Archive for August, 2009

« Older Entries

Personal Marketing (Introduction)

August 31st, 2009

What is Personal Marketing and why is it important?

Before we define Personal Marketing, we need to define a marketing term called the Marketing Mix.

Main Entry: marketing mix
Part of Speech: n
Definition: the elements of marketing that can be used by a company to influence consumers to purchase goods or services
“Marketing Mix.” Dictionary.com’s 21st Century Lexicon. Dictionary.com, LLC. 31 Aug. 2009. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Marketing Mix>.

In other words, the Marketing Mix is a mix of 4 factors (Product, Place, Price, and Promotion) used to influence consumers to purchase goods or services.  Marketing people refer to this mix as the 4 P’s of marketing.

Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix

Personal Marketing is a concept that takes the 4 P’s  and personalizes them.  You might say to yourself, “Marketing is for products, why on earth would anyone want to personalize it?”  When I first took marketing in college, no one ever said you would have to market yourself.  Their primary focus was on making sure the product met the needs of the customer.  They also covered all kinds of market influences that could effect the product demand.  Making changes to the Marketing Mix based on market conditions you could reposition the product to meet the changing needs of the customer and the market.

Marketers use the Marketing Mix as a tool to market a product for sale.  We’re going to use this same Marketing Mix as a tool to market an individual.

 

Why is this important?

You’re employed.  You’ve got job security.  Your career is established.  Everybody at work knows who you are and what you do.  Life is good.  You might want to consider this.  During this recession, many stable companies have gone under and others are struggling to keep afloat.  Many times, decisions to cut jobs are purely economical.  Are you ready to go back into the job market?  Do you know how you would promote yourself to potential employers?  If you answered NO to any of these questions then maybe you might want to read this series of blogs.

Over the next couple of days, I will be writing about the subject of Personal Marketing. Each blog will touch on one of the 4 P’s of the Marketing Mix and how personalizing it will help make you more marketable.

  • Product - Who are YOU?
  • Place - Where are you placing your services?
  • Price - What are the factors that determine the price of your services?
  • Promotion - How to communicate your services to your customers.

No comments »

Posted in Marketing

Tags:

How to: Use Fog Creek Copilot an alternative to Remote Assistance

August 30th, 2009

I’ve known about Fog Creek Copilot for some time now, but I never really tried it before.  I knew there was an offer to use Copilot for free on the weekends, so I decided to try out Copilot today.

The method for setting up a Copilot help session is as follows:

  • Step 1 – Helper initiates help session
    • Visits Copilot.com
    • Clicks on Help Someone tab
    • Enters name
    • Clicks Go button
    • Enters the email of the person being helped
    • Downloads and runs Copilot Helper program
    • When Copilot Helper runs, it establishes a session with a remote server that will connect the two computers together.
  • Step 2 – Help Receiver accepts help session
    • Email invitation received from Fog Creek Copilot Support
    • Or Receiver contacted by phone from the helper
    • Receiver accepts invitation
      • Visits Copilot.com, clicks on the receive help tab, enters a 12 digit code the helper was given.
      • or Visits embedded link which automates the previous line
    • Download and Run Fog Creek Copilot

Once the session is established, the Helper can quickly access the issue to be resolved.

The helper can use Copilot as follows:

  • Navigate through the Receiver’s system to take appropriate action.
  • Copy files quickly from the Receiver’s system to Helper’s desktop
  • Copy files from Helper’s system to the Receiver’s desktop
  • Perform ctrl-alt-delete to reboot the system – the copilot gives the option of reconnecting automatically after the reboot occurs.

A few notes about Copilot:

  • The window displayed session remaining information in the window Title bar, so you can see how much time is left
  • The Copilot software allowed creating a session with one PC, then allowed a session with a completely different PC.  That was very useful today when I needed it.
  • I can definitely see the value in this service.  Only 2 steps and you’re connected and no worries about whether the System will allow a Remote connection or not.
  • Transferring files to/from the Helper/Receiver is easy.  Helper can do it all.
  • The pricing on this service seems reasonable, when I was doing Tech Support as part of my job I could have used a tool like this.  It would have really made my life so much easier.

