David’s Blog Tip IV – Dialup Guide

May 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

OK, come clean – you’ve found your way to the Totally Incorrect blog and you’re thinking “Wowzer!!!!! that is just soooo cooool – I need to have my own blog!!”

Hmm, well, maybe you are not quite thinking that, but you still might be feeling you’d like to get into this blog lark. I’d encourage you to do so because it can be very rewarding on a lot of levels.

Of course, figuring out just how to get started can be a bit of a challenge and more than a little daunting for a newcomer.

I learned just today that things have gotten a touch easier. My friend on Twitter, Gavin Heaton (on Twitter he is @servantofchaos – how cool is that) has spent a lot of his time writing a fantastic blogging guide that is perfect for beginners.

Quite apart from the fact you should be following Mr. Chaos anyway, just because he is a good guy, if you are considering starting or have just started a new blog, his book is required reading. I tell you, it beats doing it the hard way and learing all this stuff by making mistakes as I did.

You can get the Dialup Guide to Blogging for $10 for a real book or $7.50 for the eBook version. Go here for more info or to order.

Oh – if you are wondering, I have nothing to gain financially if you buy this book. I’m suggesting it just because I think it could make life easier for new bloggers.

If you do buy the book let me know what you thought of it. Also please let me know of any other good reads for bloggers.

Want to read more Servant of Chaos – head over to Gavin’s blog here.

Cheers!

Filed Under: Tech

One Small Tweet For a Man

May 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Twitter has been in the news a lot of late. What with unparalleled grown, the first person to get a million followers (I still have no idea who this guy even is), the arrival of Oprah and the 300,000 people who came with her (most of whom will have left just as quickly), there have been a lot of milestones reached.

For me though, the most significant Twitter news happened to day – Tuesday May, 12 2009. This was the day day that Mike Massimino, a NASA Astronaut became the first person to Tweet from space!

On Twitter Mike is @Astro_Mike and you really should follow him if you are a Twitter user. I think it is amazing he documents his day just as though he was going to work just like you or me! He is actually on the Space Shuttle mission where he is going to be spacewalking to fix the Hubble Telescope – not quite your 9-5 job!

So here is the historic Tweet from Space

Great stuff Mike!!

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Notes while on the road

May 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I don’t know about you, but this happens to me all the time.

I’m driving and I have a great idea that will really help the business.

I see a truck that belongs to a company that seems to be the perfect potential customer.

There is a sign on a building & I think that I must check this out.

Listening to the BBC, I want to check out the website of the program to learn more.

I speak to someone on my phone and need to remember the appointment I just made.

etc…etc.

Maybe you have a great memory and can remember all these things. I confess, I can’t! While I’m driving, there are ideas going through my head the whole time and every now and again, some are actually worth remembering.

So how can I do this? One thing I learned years ago is that taking notes and driving isn’t a great idea. Obviously this is an opportunity for technology to help.

I’ve tried several ways to do this in the past – including those little dictation tape recorders and, more recently, recorders in my phone that will grab a thought and send to me as an email attachment. I still use one of these from time to time, Note2Self from Alex at WebIS.

The problem with having an audio recording is that the information is not in a format I can really import into my calendar or my task management system – more work is needed to transpose this when I get time.

Being a 21st Century guy, I’ve wanted something better and more convenient, so I’m currently using two voice transcription systems that will take my speech and enter it as text into applications I use.

The reason I use two is that neither works 100% and I’ve been trying to decide for months which is the closest to what I need. I still have not decided.

One of these is Jott.

Jott comes in two versions (actually more than two, but I don’t use some of the newer things they’ve come out with) one of which is free, the other has a monthly subscription fee. The free one allows you to enter information into quite a few applications, but not Toodledo which is my task management system. I’m therefore a paid subscriber.

Currently I use Jott to enter tasks into Toodledo, appointments into Google Calendar, Tweets into Twitter and I can also update my Facebook status. The program has a lot more possibilities, but my needs are pretty baseic.

It works by dialing the access number and saying the name of the service and what the message is. For example, I could call Jott and at the prompt say “Google Calendar” then “Dinner with Caren at Georgio’s next Tuesday at 8.00 PM.”

In just a few minutes, tha appointment is in Google Calendar, then my iPhone and Outlook because of the sync I have set up.

Dial2Do is remarkably similar, except it is free. I also use Dial2Do to send text messages to people in my contact list.

I don’t know why, but some days these two systems work better than other days. Sometimes Jott will be more accurate, other times Dial2Do will be. This is why I am still messing with both of them.

Obviously the accuracy of the transcription is the crucial thing and I’d say they both work about 75% for me. This is fine if I want to capture a thought in Toodledo. There is usually enough that makes sense for me to remember what the note is about. Updating Twitter or Facebook is interesting, because I never quite know what is going to be typed – makes it an adventure, but is also rather annoying when the system gets it way wrong. Maybe these products are optimized for American accents and they don’t like my Queen’s English.

I’m hoping that as these systems (and others that might appear) improve, the voice recognition will get better. It still beats trying to remember all these jumbled thoughts and ideas in my over extended memory.

