For me, this is great because I like the simplicity of using Google Sites to create a Wiki of our organization’s work flow, operating manuals and how-to’s. But the fact that the data is ’stuck’ on Google Sites made us re-think it because it takes a lot of my time to write these manuals and while I’ve not lost anything on Google yet, that’s the keyword – yet. Besides, what if something comes along I like better and want to switch? Data portability is crucial.

With the import/export tool, I can finally resume using Google Sites and create a backup of our documentation in HTML microformats. It is written in Java – which means you have to have Java (not to be confused with Javascript) installed. It is open source and you can download it here.

Image by Charlie Balch

My question to you is, how long do you try to solve a technical problem before you throw your hands in the air and say “I need help!”

Would you be willing to spend days or weeks on it?

If the tech stuff is not your cup of tea, when you get access to the Hot Seminar series, you also get to listen in or grab the recording of 7 other interviews with successful business owners. Here are the other Internet based businesses that will be discuss at length:

• eBay Seller
• Affiliate Manager
• Pro Blogger / Freelance Writer
• Virtual Assistant
• Information Marketer
• Coach
• Content Marketer/Blogger/Podcaster

See you there!

In 2008, according to MessageLabs Intelligence report, phishing attempts are pretty popular in social networks. Sometimes, these people would try to gain access to your own social network accounts to post comments and messages on your friends’ pages that contain spam links.

At other times you may get a fake invite to join a bogus social network group. In these groups, the scammers link to blogs and sites that redirect you to their final destination where they deliver the payload or trick you to fill out personal information to be sold to marketing companies or used in other unsavory ways.

Just be careful out there, but you’re always more than welcome to follow me – spam free

The app is free and can be obtained from the iPhone Apps Store.

I think that’s so cool. It’ s stuff like these that I simply love helping clients with (Nationwide is NOT my client). It’s not always easy to see the way how to marry your product or service with technology. I give Nationwide 7 out of 10 points for creating the app.

Why only a 7? Well, because the iPhone is not the only phone out there. True, many will make the case that it is popular, they have a huge following and you go where your customers are or want to be. Still, I imagine I’d feel really bummed out if I were a Nationwide customer – I own a Windows Mobile phone and have no plans of switching in the near future. Then, there are Blackberry users too who have a huge following and is very popular. Admittedly I didn’t spend much time to find out if they are developing apps for other mobile platforms. Maybe they are and I haven’t seen it.

So while the idea is great and they are piggy backing on the whole iPhone Apps cool factor, it can also be a slippery slide tech slope. On the other hand, I think they are heading in the right direction, which is in line with my thinking all along that businesses now have to think beyond just web sites and social networks but actually integrating into customers’ lives and making it easier at the same time.

Now, to see how well it works and how well the rest of the company responds or embraces this. Technology is only a helper. Ultimately, Nationwide still has to deliver their ‘goods’.

Photo by Rodolfo Clix

So, there’s a huge hoo ha over what will happen on April 1st, 2009 because PC’s infected with this worm will ‘do something’ on April Fools’ day. Many people are panicking, some say it’s nothing so which is it? First, relax a little. Computer viruses are released every single day with differing threat levels. This got a lot more exposure. Probably because CBS covered it on 60 Minutes.

First things first, know that this virus only applies to Windows operating systems (yeah, I can hear all you other OS users out there now )

Secondly, if you have kept your anti virus up to date, being scanning regularly and so far have not been infected, you’re probably OK and don’t have to worry about it.

Third, make sure you patch your copy of Windows. This can be done by doing an update or visiting the Windows Update page. That said, here are some tools and resources you can use to check and get more information.

• Background information from Snopes
• Conficker likely a hype
• Microsoft Malicious Software Recovery Tool – this page details the symptoms you will experience to help you tell if you are infected or not and how to fix it.
• Removal tool from Symantec
• Windows Secrets highly recommended. Good details, explanation and resources.

But what if you don’t want to upgrade to IE 8 just yet but want to check out your site on the new browser? You could try using BrowserShots.org. The best way is to get a friend to check it out. If you have multiple PC’s you could also  upgrade one as a test computer.