I spent a couple of hours today working with someone who needed help with a PLESK control panel.  The Copilot software made the Tech Support session pretty painless.  When the connection process takes only two steps,  it’s really easy to explain.

If you’re looking for an alternative to Remote Assistance why not give Copilot a try for free on the weekend.  You never know, it might be exactly what you’ve been looking for.

No comments »

Posted in DIY, How-to, Review, Tech Support

Tags:

Remote Assistance must be permitted

August 29th, 2009

Last week I wrote a blog titled “Technical support using Remote Assistance“  In this article I described the reason why you would need Remote Assistance and how to get it started.  However, there was one little thing I neglected to mention. 

Invitation Not Allowed

Invitation Not Allowed

Your computer settings must permit Remote Assistance.  Otherwise you will get a message that “Remote Assitance is not permitted”

 

 

 

 

Here’s how to grant Remote Assistance:

  • Control Panel method
    • Click Windows Start Button
    • Select Control Panel Menu
    • Select System Control Panel
    • Click Remote Tab
    • Enable Remote Assistance invitiations by checking the Allow checkbox
    • Click OK
  • System Properties method
    • Right click on My Computer
    • Select Properties Menu
    • Click Remote Tab
    • Enable Remote Assistance invitiations by checking the Allow checkbox
    • Click OK

Once the person who needs assistance enables the Remote Assistance invitations, then they can send you the invitation to get started.  Read the “Technical Support using Remote Assistance” blog for more details on sending an invitation.

No comments »

Posted in Tech Support

Tags:

FarmTown Addiction

August 28th, 2009
FarmTown

FarmTown

Farm Town is habit forming.  One might event say Farm Town is even addicting.  Anyone who has played it before would agree that once you start being successful at expanding your farm, you really enjoy the game.  The question is how does one advance so quickly.  My friends have asked me the same question.  They’re struggling along and see slow progress on their farms but they look at mine and have farm envy.  I’m not the best, but I’m advancing pretty quickly.  I didn’t learn some of these secrets until someone shared with me, so I’m going to tell you a few I’ve learned.

Hints to success in Farm Town:

  • Turn off space between fields
    • You can remove space using the Application setting (wrench icon in the upper right corner)
    • no space between fields means more crops on your property, more crops per harvest, you get more money per harvest
  • Don’t buy animals or flowers
    • your friends will give you flowers and animals
  • Plant your trees in the back of the property and group like trees together

    • so they don’t hide your crops and it’s easier to see when they’re ready to harvest
  • Hide trees to get harvest those hidden crops
    • You can hide trees using the Application setting (wrench icon) – show trees unchecked
    • After crops harvested behind trees, you can show trees again using the Application setting
  • Delayed gratification is key
    • Re-invest your earnings from your harvest back into your crops
    • Re-invest your earnings into Farm expansion
    • You gain experience through plowing, planting and harvesting
    • If you want to purchase something, delay it until you have done some expansion.
  • Expand your farm by visiting the Real Estate office
    • Click on Map
    • Click on Real Estate Office
    • Once you reach a certain level and have the money, you can expand your farm
  • Earn extra money by hiring yourself out
    • Click on Map
    • Click on Market
    • Wait in the market place to be hired by someone who usually has a large farm
    • You’ll either be harvesting or plowing when you hire yourself out
    • Make sure you remove the space between fields, otherwise you won’t be able to plow the fields properly
  • Be prepared to work hard for the money
    • Plowing, Harvesting and Planting all time time and a lot of mouse movement and clicking
    • At the time of this article, you plant your own crops.  You can’t outsource this task.  As a result, the larger your property, the more time it takes for you to plant.
  • Network
    • What do you mean Network, I mean start making connections with other people, like your neighbors.
    • Chances are if you start chatting with them & being friends, they might decide to hire you during their next harvest.
    • Or you might decide to hire them when your fields are ready to harvest or plow.
  • Choose your crops wisely
    • Some crops grow quickly while others take more time
    • You have the same amount of time to harvest as it takes to reach the harvest
    • Weigh the benefits of the harvest payoff against the growing time
    • I haven’t ever lost a crop yet because I plant conservatively
    • I have seen others lose their entire crop because they planted something that grew too quickly and they weren’t able to harvest it in time.

