse button to select ONLY THE CALENDAR – make sure “All Items” is unchecked.  Click Find Now.  When the results are displayed, click any one event, then type CTRL-A to Select All – then simply press the Delete button.  You now have a blank slate in Outlook Calendar.

Note: I did this without changing my GCAl Sync settings, so I lost everything.  I should have used my iPhone to manually rebuild everything, but I didn’t.  I tried to sync.  Outlook took priority and therefore wiped my iPhone cal too.  Pretty sad.  Trying to rebuild a calendar is counter-intuitive.  You put everything on the Cal so you didn’t have to remember yourself.

Jenmar International’s Dental Lab Management Software

At this point I have reviewed and played with basically everything out there that isn’t DOS based (and who the hell would invest in DOS based applications at this point anyway?) Jenmar truly understands the difference betweeen case tracking and Lab Management. They’re the only ones who seem to have as much emphasis on rapid entry and ease of use as they do on getting crucial business information out to the managers.

Some of the big selling points for the product that Jenmar puts out have to be the ability to link and pull in information from closed cases (remakes, restains, etc) so that there is a clear path with any case as well as Dr preferences on a per item basis – so you can have a Doc that wants a PFM a certain way every time and it auto

Even if you’re not running a pay-per-piece lab, this is the way to go. Someday, though, someone is going to make one that gives you a department dashboard with graphs and all. We’ll see.

When Barnes & Noble opened in Bowling Green, KY the first thing I did was run to the computer magazine section.  There my heart nearly burst from my chest as I discovered 2600 Magazine for the first time.  I read alt.2600 (as much as I could understand – I knew what they were doing, just not how).

I still have every issue of 2600 that I ever got (about 2 dozen of them) in a plastic container upstairs in my own house.  They traveled to college with my should I ever run in to Lord Nikon questioning my hacker elitism.  I always dreamed of playing hookie from class and running off to NYC to go to the H.O.P.E. conference that 2600 put on.

Now, the last H.O.P.E. coference is taking place.

Ah well, some dreams are not meant to be.  I wouldn’t be on their level anyway, but I did want to try my hand at “Spot The Fed” and maybe pick up a t-shirt.

So, how to approach it? Well, it’s my first time, and I want to do a test run with A/B testing. I’m using some pretty interesting resources to pull it off, so I thought I would share.

• hotpads.com – HotPads.com offers national “Heat Maps” with different demographic information by county/parrish. The key one for my use is going to be Household Income. This allows me to zero in on counties with an ideal income area.  I then hand select the cities from those counties that qualify.  I’m actually hand typing these.  It would be nice to have someone do this, but we’re talking cheap right?
• osha.gov – The Department of Labor / Occupational Safety and Health site gives you a directory listing of SIC codes, so if you’re trying to drill down on specific professionals to market to, this is the place to find what you need.
• usadata.com – This site allows you to get contact information for the SIC codes in the places that you’ve selected.  In this example, I took all the major and medium cities in a specific section of a state, selected those cities on the site, the SIC code for the professionals I want, and then generate a usable mailing list for approx $0.20 per lead and up.  Pretty cool.

If you figure a full color mailer @ $0.39/ea or better plus postage then you’ve got ($0.20x + $0.39x + [post]x + setup on mailer) = a direct mail campaign.  If you can get bulk mail post ($0.15/ea?) then you’re looking at $750 for a 1000 pieces if you do the setup yourself.  If you figure a response rate of 7% then you need those 70 to give you $11 /ea to make it back?  Not bad…

My personal objection to this is the senseless barrier to entry that it creates.  If you’re trying to get a client, potential client, or reader to come to your site then why would you make it more difficult for them to accomplish that goal?  Our website design should reflect our goals for the user – make it as easy as possible for them to do what they/we want to do.

CSS-Tricks.com has come out with a new tutorial for one time only landing page using cookies that would alleviate some of the problem – but use it sparingly.  If your designer is trying to sell you the benefits of the splash page and you actually want return visitors then I would suggest this method.  Also, if you’re going to use a splash page, make sure it is in line with your sales model and not just a random display of your designers “artsy side”.

Imagine you share a domicile with a friend. If the friend is there, you will talk to them when you have the opportunity and the desire. If you lack either of those then you won’t communicate. If the person leaves the room then opportunity goes away. If the person is there, but you don’t have anything to say then the desire is gone.

The same is true with text messaging (I’m getting to Twitter – hold your horses). In a world where text messaging is available, you erase the opportunity element.  The other person is essentially always in the room and desire is now the only element.  If a person is busy, the don’t have to engage in the text with you, and for the most part no one’s feelings get hurt.  In addition a text message conversation can go on for hours when chance allows.  If you try to substitute in a phone conversation you get hours of dead air where you wonder what the other person is doing that is more important than continuing this conversation…

Twitter takes the concept of text messaging to the next level.  It takes 140 charachters at a time and puts them on public display – short and to the point.  You can follow only a few people, make friends with fellow professionals, or just talk to yourself.  The key concept is that you’re sharing yourself a very little bit at a time.  No long prepared oration.  Just simple lines of notice.  Get to the point, and do it fast.