How do you capture thoughts when you can’t write them down? Is there something better that I’ve missed?

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: , , ,

Upgrade WordPress with StudioPress

May 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I’ve been using Brian Gardner’s WordPress themes for most of the time I’ve been blogging and I have themes from three of his generations.

Our Labeling News and UniqueDay blogs as well as Totally Incorrect are all based on Brian’s themes. There are good reasons for this.

First, the quality of Brian’s themes is always top notch. His attention to detail is brilliant and you know that you are getting the best out of WordPress. Because the themes are published under the GPL, you are welcome to customize and change them to your hearts content.

StudioPress is the latest generation of Brian’s work and Totally Incorrect is based on his Metro Theme. What is really good is that the theme is pretty good right out of the box (or right from the download) but it is easy to customize without having to be a php or html expert. Check out the Showcase gallery and you’ll see that the only limit is the limit of one’s imagination.

So quite apart from the fact that the templates are really good, the other big reason to go with StudioPress is the support. Once you purchase a StudioPress package you get access to the firat class support forum where knowledgeable users as well as Brian himself pitch in to help answer questions and solve problems.

Good example, I broke something on Totally Incorrect today and posted a question in the support forum. Brian answered in about 5 minutes. Turned out the problem was totally self inflicted (a bad setting in a plugin), but it is reassuring to know that the support is always there.

So, it would be true to say I’m a very happy customer. I’m really looking forward to new template releases from StudioPress because I’m always looking to make my sites better.

Disclaimer – I’m a happy client of StudioPress and also an affiliate member. Navigate to the StudioPress site by way of the logos on my blog, buy something and I will make a few bucks. Must be good!

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: ,

Appigo – Todo iPhone App

April 27, 2009 By 8 Comments

My iPhone got a little bit better to use as a tool yesterday.

I’ve written before about how I use my phone as the centerpiece of my strategy for staying in touch and keeping organized. A big part of this is using a task management application to help keep track of all my projects.

My project management is handled by Toodledo, a cloud computing application where I keep all my projects, to-do’s and notes. One of the great things about Toodledo is that to-do items can be sorted into tasks and sub-tasks – really important if your projects are not always simple.

There are a lot of iPhone to-do apps, many of which will happily sync with Toodledo. I’ve tried a whole bunch of these and my favorite has always been Todo by Applgo. I couldn’t even say whay I liek it best, it is just so well thought out, easy to use and easy to read. Until yesterday it had a huge drawback for me – no sub-task support. Because I use sub-tasks extensively in Toodledo, it is essential that I don’t lose that formatting on my phone. Toodledo’s own iPhone app does have sub-task support so that has been my iPhone app of second choice for a while.

You won’t believe how happy I was when the App Store let me know there was a new version of Todo available – even better it now supports those elusive sub-tasks. I quickly downloaded the new version and it was time to play. Just as an aside, I love how simple Apple have made updates. Having come from the Windows Mobile world, this is such a treat!

Anyway, I must say I’m really happy with the new version of Todo – it is doing just what I would have wanted. The attached screenshot shows the sub-tasks that I’ve assigned to my Totally Incorrect project – a kind of preview of blog posts to come in the near future.

There are several really good task management apps for the iPhone and at the moment Todo is my favorite again.

Quick update – after using the new version of Todo, I’m still enjoying it. I do have a feature request though: Toodledo’s iPhone app has a nice feature that lets you quickly place a star next to any item – great for flagging “next actions” if you are using the GTD technique. I would love Todo to have this feature as well  </hint>

Are you an iPhone (or other smartphone) user? What is your favorite tool for task management?

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Voyager Pro – Bluetooth Headset

April 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Over the years I’ve tried a lot of Bluetooth headsets. I do a lot of driving and need to talk on the phone for a lot of that time so it is important do be able to do this hands-free. As more states are bringing in legislation that prevents using a handset while driving this is becoming really important.

The only BT headset I’ve ever really liked was an old Plantronics 510 which broke on me a few years ago. The 510 was never going to win any style (or even Geek) awards being rather big, heavy and totally not attempting to be stylish. The one good thing – it worked very well with good sound quality for both incoming and outgoing.

Since then, I’ve had the chance to use a few more modern devices without ever bring impressed. Some are soo small they fall out of your ear and get lost, some claim great sound quality but it is really poor and others have terrible battery life.

Enter the new Plantronics Voyager Pro. Finally an update for the old faithful 510. It retains the old 510 retro styling – at least means it is comfortable, won’t fall off your ear and has room for a proper battery, but adds all the latest technology.

So far so good – I’m liking it.

I had the chance to do a couple of quick sound checks:

First in my office: http://bit.ly/qyFzE

Then in the car: http://bit.ly/YM3rV

What do you think?

If you want techie specs and more info, meander over to the Plantronics site.

Filed Under: Tech

David’s Quick Blog Tip III – iPhone

April 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

bncI know that a lot of our readers like to visit using their iPhones. As an enthusiastic iPhone owner myself, I’m totally aware that the mobile version of Safari isn’t always perfect when it comes to reading blogs.