NOTE: If you have no idea what Farm Town is, it’s a Facebook application.

You can find it by doing the following:

  • log into Facebook
  • click on the Applications button on the lower left corner of your browser
  • click All Applications
  • search for “farm town”
  • in the search result you should see Farm Town by Slashkey
  • I have written a blog called “lessons in FarmTown” to share about some lessons Farm Town teaches everybody.

The weekend is coming up, so why not give Farm Town a try.  I’m sure you’ll agree that growing crops on a farm was never so much fun.

WARNING: Use of Farm Town can be habit forming from having too much fun.

No comments »

Posted in DIY, Finances, Gardening, Happiness, Success

Tags:

Opt-Out changed my computer – removing unwanted software artifacts

August 27th, 2009

This the last of three blogs in the Opt-Out series.  The first blog was on “tips to avoid and fix unwanted changes“, the second was “restoring my Home page” and the last one is “removing unwanted software artifacts”.

The primary focus of this blog is undoing changes made to your computer because you didn’t Opt-Out or uncheck the suggested default actions.

In this blog, we cover:

  • Removing unwanted desktop shortcuts
  • Removing that unwanted software/ IE browser toolbar

Removing unwanted desktop shortcuts

This is one of the easiest annoyances to resolve.

On the computer’s desktop:

  • Click-drag method
    • Find the Recycle Bin icon, this is the destination of the shortcut file
    • Find the shortcut file, this is the file you want to discard
    • click and drag the shortcut file into the Recycle Bin
    • Right click on Recycle Bin
    • Select Empty Recycle Bin menu
  • Delete key method
    • Find the shortcut file, this is the file you want to discard
    • Click mouse on shortcut file
    • Press delete button on keyboard
    • Click yes button on “Confirm Delete File” dialog
    • Right click on Recycle Bin
    • Select Empty Recycle Bin menu

Removing that unwanted software / IE browser toolbar

The Internet Explorer toolbars are basically applications that have been installed via an installer.  This is good news, because you can uninstall them pretty easily.

To remove IE Toolbar:

IE Toolbar list

IE Toolbar list

  • Launch Internet Explorer.
  • Right click in the toolbar or tab area of your Internet Explorer.
  • You will a list that looks something like this.
  • The items that have a check next to them are enabled.  No check means disabled.
  • Note the name of the Toolbar you want to remove.  Write it down, this is the name of the Application that you will be removing.
  • Close Internet Explorer.  It’s always a good idea to close down a program when you might be removing a resource it might be using.
  • Follow the directions below to remove an Application from your computer.
  • Relaunch Internet Explorer and you will find the unwanted Toolbar should be gone.

To remove an Application from your computer:

  • Navigate to Add or Remove Programs Control Panel.
  • Press the Windows Start Button.  (lower left hand corner of screen)
  • Select Control Panel menu.
  • Open Add or Remove Programs Control Panel.
  • In the Add or Remove Programs window.
  • Select program to remove.
  • Click Change/Remove button.
  • Answer Yes to Uninstall “Application name”.

I hope the Opt-Out series was useful to you.  If not for yourself, then maybe it could be used for helping out someone else who is a victim of the Opt-Out check box in the future.

Please let me know what you think of this article by adding your comments.

No comments »

Posted in DIY, Tech Support

Tags:

Opt-Out changed my computer – Restoring my Home page

August 26th, 2009

On Tuesday, I wrote the blog “Opt-Out changed my computer – tips to avoid and fix unwanted changes.”  But, you already hit the continue button and you didn’t notice there was a checkbox that allowed the program to change your beloved homepage.  Now what are you going to do?

