Category: Technology

How to Make Your PC as Fast as the Day you Bought It

Image representing Microsoft as depicted in Cr...
Image via CrunchBase
Does your computer suck? It’s probably your fault!

One of the most frustrating things in life is a slow computer.

Every few years, we buy an expensive new PC and love how fast it starts up, runs programs, and loads web sites.  Inevitably, though it starts to slow down, until eventually we are pulling our hair out waiting for it to do routine tasks.

Why is this? It turns out the answer is actually quite simple and you don’t even need to be “technical” to understand the causes and solutions.

The good news, it’s not the computer hardware that’s the problem.  In most cases the hardware you have is perfectly capable of being restored to its original glory and kept in fast running condition with minimal effort.

Rather, the problem lies with changes that occur to the PC’s software. The 2 most common causes of slowdown (along with easy solutions) are:

via howlifeworks.com

The author goes on to say registry errors and spyware and viruses are the two main causes of slowdown — and he’s right — but I don’t like the recommendations so here are mine…

I’ve actually been thinking about this alot lately. I optimized the computer of one of my favorite clients on Friday — Ann Renard of Renards Cheese in Sturgeon Bay. As I explained to Ann, for most people, the best day with their computer is the first one and unless you take a couple of basic steps to assure it will continue to perform, it will get worse and worse every day. Here’s what we did to get her a ‘new’ computer…

First, we went to Crucial.com, downloaded the memory scanner and found we could max out her memory for less than $90. She had been sold a computer with only 1Gb of memory which is well above the Microsoft minimums but not very practical in the real world…

Next, I used RevoUninstaller to delete the cheesy [I guess I actually meant that pun] antispam and antivirus apps that had been installed and replaced them with Microsoft Security Essentials. I figure Microsoft causes all the security problems, why not let them fix them? Seriously, I have found MSE does a great job with minimum system interference — something I can say about Symantec [Norton] or McAfee tools. You can download it here…

Finally, we downloaded and installed TuneUp Utilities. It’s the only utility that I purchase and resubscribe to year after year. We did the analysis and ran all the optimizers and now her computer is running great. TuneUp Utilities will continue to run in the background with minimal interference and keep her computer in great shape…

That’s it. For the paltry price of less than $150, Ann has a ‘new’ computer that will continue to run in tip top shape for the foreseeable future. For the record, I would have charged her $70 to do this work, but she had given me a great ‘care package’ of some of their new cheese products and I wanted to reciprocate. The approach that I took and recommend — more memory + TuneUp Utilities + Microsoft Security Essentials — is a winner that you can deploy on your own! Of course, if all of this was Greek to you, you’ll want to give me a call so I can do it for you…

As a bonus for having read this far, I’m sharing my ‘top tools’ mindmap with you — it’s a list of mostly free resources that I use and recommend. TuneUp Utilities is the only one with a cost attached. You can download Soluto at http://soluto.com and all the rest can be downloaded at http://ninite.com…

Zoom in with the plus sign… :-D

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What if the apostles developed an App?

“After more than two years worth of apps for the iPhone, not to mention other handsets like the Android, there are very few applications that come as a complete surprise. But one app I looked at recently definitely fell into that category — if only because it has been installed close to 10 million times, and has millions of regular and devoted users, but hardly anyone in the tech press ever writes about it. It’s called YouVersion, but it is better known simply as “the Bible app.”

Yes, the Bible has an app. No, it was not delivered to anyone on a mountain, and there were no burning bushes involved. And yes, it is close to 10 million installs, according to Bobby Gruenewald — a pastor at Lifechurch.tv, a high-tech church based in Oklahoma (with branches in seven other states) and the brains behind the Bible app. Gruenewald was involved in the tech industry before he joined the church (he had a web-hosting company in the 1990s that he eventually sold) so the idea of using the web and mobile to help people connect with the Bible seemed like a natural, he says.

