August 22, 2009 by David.

We may be moving into a place that doesn’t have broadband availability from any land sources so I’ve started checking out satellite and all satellite providers have comparatively low bandwidth caps, so I thought I should start monitoring my usage. I came across Net Meter by Hoo Technology on CNet’s site. It is $20 after a 30 day free trial. I am finding it simple to install and use and it has very informative reports - just what I was looking for. Here’s how CNet describes it:

“Net Meter monitors network traffic through all network connections on the computer it’s installed on, and displays real-time graphical and numerical downloading and uploading speeds. The software supports to display transfer rates of multiple network connections at the same time. It also logs network traffic and provides daily, weekly, monthly, and summary traffic reports. And start days of week and month are customizable. The program allows you to setup a notification to get an alert when you exceed a certain amount of bandwidth usage. And, traffic stopwatch enables you to test bandwidth speed of connections. You can also record transfer rates of connections. Net Meter works with the majority network connections including phone modems, DSL, cable modem, LAN, satellite, wireless, and VPN.”

I also tried a free bandwidth monitor from CNet on my laptop but it is like a toy compared to Net Meter.

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August 12, 2009 by David.

For $3.00/user/month myOneLogin will allow others to sign into many applications using your password but not seeing what it is. When you want to end their access, you just delete their myOneLogin account and access is immediately removed from all programs you set them up to access. By extension, this means you can set up “single sign-on” so each person only has one password to remember. Pretty slick. There is a free trial too. 

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August 12, 2009 by David.

Recently I dropped AccessLine eFax service because of on-going phone line connection difficulties and signed up for MyFax instead. So far they are working fine.

MyFax offers a free eFaxing service. I am using the paid service as I need a consistent FAX number to give people, but for some the free computer-based service will be all they need. Max of two faxes per day up to 10 pages each without even setting up an account. You can also send MS Word, PDFs and 175 other file formats.

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April 29, 2009 by David.

I’ve been a PC guy all my life but I have to admit I’m beginning to see the “light.” A month ago I had time to kill waiting for my wife at the hairdresser and wandered into the Walnut Creek Apple  store. To say I was impressed is putting it mildly. The whole place was designed unlike any place that sells PC’s ever has been. Not only was the whole store laid out in a spacious and airy design, obvious thought had been put in place to engage the consumer in interacting with the devices. A completely different mindset.

 My slide down the slippery slope to Apple began primarily with the iPhone, although the sleek Air notebook didn’t hurt. Frankly I wasn’t all that impressed with the first version of the iPhone. Second generation was a step in the right direction. Wandering through the Apple store, it was the iPod Touch that really caught my attention. To have a music player that also automatically downloads podcasts, looks thin and sleek, and has the reportedly awesome Apple user interface was something I could see myself really using and enjoying.

Since then I’ve done additional online research and I’m just getting deeper into sin. Recently I decided I’d make the plunge for the iPod Touch, but then I ran into the numerous features of the version 3.0 operating system for the iPhone and iPod, to be released in June. Alas, I’m going to wait a couple more months …and there is a fairly good chance I’ll spring for the iPhone.

It really is all the applications that one can get for the iPhone and iTouch that gets my attention. In fact, I’d like to mess around with some app programming for it.

However, I’ve been a Verizon customer for years and frankly HATE HATE HATE AT&T as a company. My experience with them encompasses consumer and business, wireless, wired, and broadband. EVERY encounter has been between negative and VERY negative. Are you noticing a trend here?

If I could get an iPhone from Verizon, there wouldn’t be one question in my mind that I’d get one. Not only would I have to use AT&T again, I’d have to lose all my friends and family advantage. The circle of people I talk to on the phone is quite small and all but one is a Verizon customer (and I could make him one of my “10″ free friends if I wanted to). So, I’ll have to factor in what additional it will cost me to pay to talk to those folks, but right now I’d lay fairly good odds to my making the switch to an iPhone.

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March 9, 2009 by David.