NOTE: The following directions are for restoring your Internet Explorer home page

Here’s how to restore you home page to the desired location:

    Internet Options with unwanted homepage

    Internet Options with unwanted homepage

  1. Find your homepage
    1. Using History
      • Click the Favorites Button
      • Click the History Tab
      • Click the Day you remember seeing your home page
      • Click the Site that corresponds to your home page
    2. Using Favorites
      • Click the Favorites Button
      • Click the Favorites Tab
      • Click your favorite site
    3. Navigate to your desired home page
      • Click the Favorites Button
      • Click the Favorites Tab
      • Click your favorite site
    4. Click one of these favorite links
    5. Enter your own URL
  2. Set your Internet Explorer Home page
    • Using Internet Explorer
      • Find your Home page
      • Make sure Internet Explorer window with your Home page is selected
      • Select Tools menu
      • Select Internet Options
    • In the Internet Options window
      • Click on General tab
      • You will see the current Home page address or addresses
      • Click on Use current button just below Home page address
      • NOTE: The Use current button, will clear the previous Home page and change it to whatever website is being viewed in the selected Internet Explorer window. If you have a recent release of Internet Explorer that shows multiple tabs in the same window, you might end up with multiple entries for your home page.  Don’t worry, you can select the pages you don’t want and press the delete key.
      • Click the Apply button
      • Click OK button

After following these directions, your Home page should be available whenever you open Internet Explorer or click on the little Home icon.

BTW:  Do you have one of the Home pages I listed?  Do you use a different one all together?  Please share your comments.

No comments »

Posted in DIY, Tech Support

Tags:

Opt-Out changed my computer – tips to avoid and fix unwanted changes

August 25th, 2009

You recently visited a website and now your browser is behaving funny or it no longer goes to your home page.  Or perhaps you installed a print driver or some other software on your computer  and suddenly you have extra desktop icons that you didn’t see before.

How many times have you asked these questions: 

  • How did that toolbar get there?
  • When did that desktop icon show-up?
  • Where did my browser home page go?
  • Why did it change?

Most computer users will say, especially if they’re relatively new, I didn’t add that to my browser or I don’t remember changing that.  They’re right they didn’t do it directly.  However, they allowed it to happen.  They just didn’t know it at the time.

Opt-in

Opt-in is a method used to gain permission from the agreeing party to add them to a list or provide a service or install a piece of software or make a modification to their computer configuration.  Sometimes, the continue button is disabled until you agree to Opt-in.  Then there’s no way to avoid it.  You either agree to let it happen or you can cancel and get out.  Just be aware of what you’re agreeing to.

Opt-out

Opt-out is a method that assumes you already want to be on a mailing list or you want a service or software or modification to your computer configuration. To prevent this from happening, you must Opt-out.  In other words, you much reject their suggestion and turn off the checked items you don’t want to happen.  There will be some disclaimer on the page that suggests you are agreeing to allow modifications to occur unless you Opt-out by unchecking these items.

Be cautious everytime you install software

Any time you install software on your computer, be on the lookout for Opt-out or Opt-in checkboxes.  The Opt-out checkbox or boxes are usually in plain view.  They might be sandwiched between an introduction page and another page of information.  The Opt-out option might be on a second or third page where they catch you being inpatient and saying “yeah whatever, I just want to get this over with” as you click the continue button.

Catch the next blog to see some answers on how to resolve some unwanted Opt-out artifacts.

These topics will be covered in upcoming blogs:

  • Restoring my home page
  • Getting rid of that unwanted browser toolbar.
  • Removing unwanted desktop shortcuts
  • Removing unwanted extra software

1 comment »

Posted in DIY

Tags:

What is a Blu-ray Disc Player and why should I care?

August 24th, 2009

If you still have an older television or DVD player that still functions you may not have noticed the changes on the technological horizon. It is inevitable that your television and DVD player will eventually cease to function and you will be exposed to a lot of technical jargon.  Lots of acronyms and numbers.  Hopefully, this article will make your transition to newer technology a little easier.