Since Gmail Labs introduced Canned Response, I’ve heard a lot of praises for the ability to cut down copying/pasting time. I personally have no need for that because my assistants do all the email checking/responding/customer service for me AND I prefer using Direct Access, a macro like program where you can pre-program common texts, emails, URLs, just about anything that is entered on a regular basis. Still, I imagine Canned Response has been a life saver for many.

Did you know that you can send a automatic Canned Responses? This is particularly useful when you get people to contact you about something specific.

1. First you create a canned response. When replying to an email that you want to ‘can’, click Canned responses >> New Canned Response… This assumes you’ve already turned on Gmail Labs Canned response feature.
2. Then, you create a filter to automatically sort / detect the emails you want to send the response to and select the Canned response you want to send. Gmail will automatically reply to the sender your canned response.

Use it sparingly though and be very sure of the filters because it could get annoying. I’ve always hated those vacation responder things

Match Multiple Emails in One Filter

Is your filter list overflowing? If you apply the same filter to several different incoming addresses, then you only need to enter OR in the From field of your filter. For example, I want to filter me@mysite.com and you@yoursite.com. When creating filters, just enter me@mysite.com OR you@yoursite.com. You can edit your old filters and clean up the redundant ones this way too.

Save Your Sent Mails

If you like to keep a copy of your emails in the conversation but don’t like seeing all your emails in the sent folder, you may think that’s a waste of space. Technically, Gmail only ever keeps one copy of your emails. The Sent folder is not a folder at all but a pre-defined label that finds all the emails you have sent out. If you delete messages in the Sent folder, you’ll lose your replies in the conversation thread too.

Stop Filtered Messages From Going To Spam

A while back, I added an email address of someone whom I really wanted to hear from to my Filter list and left it at that, trusting Gmail to know that if the email is filtered then I want it. But that’s not the case, they still ended up in the spam box. You can prevent this by editing your filter and checking the box “Never send it to spam”.

Sort

Gmail really changed things around for people. Most of us are familiar with the sorting ability of many email readers. I actually kinda miss that too. But there is no sort feature in Gmail, however the search feature is awesome. Here’s one way to ’sort’ email using search and Quick Links. So make sure you click on Gmail Labs, find the Quick Links feature and enable that first.

By latest – Click on Show Search Options – a tiny link next to the search box on the top of the screen, in the ‘Date Within’ fields, select 1 year or less if you wish, enter ‘today’ in the box next to it. Click Search. In that search view, Now save your search by clicking Add Quick Link, enter a name e.g. Sort by latest.

By recipient – In your search box, enter the email address of the recipient you want to ’sort’ with – in other words the email addresses that you use. Do the search then click Add Quick Link again.

With this method, you can use a bunch of advanced search options and save these searches to quickly navigate your archives and inbox easily.

Image via Wikipedia

I remember so well the time I had to use a stack of 3.5 floppy disks at work so I can share a bunch of files with my colleagues and even then the file was split up over several disks. I so wish I had one of these 8GB USB babies then. Now, I can literally ditch the laptop and carry all my programs in that one tiny stick. So cool.

What’s not so cool is when you lose that drive. Good luck finding it. Looking for a USB drive can be like looking for a needle in the haystack. But perhaps more frustrating than that is the information you’ve lost with it. You definitely don’t want any Tom Dick or Harry to be going through your stuff. Personally, even if the data isn’t particularly sensitive in nature, I don’t like the idea of people looking at my pictures, notes or digital products that I paid good money for.

Some of the newer drives like IronKey and Sandisk Enterprise come with encryption and security built in. You’re probably better off simply getting one of those if you regularly carry sensitive data with you.

For drives that don’t have this built in you can try TrueCrypt. Another one you can try is also Rohos Mini Drive.