PC Week has an article on their five top free Microsoft web services.

• 25 GB online storage
• Computer to computer folder sync without a copy in “the cloud”
• Folder sync with a copy in “the cloud”
• Shared office workspace
• Virtual earth 3D

I’m very impressed and will be using a couple of them right away.

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January 5, 2009 by David.

It took almost two years and nine months for the first 100 .com domain names to be registered. Check out the story at PCWorld.

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January 1, 2009 by David.

Gina Schreck posts some decent videos about hot technologies, particularly ones which can be utilized by speakers and business people for communication, efficiency, and promoting. Check out her Gettin’ Geeky videos. She has a casual presentation style as she goes through the basics and explains where a technology can be put to use.

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September 4, 2008 by David.

Today I started work re-developing a website for a client that has an existing site on Yahoo. I’ve used 1and1.com as my website host for years and have been very happy with it. One of the things I do is have one account host multiple sites. In otherwords, DaveDrive.com, RamV10.com, MissSharlet.com, etc all are on one account. In fact, I have 19 domain names pointing to 12 websites.

Enter the new client with Yahoo. I’m looking all over in their Yahoo account and not finding any method of setting up the destination directory for a given domain name. In fact, I’m not even finding a way to register a second domain name for the account (she wants a second new site developed also). Finally I called Yahoo support and was politely told that he understood what I wanted but “Yahoo doesn’t do that.” EVERY domain name requires a separate account.

Let’s see, that means her two domain names would cost over twenty bucks per month. With 1and1.com it costs 4.99 per month - and the two domain names are registered for free! Plus, if in the future she wants to add more domain names or sites, it will only cost seven bucks per year per domain name. Now that is more like it!

I’ve used that “home” account for about five years and am still only using a fraction of the maximum of the disk space, number of eMails, download bandwidth, etc.

What I want to know is how does Yahoo get away with screwing people like that?

Long live 1and1.com.

If you want to get an account with 1and1 and you are in the mood to donate a month of free hosting to me, kindly click the little blue “hosted by 1and1″ button on the left side of this page. I have yet to find a hosting company that matches their hosting or domain registration prices - and I am even happy with their level service.

Now, that said, you have to understand one thing. You can’t have it all. There is NO business where you can have the lowest price without giving up something somewhere else. No company can afford to charge the lowest price and at the same time give instant high-quality customer service, the most extensive add-ins, the most sophisticated eMail system, etc, etc.

Myself, after five years with them I am happy with the customer service I’ve been provided by 1and1 and the other aspects of 1and1 - considering the price I’m paying. To get the lowest price I’m willing to live with the fact that they aren’t the easiest to get ahold of (thanks, but nearly everything I can solve myself), the most sophisticated eMail system (I use Outlook anyway), or that not every person on their help desk is “the best.” They have to cut somewhere to give those lowest prices and for me their balance of price and service and performance are ideal.

So don’t whine to me if they aren’t at the same time giving the highest level in every other aspect. My client cut their monthly costs to 1/5 of what Yahoo would have charged for domain registration after the 1st signup, they now pay 1/2 of what they would have for two websites, and as they add more domain names (for misspellings, etc) they will save 80% of the cost for each and every domain name registration. Not one of my clients have ever come back to me and complained once for anything to do with 1and1. In my books that is a fabulous deal.

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May 28, 2008 by David.

This morning I was reading about a lawsuit against Dell alleging inferior support. Ironically this morning I had a Dell service person come to my home 24 hours from placing a call and replace several items on my Latitude D610. The hinge was broken and the mouse would intermittently act erratic. Hey,  I even got through very quickly on my calls to them. I’m sure no company that large can avoid having some service issues fall through the cracks, but I’m here to say that my service and support levels have been more than satisfactory for years.

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April 28, 2008 by David.

Did you know the pen you are using is “analog?” Well, once a digital pen arrives on the scene, your trusty old pen suddenly becomes analog. Mobile Digital Scribe from IOGEAR works as a normal pen, but also is tracked by a small device you can clip to your paper pad and then upload to your computer. While not pressure sensitive, it does track position, so you can do something like a trace of a picture and upload it.