The app provides an easy-to-read interface to the Bible (obviously) in more than 40 different versions and 22 different languages, but has social features and other interesting functions built in as well: users can share their favorite passages by posting them to their Facebook wall or sharing them on Twitter, and Gruenewald says there have been half a million such tweets over the past year. Users can also choose from a number of pre-set reading plans (read the New Testament in six weeks, etc.) and then track and share their progress much like runners do with Runkeeper.” Source: What If the Apostles Developed an iPhone App?: Tech News

Nice post by Mathew Ingram! Go the source to read the rest of the article…

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The Future of Local Commerce = Facebook + Foursquare + Yelp + Groupon [+ Outdoor]

Image representing Foursquare Solutions as dep...
Image via CrunchBase

Buy local? It’s more than just a tagline but if you want more than your fair share of drive by business, you have to consider what these tools can do for you…

“There’s been much hype, crazy valuations, and overall market excitement about businesses that promise to unleash the power of the social graph, location, recommendations and group buying. Facebook’s latest valuation according to SecondMarket is now about $30 billion, Foursquare raised $20 million at a post-money valuation of $115 million while still at a pre-revenue stage, Yelp, short of selling for $550 million to Google, raised over $25 million at an undisclosed but very high valuation, and finally Groupon raised $135 million at a whopping $1.35 billion valuation. So besides their huge success with the investment community, and their users, what do these companies have in common, and what does all this have to do with disrupting Local Commerce?” Source: The Future of Local Commerce = Facebook + Foursquare + Yelp + Groupon

imho, you if you want maximum impact, you also have to consider what these tools will do for you when combined with old media like outdoor advertising as well, but not everyone has the ability to help you integrate outdoor like e1evation does…

What do each of these tools do? Here’s your primer and why you should care…

“Let’s focus on the main function each of these different startups provide to understand how bringing them together will ultimately disrupt multiple trillion dollar industries:

  • Facebook: provides the Social Graph, which is fast becoming a utility. Through its open platform, and APIs, we share more about our lives and our interactions online and on mobile every day.
  • Foursquare and Gowalla: provide location services and check-ins, along with game mechanics that motivate users to unlock badges, earn mayorships, and get discounts at local stores in the process.
  • Yelp: provides crowdsourced reviews of local businesses. Now also provides check-ins, and offers.
  • Groupon: provides discounted offers against a promise to increase sales and bring in brand new customers to local businesses.

The interesting thing here is that there’s a lot of overlap between the features offered by these companies. Recently, Facebook launched Places, a mobile geo-location service that mimics Foursquare local check-ins. Yelp also added check-ins, and recently rolled out Yelp Deals, a Groupon clone.” Source: The Future of Local Commerce = Facebook + Foursquare + Yelp + Groupon

My advice? Find someone who can help you get launched and get moving, but I’m in that business so what would you expect me to say? Really! Comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your business…

via ScribeFire
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How media is changing politics [or vice versa]

“If you want to get elected in the US, you need media.

When TV was king, the secret to media was money. If you have money, you can reach the masses. The best way to get money is to make powerful interests happy, so they’ll give you money you can use to reach the masses and get re-elected.

Now, though…When attention is scarce and there are many choices, media costs something other than money. It costs interesting. If you are angry or remarkable or an outlier, you’re interesting, and your idea can spread. People who are dull and merely aligned with powerful interests have a harder time earning attention, because money isn’t sufficient.

Thus, as media moves from TV-driven to attention-driven, we’re going to see more outliers, more renegades and more angry people driving agendas and getting elected. I figure this will continue until other voices earn enough permission from the electorate to coordinate getting out the vote, communicating through private channels like email and creating tribes of people to spread the word. (And they need to learn not to waste this permission hassling their supporters for money).

Mass media is dying, and it appears that mass politicians are endangered as well.” Source: Seth’s Blog: How media changes politics

While this wisdom make take decades to reach Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District, Seth Godin gets it…

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49% of Small Business Owners use a Smartphone

“Over the past few years, it seems that a few mobile devices — laptops, Bluetooth headsets, and increasingly, smartphones — have become ubiquitous among business people. The days of the pager are gone. Small business owners seem to be outpacing the rest of America in smartphone adoption, according to a recent survey of nearly 10,000 small business owners. While only 17% of Americans own smartphones, according to a recent Forrester study, a whopping 49% of small business owners are reported to own smartphones. Of those smartphone owners, 35% own BlackBerrys, 33% own iPhones, 25% own Androids and 7% own Windows Mobile devices. While the study didn’t include a comprehensive look at how small business owners are using their smartphones, we suspect that merchants are turning to mobile devices to stay on top of everyday business needs through e-mail, scheduling and calls. We’ve heard success stories from business owners who also tweet on the go, see the importance of location-based services, and are investing in mobile advertising.