The last initial

A quick word about the last letter you’ll be seeing in the screen resolution.  You’ll see either a ‘p’ or an ‘i’.  The ‘p’ stands for progressive-scan or non-interlaced and the ‘i’ stands for interlaced.  These refer to electronic methods of displaying information on the screen.  Depending on who you talk to, you’ll get different opinions.  For the most part, I believe that you want to go with the progressive-scan.

The screen resolution

Resolution refers to the clarity of an image on the screen.  This is usually measured in dots per inch on the screen.  Higher numbers mean better quality. Your older television set displays images at 480p or 480 vertical lines.  They call this standard-definition television or SDTV.

The newer televisions and monitors of today use a different technology for displaying the images on the screen.  You will hear the terms LCD or Plasma thrown around a lot.  LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Diode, and Plasma is an ionized gas. Depending on who you talk to,  you will get many opinions about which is better.  I love the sharpness and deep contrast of Plasma, but I chose LCD because of my budget at the time of my purchase.

Current screen resolutions are 720p and 1080p.  That would be 720 and 1080 vertical lines respectively.  The more vertical lines there are means a better resolution image.  This is called high-definition television or HDTV.

I’ve included a link to a CNET article for more details on which is better 720p vs. 1080p HDTVs

Blu-ray Disc features

  • A single layer Blu-ray Disc can store 25GB of information on a single disc.  A double layer DVD at best can only store 8.4GB of storage.  In other words a Blu-ray disc can hold the equivalent of 3 double layer DVDs.
  • Regular DVDs contains a movie at 480p
  • Blu-ray Disc contains a movie at full 1080p
  • Many other featurettes all on the same disc.

Blu-ray player features for around $100

  • Upscale standard DVDs to 1080p
    • Your investment in standard DVDs will not be lost
  • Plays Blu-ray Discs at 1080p
  • Compatible with HDTV
    • HDMI (High-Definition Media Interface) connectors are standard
    • Many have component out, which work with some SDTVs
    • Eventually you will need to replace your old SDTV with a new HDTV
  • Compatible with SDTV
    • Your results may vary with this one, to reduce costs some manufacturers may drop less used connectors and use HDMI connector only.
    • Component video output – the Red, Green, Blue connectors
    • Composite video output – the Yellow connector

The bottom line is that there are some great deals to be had on some Blu-ray Disc players.  If you’ve been thinking about replacing or upgrading your DVD player, the great deals are coming.  Get familiar with the features and the prices, so you will recognize the deals when you see them.

No comments »

Posted in Technology

Tags:

How to: Provide Technical support using Remote Assistance

August 23rd, 2009

When family and friends have computer issues, who do they call?  Many times its their personal IT support person.  They call him or her up, then try to describe the issue(s) they’re having.  Depending on the circumstances, this can either be a short conversation or a long drawn out one.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Finally, after the attempt to describe the issue.  The IT person tries to make a best guess at what the problem is, then tries to walk the person on the other end of the phone through the steps to resolve the issue.  If only the IT person could see what’s going on, they’d make an observation and make an informed decision on what was really happening with your computer.  What could have taken the IT person 2 minutes to do in person ends up costing them 30 minutes or more trying to explain what to do over the phone.  Not that we don’t love talking to you for that long.  It’s more like we’d rather spend that time socializing with you instead of trying to describe how to fix an issue without seeing what’s happening.

I have a suggestion to avoid the frustration of your tech support person.  Use Remote Assistance to give your IT person remote control of your computer.  They can usually solve your problem quickly and help both of you avoid a lot of grief.

Remote Assistance to the rescue

Remote Assistance is basically a way to allow a remote user to see what’s going on with your computer.  When you first connect, they are in monitor only mode.  Your IT person can ask for control of your computer to make the necessary changes to your computer’s configuration.  Once you permit access they will see your computer in a window.  All mouse actions and keyboard strokes are sent as if your tech support person were right there.