The OCR software that comes with it doesn’t perform all that accurately, so for now it may not be the best way to get your handwritten document directly into Word. I don’t know if it can be a front-end for other OCR software, however.

Check out PC Magazine Senior Editor Tim Moynihan’ video review.

List $130. Amazon has it for just over a hundred bucks - and free two day shipping if you are an Amazon Prime member.

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March 12, 2008 by David.

We had our first DVD sale this week on Amazon! Sharlet and Arlene have 8 DVD’s they’ve finished (with me doing the filming, editing & production), with 7 more at least half completed. A couple weeks ago we decided to sell them on Amazon via their CreateSpace.com. The first DVD we posted was Age Proof Your Brain.

You upload your artwork (DVD case insert and DVD disk face), send them a DVD ready for duplicating, do a little on-line setup such as product description, etc, and they will burn, print, and mail a copy whenever anyone orders it. Very cool. You can even skip the artwork and just give them plain text to print if you prefer.

You will make a higher percentage of profit on DVD’s that sell through CreatSpace.com than you do through Amazon.com, but my guess is that you’ll sell more through Amazon.

The only thing I wish CreateSpace would do differently is to allow computer files to be included on the DVDs. I like to put the PowerPoint presentations Sharlet and Arlene use in their talks on the DVDs so someone can print them out and follow along if they want, but that isn’t an option with CreateSpace. I’ll continue to include them on the DVDs I burn for backroom sales at speaking events or direct orders when someone calls our 800 number (800-379-5017) - a little extra bonus for those sales venues.

Yesterday I mailed off the second DVD to CreateSpace and today I should have the third ready to send them. Not having to worry about order fulfillment, processing credit cards (let alone the liability of having credit card information), or having a merchant account is absolutely great.

If you have books, CDs, or DVDs you want to sell, you should check out CreateSpace.com.

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November 7, 2007 by David.

Previously I posted a review of Mailloop 7.0by IMC. That was when I first started using it. Well, what with how much I’m moving around right now, I need an autoresponder that resides on a server somewhere rather than my own PC. Between that need and my continued frustrations with the product, I took up a new search. Frankly, I did a more thorough search this time and found some interesting stuff. This post discusses Mailloop, GetResponse, Constant Contact, and Aweber.

I ended up signing up with GetResponse. I can’t believe the difference in products. It is like comparing a sophisticated (and functioning!) professionally developed software package to some high school kid’s school project. Really.

Here are some of the high points on why GetResponse is far better than Mailloop:

• You can allow the subscriber to select whether they want eMail, web page, or RSS feed delivery. (Granted, I haven’t tested this feature yet, but it is “supposed” to work.)
• The subscriber can click a link and get the next eMail immediately if they want to. Say you have a five part mini-course and you have a person who really likes your stuff. Why make them wait? Take advantage of their interest by allowing them to speed up the sequence if they want. (This one I have tested and it is slick.)
• You can copy previous campaigns to build new ones. Mailloop you have to start every campaign, autoresponder, newsletter, etc from scratch. Very handy to have.
• Both products allow custom fields to be added to web signup forms. Mailloop, however, requires you know Perl scripting and how to build HTML webforms. GetResponse you just fill in a field name and it takes care of everything. Couldn’t be simpler.
• Mailloop can’t do popups or pop-overs; GetResponse can. Granted, I hate them and don’t ever expect to use them, but it is one more missing Mailloop feature.
• GetResponse’s subscriber management is much more sophisticated and automated, plus you don’t have to do all the manual purges and combines that Mailloop makes you do. Unsubscriptions are automated. Mailloop they are automated to an extent, but you still end up with a lot more manual functions dealing with unsubscribe requests in Mailloop.
• GetResponse allows you to track if someone clicks through and/or bought an item. This tracking feature also allows you to automatically move someone to a new campaign if they bought something. Mailloop can’t do any tracking. If you don’t want someone who bought a product to keep receiving eMails promoting it, you have to manually track and move that person yourself using cumbersome tools and procedures.
• When you are building eMails, GetResponse has a button to copy from HTML to text or visa versa. In addition, you can click a button and it will automatically wrap text to a given line length - a process you have to do manually, line by line, in Mailloop. Well, after you manually did a copy and paste between the messages.
• There are over 150 nice templates to use in GetResponse. Mailloop has a couple dozen, basically color variations on about three layouts, plus they GetResponse’s templates are much more sophisticated.
• Mailloop can fill in field from a file, like put in a person’s name for you automatically. The trouble is Mailloop doesn’t have a default value when a field is blank, so if the first name is missing you end up with something like “Dear,”. Not only can the field be blank because it wasn’t filled in by the subscriber, one of the methods of processing subscription requests does not fill in the field values other than the eMail address (below you can find another bug that absolutely nothing gets filled in - a blank record is created). GetResponse allows you to specify a default value so for a blank first name you get something like “Dear Friend,”.
• Mailloop doesn’t break add proper upper/lower case to name fields if it isn’t entered that way. GetResponse does.
• Mailloop can’t handle a subscriber who wants back into a newsletter after they have unsubscribed. Ok, I do exaggerate a tad. Technically you can take out an eMail that has unsubscribed to a newsletter. You have to dig until you find one of the many .csv files that contains the eMail for that campaign and take it out with a text editor or Excel. Like the average user is going to do that - even if he or she did have the knowledge to do it (no, Mailloop doesn’t explain any of this file manipulation - you are completely on your own). GetResponse just allows someone to say they want to sign up again and that is that. You don’t have to do anything.
• This point is something that, granted, really needs an ASP model like GetResponse to be able to do, but I really like that to unsubscribe a person is taken to a webpage instead of sending an eMail. From the webpage they can choose from all the campaigns they want to unsubscribe from. Plus, Mailloop will only unsubscribe the eMail address the person is sending their request from. Not everyone sends an unsubscribe request from the eMail your crap is going to. Myself, I signup under eMails that only receive, via a forward, so would have to set up an account in Outlook just to send an eMail to unsubscribe. The harder you make it to unsubscribe the more likely you are to get spam complaints.
• A problem I have encountered with Mailloop is that it sometimes looses track of what message to send and sends ones it already sent.  For instance, I’ve had numerous times where in a five message sequence, it resent eMails two through five when it was supposed to send the fifth. One point where it should have sent out four messages, it sent fifteen. Not a good way to avoid spam complaints. So far in my testing and live accounts in GetResponse I haven’t encountered a similar problem.
• I got GetResponse up and working the first day I used it. Spent maybe six hours going through the tutorials and setting up my first auto-responder campaign - which worked flawlessly the first time I tested it, by the way. Mailloop I have spent days and days trying to get to work. It didn’t help that there are bugs and I had to figure out workarounds to get it to function at all, but even if there weren’t bugs, it still would have been substantially more time involved setting it up.

Now, here is the REAL item that FLUNKS Mailloop (in case the above wasn’t enough). It can’t do double opt-in from a webform. Yes, I know all their literature says it can. The software is built to do it. However, it has a bug in the webform that is supplied that doesn’t fill in the subscriber’s “from” eMail. Mailloop needs that field to process a double opt-in.

My IMC mentor put me at the “top” of the Mailloop support queue (which meant it took a mere seven days for them to contact me). I explained the problem and my work around that I used so at least I could subscribe someone without double opt-in and he told me that was exactly what I needed to do, that the software just “didn’t” fill in the from eMail address and that I shouldn’t expect it to. He didn’t care that therefore the double opt-in feature couldn’t work. Here is a quote from one of his eMails:

“The program is advertised in the sales copy to have double optin features, but it doesn’t work with setting up a custom rule to collect opt-ins from a webform unfortunately. We would like to add this functionality in the program at a future date and it’s on the list of things to do for sure.”