Enter a Canadian company, Brave New Code. These guys are clearly wizards when it comes to WordPress and they have developed a plugin called WPtouch. This is simple to install and it serves up an iPhone (or iPodTouch) friendly to visitors using these devices.

iphonessI had tried a couple of similar plugins in the past but never been happy enough to actually use on my site. WPtouch meets my requirements of being simple to install, easy to configure and – well it works. (It is free as well).  Other than uploading one custom icon for the new theme, the only change I had to make was to exclude the category with my Twitter feed from the homepage, to reduce the clutter. The whole setup took less than five minutes. The iPhone template is simple, but I really like it.

So if you have a blog and want to improve the experience of your iPhone and Touch visitors, look at using WPtouch.

That’s David’s quick blog tip!

Filed Under: Tech

Labeling News Interview – Carl Brown

March 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

We are always looking to make Labeling News a better experience for readers. A feature we are introducing is The Labeling News Interview – a series of interviews with some of the people in the labeling/RFID business that are business leaders and have something to contribute to the direction of the industry.

Our first victim guest is Carl Brown, President of SimplyRFiD. Carl gives a great overview of the RFID business and where it is headed.

You can read the interview here

Download a printable PDF version here.

There are more great interviews in the works, so make sure to check Labeling News regularly.

Filed Under: Tech

How I stay in sync

March 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

At any given time, I’ve got a lot going on. As well as working hard as part of the Winco Identification team, I have the UniqueDay wedding photography business, my wife’s beauty business and other projects to keep on top of – not to mention family things as well.

As a 21st Century guy, I’m able to keep everything reasonably under control, using some of the tools that are available today.

The one constant thing is my phone – I use the Apple iPhone, which I have with me just about all the time. I also have to report that Google (which seems to be taking over just about everything) has a big part to play in keeping everything working.

There are really three devices that I need to keep in sync. The phone, my PC at home and my PC at the office. Here is how it all works:

Dates and appointments. This area is controlled by Google Calendar. I use Google Calendar Sync to sync Outlook on my home PC to Google. I then use NuevaSync to Sync Google Calendar to the built in iPhone calendar app. This means that I have access to my calendar information even when I don’t have Internet access on my phone. I don’t have the ability to sync to the Outlook calendar at Winco so I only use office Outlook for email.

Email. I have 3 main email accounts. Winco mail, wedding business mail and a general Gmail account. All 3 are synced to both my iPhone and home PC. The office PC isn’t so helpful since I can only access Winco mail there (of course I can also get to Gmail via the website), but no problem since I always have my iPhone when I am there.

Contacts. Synced between the iPhone and Gmail contacts using NuevaSync.

Tasks/To-Do’s. To keep all my tasks and projects under control I use the great Toodledo service. This a basically a website to keep track of all these things (great if you use David Allen’s GTD techniques) and also has an iPhone app that automatically syncs with the on-line version. This means I have access to all my task and project information even when there is no web access around.

Notes. The Toodledo website service includes a basic, but useful Notes section. A third party developer, Appigo makes a really nice Notes application for iPhone that syncs perfectly with Toodledo.

Documents. For colaborating on documents with the rest of the marketing team, I use Google Docs. (see a bit of a Google trend going on here?)

Jott.com. Jott is the final part of my sync strategy. Signing up for the Jott service, lets me call in to the service to make make note of appointments, add to my to-do list, send a text message or update my Twitter or FaceBook status. It is a great way to capture thoughts and ideas while driving, anyone who has attempted to type on the iPhone while trying to stear knows what I mean!)

Calling Jott and telling it about an appointment and having it appear in Google Calendar, iPhone Calendar and Outlook a few minutes later is just really 21st Century.

These days we all have to try and get more done in less time – I’d really suggest you check out some of these services. Also let me know if you have a better way. I’m always wanting to get better!

One final thing; since I set up my system, Google has come up with some additional sync solutions that replicate some of the functionality of NuevaSync. Because my NuevaSync has worked really well for me, I have not felt the need to change.

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: , , , ,

David’s quick blog tip

March 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

wordpresslogoBeing a 21st Century Guy, I wanted to link a lot of my stuff together – which in the case of this blog meant importing my Twitter feed.

The only problem with this was that the blog’s RSS feed became overrun with my Tweets since they greatly outnumber blog posts.

This wasn’t a problem for long – the WordPress community has already solved just about every potential issue. The answer in this case is a plugin called Advanced Category Excluder. ACE allows me to choose which categories go into the RSS feed.

Since all the Twitter posts are all in the Uncategorized category, it was simple to exclude them. Now anyone subscribing to the feed gets only the real blog posts – brilliant.

Thanks to Tim Elliott for the great little tool.

Here is a bonus tip for today, also on feeds. If you are using the (<!–more–>) tag to truncate your posts, you won’t see the full post in your RSS reader, regardless of your feed settings.

Again, there is a plugin just to solve this problem. It is called Full Text Feed and you can get it from here. Thanks to Ronald Heft, Jr. for this problem solving plugin – click here to visit Ronald’s site and see his other plugins.

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: , ,
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