How to setup a Remote Assistance session

One note before we begin.  This usually works better if you have high speed internet like Cable Modem or ISDN.  If you have dial-up you might NOT want to try this.

  1. Press the Computer Start button
  2. Select the Help and Support Menu
  3. Select Invite a frind to connect with Remote Assistance
  4. Click invite someone to help you
  5. Type email address
  6. Invite this person
  7. Enter your name in the from text area
  8. Enter your problem detail in Message text area
  9. Click Continue > button
  10. Set Invitation Expire time.  Default is 1 hour.  Set it to an appropriate time that will allow you to notify your IT person that you need the tech support.  Don’t forget, you will need to permit control of your computer.
  11. Enter password and password confirmation.
  12. Click Send Invitation
  13. When the IT person receives the email, they will open the attachment and type the password to connect with your computer.
  14. They will press the Take Control button on their Remote Assistance screen
  15. Click the Yes button when you see a dialog asking if you want to allow Control of your computer.
  16. When they have finished, you can press the Disconnect button on the Remote Assistance page.

Note:  Your invitation will still be good until it expires.  So if you set the expiration for two hours, it will be good for two hours.  Make sure you delete the invitation once you are done.

  1. Press the Computer Start button
  2. Select the Help and Support Menu
  3. Select Invite a frind to connect with Remote Assistance
  4. Select View invitation status
  5. Select Invitation
  6. Press Delete button

I realize there have been many articles written on Remote Assistance.  I had to do a tech support call tonight and decided to include the direction here.  Then I could reference this blog for future tech support calls. 

The directions in this article provides one way of many to connect with another computer via Remote Assistance.

No comments »

Posted in DIY, Tech Support, Technology

Tags:

Blu-ray Disc Player for Christmas, around $100

August 20th, 2009

This might just be the year to buy a $100  Blu-ray Disc player for Christmas.  In one of my previous blogs, I commented that Christmas is coming to be ready. 

DVD Format Wars

During the Blu-ray / HD DVD wars.  I jumped on the HD DVD bandwagon because the price of the player was a whole lot cheaper than Blu-ray.  I thought there would be room enough for both of them.  However, that was not the case.  Not too long after my purchase a winner was declared in 2008.  It was Sony this time.  It was a little painful to swallow for a while, picking the wrong technology.  Ultimately, I still won as, I saw many popular videos in HD DVD format go on sale for rediculously low prices.

No competition

After the war was over, there wasn’t any healthy competition driving the prices toward affordability.  It seemed like the prices hovered in the $200-$400 range.  You had two choices, an expensive game console or an expensive stand-alone Blu-ray player.  Both were way overpriced.  Since the format wars were over I have refused to purchase a Blu-ray player because of price alone.  I knew there was no reason why they couldn’t be more affordable.  All they had to do, was remove a few expensive options and provide us with a bare-bones model that can play Blu-ray discs.

A miracle happened

I don’t know exactly when it happend, but I heard rumors that Blu-ray players have started selling below $100.  I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard this.  I had to verify this myself.  So, I looked up some major retailers in my area (Fry’s, K-Mart, Target, Sears, Best Buy)  At the time of this article I found a refurbished Blu-ray Disc player for $99 and another within $10.  Pretty close for my book.

  • K-Mart & Sears - Magnavox Blu-ray Disc player, refurbished $99
  • BestBuy – Insignia Blu-ray Disc player $119

I hope this trend continues.  I’ve seen several Blu-ray Disc players start to drop below the $200 barrier.  I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen around Thanksgiving.  This should get real interesting.  I’m still not planning to brave the crowds on Black Friday.  But, with all the money we’ll be saving, maybe we’ll pay someone to buy it for us ;-)

Christmas is still coming.  Now that Blu-ray Disc players are getting closer to the $100 price-point, we’ll be able to find a deal this year..

No comments »

Posted in Finances, Money, Technology

Tags:

Switch to our mobile site