After several eMails, I did get an explanation of how I could change the webform to fill in the “from” field, with the caveat that would disable Mailloop’s rule processing function since the eMail address was no longer in the body of the eMail.

This one issue alone is enough for me and I’d think most other people to reject Mailloop if they they knew about it.

If you pre-purchase the maintenance (which you definitely should do if you get Mailloop), Mailloop will set you back roughly five hundred bucks. GetResponse plans start at $18/month (for 10,000 subscribers). That means I could have used GetResponse for over two year before it cost me more (well, unless I go over 10,000 subscribers - a nice problem to have…).

Before closing, let me point out one other considerable shortcoming of another eMail campaign program. Constant Contact does not have ANY autoresponder features. If all you want is to key in eMail addresses for a newsletter, it works fine and is a nice product, but if you want people to fill in a webform and automatically get something back, it won’t do it. I saw a number of large companies that send me stuff use them so I signed up for their free trial and that was when I realized it didn’t autorespond. I just assumed any large eMail campaign company would. At least they have a simple trial subscription. Gotta give them credit for that. They don’t even ask for a charge card.

One other plus for Constant Contact is you can bundle a survey package with your eMail campaigns.  A nice feature, but I plan to use SurveyMonkey.com.

This post probably sounds like I’m trying to “sell” GetResponse. That actually isn’t my intent. Now that I have used both packages I am able to directly contrast the two and there certainly is plenty to contrast! So, in the order of fairness, here are some of my concerns with GetResponse:

In my research I did encounter one person who complained that once they signed up for GetResponse their eMail account got tons of junk eMail. My experience doesn’t back that up. First, I haven’t gotten any junk eMail. There are a few things you should pay attention to, however. First is, entering your eMail on the home page signs you up to get promotional eMails. You just have to pay attention. I did that by mistake but then immediately requested to be unsubscribed and was dropped before any eMails started coming. Second, when you do sign up for their service, you have the option to get promotional eMails or not. Again, pay attention.

When you sign up for GetResponse, they have a “risk free” two weeks. That means you can get a full refund within two weeks. It doesn’t mean you get to try the service without paying for two weeks. Did I mention, “Pay Attention”?

You can have your own custom landing pages that subscribers are sent to after various actions they take or you can use the default GetResponse page. Those pages have a fair amount of ads on them for other people trying to build subscriber lists. However, you can easily defeat this even if you don’t want to build your own landing pages by checking a box that disables advertisements. When I first saw the ads I was a little miffed, but then I found the box to eliminate them - now that I’m ok with. If you don’t care, they have an additional revenue stream, but if you don’t want it you can easily and quickly defeat it. If only more companies would have business practices like that.

You can load your own eMail addresses into GetResponse either manually or with an upload. However, you can’t add those addresses unless you also send those people another eMail asking them to confirm their subscription. There are check boxes to choose whether or not to send confirmations to adds, but anything I tried you get an error message forcing you to send confirmations. I realize this is a way for GetResponse to protect their name from spam, but it sure is inconvenient for an “honest” person who already has a list with another provider that has had double opt-in already done.

While personally I have only tried three eMail automation software packages, I do think GetResponse is in the top couple. From my research, it seems that at the price point and feature list I’m looking for, GetResponse and Aweber appear to be the top two contenders. I decided to go with GetResponse for two reasons. One is that GetResponse has two features Aweber doesn’t that I really liked (the first two bullet points at the beginning of this post), and second, I read enough bad press on Aweber’s ethics that I wasn’t real anxious to jump on their bandwagon.

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October 22, 2007 by David.

PC World has a nice write-up on how to spot eMail scams.  Having a good sense of disbelief and a few basic cautions will save you time and again.

eBay and PayPal have pages dedicated to helping you identify the whether an eMail purporting to be from them is fraudulent, things like how they put your name in the eMail and the layout of known scams.  The are also very responsive if you eMail them asking if something you received is legit.