The solution for the prototype stage is Zoho Creator. Zoho Creator is a drag and drop way to create complex web forms that can be embedded in your website or used stand-alone.

For example, say you needed a rapid way to add a contact information form to your website.  With Creator you can add as many fields as you need (address, phone, email, etc…) to the form, make certain fields required and set the form to email you the results when it is submitted – all in about 5 minutes.  They even have certain generic forms already in place!

This is also a great time saver if you want to do a limited run of a possible service.  If you wanted to see how people internally or externally responded to the layout of a certain form then this is a great way to do it.

Most everyone reading this has had to make that dreaded phone call to Tech Support for something.  The key to understanding how to get the best experience from Tech Support is to understand where you’re calling and why they do the things they do.  Here are some things to remember.

1. Some things they have to do: It’s frustrating, but there’s good reason.  Why do they ask you the exact same questions every time?  Well, for one thing, those questions are specifically designed to diagnose and resolve a huge majority of problems.  I don’t have the numbers, but those first 10 questions or so I would estimate to resolve 80-90% of problems.  Saying “I’ve already been through this with the last guy” means nothing to the absolutely new-to-the-situation representative.  They go through this process with you to make sure that all the bases have been covered – not because they’re brainless.
2. At times, it may feel like they’re detached and not paying attention.  They may be detached but they’re paying attention.  Tech Support is a lot like chess – you’ve got to be thinking several moves ahead, and you’ve got to try the most logical approach.  If your mouse doesn’t work, they may have to simultaneously teach you to navigate your computer using only the keyboard for the first time ever and then start ranking the cause of the malfunction in order of most likely to least likely, then find support documentation so that they make sure that they don’t miss a very important detail.  Computers are essentially a large group of interconnected complex systems – there area million things that can go wrong even during a repair.
3. Your computer really does need to be restarted.  A restart causes all of the system processes to come online again, and hopefully if one isn’t working you can find out during that reboot process.  At any time your computer can be running a hundred processes that you don’t know about.  As I type this, there are 58 processes running on my computer, and the only programs I have running is Firefox and iTunes.  If you visualize all of those processes as little red or green lights (green means good) then a restart lets you see which ones start red and fix the issue.
4. They may have to try 4 or 5 solutions.  Just because they don’t get it right the first two times doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing, it means they haven’t found the solution yet.  Like I mentioned, techs have to establish the most plausible reason for the problem, then the next and the next and so on.
5. A supervisor is going to go through the same steps with you.  There is usually 1 supervisor for every ten to twelve techs (in most places I work) and they do a lot more than just take angry phone calls.

The most important thing to remember is that this is a real person with real feelings.  This is not some dippy high school student.  This is a trained tech being paid to listen to people yell at him all day, and he or she didn’t cause the problem on your computer.  The problem was probably caused by incorrect (or completely lacking) maintenance or letting someone download something stupid.

There are several free websites and applications out there that can help your group be super organized and efficient.

The whole premise of that buzz word “Web2.0″ that you hear thrown around is that we can utilize existing technology to make things as easy to access and use as possible.

I have dealt with a multitude of community organizations that were hindered by one thing: bureaucratic omnipresence that is self created. These groups have so often mired themselves down in Robert’s Rules that they have trouble getting anything accomplished in their monthly meetings and then want to spend less and less time together because of the frustrations of the meetings – thereby destroying both the purpose and effectiveness of having the group.

What if you only met once a quarter and were 4 times as effective? Keep reading…

You can do it. I promise. All you need are members with regular access to the internet and motivation. It’s nothing complicated, and you can do it. Here are the elements:

1. Email – I know this seems like a no-brainer, but email is something that gets seriously under-utilized. It usually stems from email fatigue caused by being on the mailing list of a million people sending you the same forwards and junk mail that clogs our inbox and makes us not want to big through the filth to find the good. You can change this though.
   1. Switch to Gmail – Some people may think that email is email, but it’s not. Google’s Gmail service has redefined email for millions of people. Imagine an environment where only ONE item of spam gets through a month. That’s what it’s like. No extra software. No false-positives where friends emails get trashed – just the email you want. Plus, you can access it from any computer with internet, from your mobile phone, and from most any other mobile device. Not to mention it frees you from having to switch email addresses when you change service providers. I don’t even know my email address from my current provider.
   2. Stop the forwards – Trust me, you can do it. Starting right now, reply to every person that regularly sends you forwards, and say “Hi! I want you to know that I appreciate you thinking of me when you receive something cool in your email, but I am trying to organize my life – and that includes my email. I’d love to receive messages directly from you, but I’d rather not receive forwards. Thanks!” It works, I promise. It also works face-to-face with friends, family, and co-workers. Just say it without malice. I only receive forwards from my grandfather, and I usually like them. Everyone else has stopped.
   3. Use Filters & Labels – When you switch Gmail (and you will), you’ll learn how easy it is to start a new filter. For example, I have several companies from whom I voluntarily receive sales emails. The first time I get an email from that company, it gets a filter with Gmail’s “Filter Messages Like This” function. The next time I get a message from them, it has a bright red SALES prefix. That way I can visually separate it from the other email. Labels also allow me to quickly pull up any message with that label at any time, and Gmail’s large storage capacity means I can keep all the messages that I want in the archive.
   4. Declutter – Right now there are 7 messages in my inbox. All of them are active conversations or actionable items. Anything that I’ve read that I’m not going to follow up on, or that I’ve read and no action needs to be taken is either deleted or archived. Archive means that it’s still there, it’s just not in the inbox. I went from 7,600 messages to 7. Read more from LIfehacker. (1) (2) (3)
   5. Have One Inbox – When you start using Gmail, you’ll be able to use it to reply to any address that you can get to forward to it. I have 11 addresses coming to mine I think. Every domain or webmaster account that I have comes back to my primary account except for work. Simply set your other email accounts to automatically forward all messages to your gmail or Google Apps account and then tell Gmail about it. Bam! Time Saved!
2. Google Docs – stop wasting time revising documents, sending them to someone, getting them back, sending them somewhere else… just stop it. Google Docs (included in Google Apps for Domains as well as with your free gmail account) gives you the ability to share and collaborate on Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations in real time. You start a document, you share it with others, and you all access it at anytime to work together on it. It has revolutionized our workspace, it can do the same for yours.
3. Newsletters – it’s never been easier to put together an opt-in newsletter for your organization. Every organization has key people, and every group has people that need simple actions for simple causes. If we are honest, we know that a few people really run the show – so in order to pull off the bigger projects we need to know how to motivate the others. One way to do this is to use a newsletter with simple calls to action. Newsletters are most effective when people know to expect them and are prepared. If it’s daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly make it on time every time. We use 4th Monday of the month as close to 1pm as we can. Use newsletters to tell your people where to be, when to be there, and what to do once they get there – and see your organization flourish.
4. Contact Relationship Mangers – To some of you, this may be a new concept, but a Contact or Customer Relationship Management is a very necessary device. CRM’s like Highrise from 37Signals provide cost effective access to simple CRM software that is accesible from anywhere. You can input your entire organization or upload their contact info from an existing utility like Outlook using Windows CSV formats. With Highrise you can keep up with interaction with each member (up tp 250 for free), what you told them, what you did, and then easily set a task that will remind you of what needs to be done. We use this at my office, for my High School Reunion, and at home. Next up: my Lodge. One way around the subscription fee for more users is to create your second account as a shared account while you retain the admin account.
5. GTD Apps or To-Do Lists – I can’t even begin to tell you what good can come from using a To-Do list like Remember The Milk. Several of the key members of our office staff now collude on this incredible free application with share lists. Image being able to set a task, put a due date on it, add a note about how to accomplish it, set it to repeat however often, and then have each person that is sharing that list get email or a text message about it when the time comes. How awesome is that? Learn More.
6. Get a Phone Number – You used to have to pay for this stuff, huh? Google acquired a company by the name of GrandCentral last year. GrandCentral is a site dedicated to the concept of a permanent phone number. For example, you can sign up, get a new phone number (yeah, a real one, in your area) and then put all of your contact numbers in and the create simple or very complex rules about who can reach you when and where. Here’s the real trick though; once you get it, you can turn all your phones off (so that calls aren’t forwarded) and then just have everything go to voicemail. Bam. Instant phone number and voicemail for your organization. GrandCentral will just send you an email or text message letting you know that there is a new message. If you enter the email as a mailing list address, then it notifies everyone on that list. Cool, huh? GrandCentral’s Closed Beta has closed. We’re all waiting breathlessly to get it back open. Get on the wannabe list on the main page.

Now, don’t freak out over the volume of stuff I just told you about. You don’t have to do it all at once. Pick one place to start and complete it. With a list of things like this, I might suggest Remember The Milk first. When you get done with one project make time for the next one.

For Example

1. Register for Gmail, tell everyone who matters that you’re switching, and pick a date to make it final.
2. Set Up Remember The Milk, get others in org to sign up and share some lists
3. Register for Highrise and import your outlook or other contacts, agree on who is responsible for keeping it updated or share the responsibility
4. Put in your email for a chance at GrandCentral if you need digits.

The important part of all of this is to make your organizations (and thereby your life) easier to manage. When you have to spend less time to accomplish more in each of you groups then you’re time ahead. When you get time ahead on your groups, remember to make time to organize your home life too. (my wife and I use the shared To-Do lists to manage our house maintenance and other chores).