If you’re a small business owner looking for a smartphone, don’t fall victim to the hype — know why you’re doing what you’re doing and make a smart decision. Here’s my perspective on selecting a smartphone…

#1. In many ways, the cellular provider you pick is more important than the phone you use in many cases. If you live in a large metropolitan area, this is kind of a non-issue but most Americans live in non-metropolitan or rural areas. An iPhone is worthless where I live because AT&T is worthless where I live. Before you select a smartphone, review the coverage areas of the network you intend to use and make sure coverage is good in all the areas where you do business and live…

#2. Having selected a network, the services you use should dictate the phone operating system you select. imho, all small business owners should select Google Apps for their business. Period. The Android phone operating system is developed by Google and optimized for Google Apps. BlackBerrys, iPhones, and Windows Mobile devices can all benefit from Google Apps but Android works best. My advice is that small business owners use Google Apps with the most powerful Android phone available from their carrier. Get the best phone you can afford…

#3. Having selected a carrier and a phone, find a rep at your cellular provider who has a clue. You may laugh, but finding a good rep can be a bit like Diogenes searching for an honest man. For me, my carrier is Sprint, my phone is an HTC Evo, and my rep is Cindy Otley at the Oneida Street store in Green Bay. For me, Cindy IS Sprint and she is a primary factor in my decision to stay with that carrier. She’s smart; she knows her company, their policies and the options they offer and she’ll work hard to help you select the plan and phone that will work best for you. I don’t make a move with Sprint these days without talking with Cindy. YOU need a rep like her, especially if you’re not sure about #1 and #2…

There was one more juicy tidbit in the post…

While only 12% of respondents said that they currently market their businesses through mobile — via mobile ads and apps, for example — other reports point towards an upward trend in mobile advertising budgets. In fact, spending on mobile advertising is set to grow nearly 50% to top $1 billion in 2011, according to eMarketer.” Source: 49% of Small Business Owners Use Smartphones [STATS]

More about that later…

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Five Best Netbooks

via lifehacker.com

#1 son calls me this evening and tells me that his beautiful girlfriend Melissa needs a new netbook. Kudos to #1 for having the sense to call me! Normally, I’d charge beaucoup bucks for this kind of advice, but since Melissa’s such a cutie, this one’s on the house…

First off, I’d follow the ‘via’ link above and read last week’s article on the top 5 netbooks according to Lifehacker readers. Second? I’d talk a look at this ‘back to school’ guide article from Engadget — it’s got some great input as well. I’m surprised, however, that neither article mentions the HP Mini 5102…

Earlier in the year, Engadget had a review of the 5102 in which they said in part…

There are netbooks and then there’s the HP Mini 5102. Or at least that’s always been our impression of the 10-inch business and education targeted laptop, since it isn’t every day that you see what’s supposed to be a secondary system with a 7,200rpm hard drive, durable aluminum chassis, spill resistant keyboard and capacitive touchscreen options. Or you know, a $415 starting price. The Mini 5102 doesn’t fall into the same class as those $299 netbooks — considering our review unit rings up at $668 and all — but does the extra dough really pay off in a noticeably better shrunken computing experience?

via engadget.com

The only reason I can guess as to why they excluded the HP 5102 is that the price is slightly higher than most netbooks. Now Melissa, I know the HP 5103 [5102 is no longer available] is more money than what Keegan said you wanted to spend but I’ve used an ASUS netbook which Lifehacker recommends and I’ve use the 5102 and believe me, the 5103 is worth the extra dinero! You can probably get an educational discount throught the school as well.

Do yourself a favor and read all three articles, filter them through your priorities and make a decision — you really can’t go totally wrong with any of these! Call me at 920-710-0790 if you have any more questions — always happy to help you out…

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4 must-have social-media dashboards for your business

Image representing Gist as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

While big brands and agencies have the luxury of resources and money, local businesses don’t. What they need is a social-media dashboard — an all-in-one, Web-based monitoring tool for Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites where customers hang out — that can optimize their online presence, engage with users and manage social campaigns. But that tool needs to meet three criteria: cheap, easy to use and automated. With that in mind, here’s a list of the top four that I find particularly well-suited for business use.

via venturebeat.com

I encourage you to follow the ‘via’ link and learn more about these ‘dashboards’. imho, the list is incomplete, however, without Gist and Google Reader. What are your favorite social dashboards?

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How to add more sources to your social newspaper

via holykaw.alltop.com

What do you mean you don’t have a social newspaper? Go to http://paper.li to get one!