If you do this, make sure you add a plain text un-encrypted file that includes your name and basic contact info so whoever who finds it, if they are so inclined are at least able to reach you to send it back. Or, you can try engraving it

Image via Wikipedia

Twitter trends are nothing new. Twitter itself has introduced trending topics in their search or you can look up the current hot topics on TwitScoop.com while those certainly are interesting and gives you some idea what’s on people’s minds, it doesn’t really tell you how people feel about those topics. You’d have to watch it for a while to get an idea what people’s sentiments are. Even then it’s more or less guess work.

Twendz attempts to calculate how people actually feel about the topic by comparing keywords in a tweet with a “dictionary” of words which are typically associated with positive or negative sentiments. Each keyword is given a score and that score is aggregated. So as you watch a topic, you’ll actually see the percentage of positives (green) and negatives (red). While this may not be scientifically accurate, it does seem like a good at-a-glance method to gauge the interest of the market. Of the few topics I’ve checked out on it, it seems to reflect the overall mood well.

Bloggers want to be approached and want advertisers to build a relationship with them. Brands live in a world of data, corporate governance, and a bottom line. It is exciting to have some social media measurement tools finally getting developed, but in the end, advertisers need to know how to speak to bloggers. But even more importantly for us, we need to know how to speak to advertisers.

This interview with Rebecca (who has a stunningly beautiful British accent, to boot), sheds a little light on the intersection between bloggers and brands, and how both can work together to help each other grow.

File sharing has never been a problem for me. Whip out the FTP program and upload to one of my sites, send the people I want to share the file with a URL. But then Drop.io happened. I tried it and oh my now FTP seems like such an archaic way to share large files. Here’s why.

If I want the file(s) to only be shared by certain people, I have to password protect the folder. It’s not difficult but involves extra clicking and typing. What if, out of the package of files I only want some files to be shared privately with a group of people, another to be public and the rest to be shared privately with only my assistant? I have to create different folders, set up different logins for each one. This is getting to be a pain.

Then, what if I want the files in the folder to be organized neatly by date or by file type? I’ll probably need to install a small script in the folder. I give up.

With Drop.io, it’s no where near that complicated. You simply create a Drop which acts like a huge folder 100MB large for free accounts. Then you log in and upload. You can create passwords for each drop and even allow people to upload/download/comment/re-order and delete or revoke each one of those permissions.

Drop.io keeps getting better. Besides logging in to upload, you can also email attachments into your drop. You can even leave voicemail for your drop. That’s a nice way to get audio testimonials. One of the latest features is really fun – conference call. Oh yes, record and save the conference call right into the drop which you can share immediately. No more downloading from the conference service only to upload again to your site.

Drop.io also has a Paywall feature where you can charge people a pay-per-access fee or pay for X days of access fee. This is a nice and easy way to sell those digital products. If you’re worried about the site design, you’ll be happy to know you can customize it with your logo and colors and links as well. Almost every time I visit Drop.io there seems to be something new.

Check it out if you’ve been looking high and low for an easy, affordable and feature rich file sharing system.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjQkeElB8pQ[/youtube]

Of course, they don’t just work on content. They’re able to help you out with the more technical aspects of optimizing your tags and such, too.

Unique Blog Designs made their mark at BlogWorld Expo at a booth sharing their knowledge and expertise with those of us who are so hopelessly unskilled at this type of thing. I just love a man who tells me he can design for WordPress . . .

Whether you’re starting from scratch or you’re ready to get your press release out, it sounds like PR Web has some services that might be helpful. We’ll let Mario tell you more about it:

Jim points out that online video is really not that difficult. He uses a $150 Flip Video Camcorder and a $50 work light from Home Depot!

If video is in your online future (and it probably should be) you’ll definitely want to pick up his free online video toolkit!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4JXDxRbRl8[/youtube]

Tim also points out that excessive action is a form of laziness. In other words, many home business owners work long hours because they don’t have anything else to fill up all those hours. Timothy encourages home business owners to consider the importance of reallocating their time to those things and people that bring them the most meaning and gratification.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0ae6nuwBUU[/youtube]

His answer might surprise you!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_bcXgJ96HQ[/youtube]