If you are active on the Internet at all, you need to have multiple eMail accounts.  A minimum of three in my book.  Use one for known & trusted business, like your banks and PayPal.  Pay attention to what the “to” eMail is when you receive eMail.  Not only will you have a permanent eMail address you won’t have to change with these accounts, you can quickly tell if a message “from” eBay but it isn’t the account you use with them.

Have a second for “trash.”  You know, when you have to sign up for something you are pretty sure you don’t want to hear from again but have to supply an eMail address.  Check it occasionally and when you start getting a lot of trash, just kill it and make a new one.

Third, have an account for your usual eMail communications - your friends and associates.  You know eventually this will pick up spam because there is always someone who sens eMail to a group and exposes them all the addresses (instead of using blind copy) and eventually that will get in the hands of the wrong person.  However, this won’t soak up spam real fast and so you might change the account every year or two to keep it clean.

You might have a fourth if you are forced to use only one specific address from work.  That is a hassle because you don’t have a way to rotate it to keep it clean so just guard it carefully.  I even went so far as creating business cards with the company logo (the actually created them for me) with the “junk” business eMail.  I’d carry both cards and only give the permanent eMail to trusted insiders, giving away the junk eMail to everyone else.

Ok, that’s five accounts, but this system has worked well for me, especially since you can forward eMails and thus I only have to check one or two places.  Also, most good eMail packages will pull from multiple addresses.  For instance, Outlook will pull from as many mailboxes as you’d like and then you can add a display colum to show the “to” address to easily track which ones you want to open.

To get those accounts is really easy even if your personal eMail is xyz@comcast.net and your can’t-change-it-and-break-the-standard business eMail.  The easiest and cheapest way is to use hotmail, yahoo, or the like for alternate addresses.  However, to get a more official looking eMail, create a domain name just for eMail if you have to.  Heck, for six bucks per year for the URL and four bucks per month you can have your own domain name with more eMail addresses than you can possibly use from 1and1.com - well worth the cost if you care about spam.  Besides, who wouldn’t rather have yourname@CoolURL.com instead of name456@hotmail.com?  I’ve used 1and1 hosting service for years and it is one of the very cheapest out there for both hosting and domain name registration.  You will find their products very robust and well featured.  Click the 1and1.com link in the side bar to check them out!

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October 16, 2007 by David.

Included with the Adobe Master Collection package is a training DVD. I am blown away by both the quality and the quantity. There are many hours covering the many products included in the Master Collection. It is nicely “chunked down” to topics. There is a variety of presenters but nearly all do a stellar job of walking one through the topic.

In case that wasn’t enough, there is also a free month subscription to on-line training at Lynda.com. They go into a lot more depth and breadth than the single DVD from Adobe, and of course cover a lot more than just Adobe’s products. Between the two resources I got a great start on using the software. I’ll continue my Lynda.com subscription. After all, $25/month is like buying one book (or in some cases, half a book). The educators on the Adobe DVD are also on Lynda.com but are not duplicates so the two mesh well.

This beats going to a standard school hands down. Both college classes and business education (such as New Horizons) are way too slow for me. Both have to progress at the lowest common denominator and I find the majority of time is wasted on material I already know or is just moving WAY slower than it needs to.

Maybe my prior experience with video education was just a run of below standard material, but I am amazed at the concise usefulness of Adobe & Lynda’s videos. Since the training is so succinct, one can move at the pace he or she wants. The presenter just gets right to the point and lays it out. For material that is completely new to me, I replay short sections as I’m going along until I get it, but the end result is MUCH faster than sitting in a classroom setting.

These training videos have made me a believer and, furthermore, will allow me to get so much more out of the software. My biggest concern in ordering this suite was there would be so much to learn and going to a class of any type would take so long and cost so much I wouldn’t get nearly the use out of it that I could have. I’m not worried about that anymore! 

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October 1, 2007 by David.

Google sky is a very cool app, but check out PC World’s collection of space images. Spectacular!

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