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B2B Social Media And Lead Generation

Image representing HubSpot as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

With a business blog, there are many different ways to get people to become a “lead” from a visitor.  For example: including buttons in the sidebar to talk to a representative, or text links within content to whitepaper landing pages or to download content.  HubSpot has found it successful to add calls to action at the end of content.

We have found that a majority of posts generating leads haven’t been published recently.  Older content is generating  leads.

It’s important to remember that your customers are more important than you are.  For example, HubSpot has a customer in Virginia that installs pools and spas.  All he does is share what someone might want to know when installing a pool.  He doesn’t directly sell his products, but that’s okay.  Even if people aren’t ready to buy, publishing value added content adds them into that consideration section.

Getting all team members involved in the business blog is vital.  People want content from people, not necessarily just companies.  Getting different people from different departments – i.e., research or product, allows marketers to expand the relevant information covered on a given blog to appeal to a larger subset of customers.

Business blogging drives leads and serves as a hub for search and social media visitors.  It doesn’t feel like they are visiting a website that hasn’t been updated in years.  A blog provides much better context for a business.

via toprankblog.com
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Tumblr Leaves Posterous in the Dust [?!]

Image representing Posterous as depicted in Cr...
Image via CrunchBase

Rising social media rockstar Kelly Neuville of Envano sent me an article from ReadWriteWeb [you can follow the ‘via’ link below the graph to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested] that would seem to suggest at first glance that I should abandon my love of the Posterous platform in favor of my first interest in this space, Tumblr. If I apply logic like this at every level in my life, I would learn a lesson from the flies on my farm and favor a steady diet of cow manure — after all, the sheer volume of their vote would indicate that manure is clearly a better food product, right? :-D

Now I’m not saying that Kelly was wrong to send me the article or that Tumblr = cow manure, although it would appear my analogy is heading in that direction. What I am saying is that there will always be a reason why the masses favor one product over another and it may have nothing to do with elegance or technological superiority. I posted the same data from a different perspective yesterday here; the article postulates that ‘The growth in Tumblr’s visitors probably has something to do with its popularity among celebs.’ and says ‘Earlier this week John Mayer made waves this week by shutting down his Twitter account, where he had 3.7 million followers, and switching to Tumblr full time.’ If that’s the case, then Tumblr has an ‘unfair advantage’ — it’s becoming the destination of choice for the MySpace crowd. My response? Meh…

via readwriteweb.com

Laura Ingraham was right — entertainers should shut up and sing. What I want to know is what are the thought leaders using? I was really impressed with Tumblr until I saw that Guy Kawasaki picked Posterous for his Holy Kaw! blog and then I wondered “what did I miss”?! And what about social media rockstar Steve Rubel? And what about me? Seriously, Posterous rocks at the two most important things I could expect any blogging tool to do; ingest almost any content for creation and curation effortlessly and autopost as part of my homebase and outpost strategy. I use Posterous as the foundation of my ‘e1evation workflow‘ and it made me one of the top thought leaders in my industry on the internet rapidly elevating my site to within the top 40k of all websites in the US in 3 months. I will and I have put my humble Posterous blogs up against the best and they’ve held their ground — believe me when I say I have no fear of Katy Perry on Tumblr…

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John Mayer, Katy Perry Agree: Tumblr Crushing Posterous

via observer.com

Hmmm. I’m a massive Posterous fan — it truly has changed my life, my business and my workflow. I do, however, have to do due diligence and revisit Tumblr [which was actually my first bet in this race] to see what they’re up to…

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5 tips for using Priority Inbox

via gmailblog.blogspot.com

Priority inbox has been rocking my world since it first appeared a couple of weeks ago. It helps me focus on the people and tasks that are most important at any given time — something a lot of my compadres from which a lot of my compadres could benefit. Have you tried it? You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in learning more…

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Firefox or Chrome; which one should I use?

Image representing Google Chrome as depicted i...
Image via CrunchBase

This question is NOT a slam dunk! Also, you may be surprised to know that the answer depends on what computer platform you use…

“Which Should I Use on Windows: Firefox or Chrome?

There’s no short answer to this question, really, since neither browser is clearly better, so instead of a straight out “Use X” recommendation, let’s consider the pros and cons of each.

First, in our regular web browser performance tests, Chrome has regularly beaten up the competition or come in a very close second in most categories, while Firefox rarely leads the way. That might seem like a pretty big deal, but most browsers actually perform really well these days, so the fact that Chrome beats Firefox in most of our performance tests doesn’t mean Firefox is extremely slow—it just means that compared to Chrome, it’s not the fastest.” Source: Which Browser Should I Use: Firefox or Chrome? – Web browsers – Lifehacker

“But that brings us to another important point: Bloat. Despite the fact that Firefox generally does pretty well on memory use tests (strangely enough, it regularly wins that test in our browser performance tests), a lot of Firefox users are increasingly frustrated with slow-downs caused by what they see as browser bloat. It’s not at all uncommon to see a Firefox installation eating up more than any running application on your system, and while the memory consumption itself isn’t that big of a deal (Chrome eats a lot of memory, too), the high memory usage is often accompanied by serious browser slowdowns, which is a very big problem, and one that, anecdotally, at least, we hear from tons of Firefox users and very few Chrome users. (Presently company included.)

So what keeps Firefox users coming back despite Chrome outperforming it on Windows by most accounts? One of the biggest issues is extensions. Firefox’s extension ecosystem has long been a selling point of the popular open-source browser, and if there’s anything you wish your browser did differently, chances are there’s a Firefox extension to address it.” Source: Which Browser Should I Use: Firefox or Chrome? – Web browsers – Lifehacker

“Unfortunately, in our experience, Chrome for OS X is still much too young for full-time adoption. Remember, Chrome for Mac launched quite awhile after the Windows version and has been around much less than a year overall. Like Chrome on Windows, it shows a whole lot of promise, but it’s also prone to the occasional non-responsiveness and other bugginess that we aren’t used to and probably shouldn’t be seeing from a prime-time browser.” Source: Which Browser Should I Use: Firefox or Chrome? – Web browsers – Lifehacker

Me? I’m using Chrome more and more every day as Chrome versions of my indispensable Firefox addons become available. What about you?

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Here are the WordPress plugins I rely on

How about you? Have something better?

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Ummm. Helloooooo!?

This is why they say that a picture is worth a thousand words. The Oatmeal has communicated volumes about how the world perceives your email with one image:

You can move to the top with one simple tool: Google Apps! Google Apps allows you to attach Gmail and other powerful business apps to your internet domain in about 10 minutes… 

Use it if you don’t want the world to think you’re a Yahoo!

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How Facebook’s ‘Community Pages’ and Privacy Changes Impact Brands

Facebook has launched  several new policies and features since the F8 Conference ‘Crusade of Colonization’ which has resulted in a large backlash from media around user privacy.  It’s not clear if beyond the vocal media if users will leave the site in droves.  Perhaps more importantly,  Facebook launched “Facebook Community Pages” (read the official post) a feature that aggregates content from wikipedia and Facebook wall posts.  Think of it as a cross between Wikipedia with user comments –sometimes unwittingly.  These changes cause confusion for users, diminishing control for brands, and strains on the already torrid relationship between Facebook and brands.

via web-strategist.com

While most of the recent uproar around Facebook has been about privacy, this subtle other change may have even more impact. Follow the ‘via’ link for the rest of the article…

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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Gist brings social information to Gmail

via youtube.com

Have you gotten the Gist yet?

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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I can’t say enough about Gist

Seriously! I’ve posted on Gist over a dozen times in the past few months — it’s that good! Remember this? I called Gist the ‘cherry on top of my social media Sundae’ back in February. The screencast features my ‘holy trinity’ of morning news aggregation; Google Reader, Feedly and Gist — Gist starts at about 5:25 [although the whole screencast is worth a reprise]…

Yesterday, I received notice that Gist was now available for another of my favorite tools, Google Apps! Here’s a quick overview…

All the Gist info I used to go to the website for is now available per contact at the bottom of every email adding ‘people power’ to every email I receive. I’ll still use the Gist dashboard every morning to see what my powerful network is up to, but this new Google Apps functionality is the bee’s knees…

btw, if you’re still stuck on Outlook, there’s been a Gist plugin for that too! Go to Gist.com and sign up NOW!

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The Gist Gadget with Google Apps

via youtube.com

Sawheet! Gist continues to innovate…

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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What is Gist?

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9737959&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

via blog.gist.com

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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Finding & Closing Business Using Social Media

http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=aa-ispusingsocialmediatofindclosemorebusiness-100513091758-phpapp01&stripped_title=using-social-media-to-find-close-business

via blog.gist.com

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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