Archive for October 2005

I’ve previously reported on a great tool called Bullfighter. The people behind it published a book and I’ve posted a review of it. Meet Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide.

Ole!

With more companies adopting blogs, it’s no surprise Jakob Nielsen looks at the top ten blog usability design mistakes. Author biographies and photos should be a given for any business Web site as it lets people know there are humans behind the company. This is not limited to blogs. However, if the blogger doesn’t have an About reference for whatever reason, then yes — add one.

Headlines. I’m frustrated with them. I like to get creative… but creative can affect search engine keyword opportunities. The important thing is that readers have a hint of what the post is about. Links… well, I try to figure out where they go by relying on the status bar, but sometimes that doesn’t help. I’ve heard experts say to use “click here” to help those who are newer to the Web and you know many say that’s wrong, wrong, wrong. It just depends on the content. When I link, I try to pick the best words that give you an idea of what to expect.

Calendar and archives — completely agree. This is the biggest problem I have with most blogs. I almost always resort to search when I want to find postings no longer on the home page. Unfortunately, some blogs don’t have search. That’s why I put “archive” links in my sidebar in both meryl’s notes and meryl’s notes features. As my site goes through redesign (getting panicky because I don’t know how easy or hard it’ll be to implement it with a CMS and keep it updated), I’m making sure the archives are accessible especially in the features section. I found some old entries from 2001 that are still relevant today.

Bloggers must be regular. No bathroom jokes here, please. When a blog looks abandoned for a month… your audience is gone. They’ll take you off their feed reader and blogroll. If you plan not to do it again or take a long sabbatical… prepare to start over again when you return.

Mixing topics. Eh… too complicated to argue here, but I wouldn’t call it a top ten mistake. Agree wholeheartedly that you should blog with a boss in mind. Will your boss (current and future) be offended by your posting? Blogs could cost job offers… not just their current job. It wouldn’t surprise me if managers are Googling applicants while going through the interview process.

Last item. Having a typepad.com or blogspot.com equates to having a yahoo.com or aol.com email address? Some of the bigwigs use Blogspot or Typepad URLs. Guess what? I never remember their URLs. I have to rely on Google. So this makes sense, BUT I wouldn’t call it unprofessional. That’s going too far. No surprise, right?

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about business blogging as I find it a fascinating subject since it’s a new arena. Here are great resources for info on this: Debby Weil, Steve Rubel, Business Blog Consulting, and many more for which you can see from the Google results. Ah, gosh darn it… blogging is a topic I wouldn’t mind talking about a majority of the time in my blog… but we already have super bloggers on the topic. No sense in trying to get in now.

Sometimes I’ve felt like an idiot while reading a report or article. I’d read it… then read it again and think, “I don’t get it. What was that about?” When this happens, take comfort knowing that it’s not you. It’s the author.

Most of us have caught on to corporations’ bull. My favorite: When they say “synergy” at a merger announcement, we know they mean “layoffs.” Why say, “utilize” when “use” does the job nicely? But not all of us come with built-in bull radar and we don’t know all the bull words. The book teaches more than killing jargon.

The Bullfighter’s Guide looks at four traps that stop our messages from getting across clearly. Meet our first guest: Obscurity Trap. It’s the empty calories of communication. Meaningless and wasteful. At least, when we get such calories from sweets, we enjoy it. Not with the obscure talk. To beat the guest at his game, use plain language.

Next up is the Anonymity Trap. Companies love to assimilate their people. Get them all to talk the same. Produce the same results. Leave the personality out. While templates make jobs easier, they also lead people into this trap. Add a jolt of personality and you won’t have trouble dodging this one.

The Hard-Sell Trap sounds like its name. The mascot for this one is the “stereotypical car salesman.” Customers have gotten smarter and when they sniff out a hard-sell, they run. The last guest is Tedium Trap. Reports and presentations that spout out numbers in droves put people to sleep or cause their eyeballs to roll. Fight the bull through storytelling, conversation, personality, and recreation.

Throughout the book, the authors cover these four traps and give examples of how to duck them. Hey, they even do makeovers on presentations by replacing cheesy art with pictures that have impact and bring out a chuckle. Also included is a listing of movie titles with great quotes and themes that fit most business presentations. Oh, no, the authors don’t encourage you to present the whole movie — just a clip — enough for effect.

If only high schools and colleges would adopt this book and its approach. Writing for school has become too structured; it’s no wonder we struggle with creativity. When can we see a sequel with more examples? We need a lot of help breaking years of bad writing habits with great laughs along the way. It’s not often a book comes along that’s a pleasure to read while it teaches.

Title: Business People Speak Like Idiots
Author: Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, Jon Warshawsky
Publisher: Free Press
ISBN: 0743269098
Date: February 2005
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 192
Cover Price: USD: $22.00 Amazon: $14.96

Have you been hearing a lot about Ruby on Rails? If you haven’t, you will now. Ruby is a programming language, while Rails is a framework. Ahem, excuse the jargon, but I explain it all in this week’s article, which gives you an overview of Ruby on Rails, as well as links to resources where you can learn more.

Yes, another programming language. What’s the big deal? Why should we care? Supposedly, Ruby on Rails is powerful and very easy to use. If you don’t agree after reading the feature, drop me a line and share your thoughts.

Quickly Learn How to Be a Graphic Designer

A once complicated profession is now something you can do on a standard computer; even with no “artistic” ability.

A friend says the Casio EXILIM EX-Z750 is a superb camera. While I’m not in the market for a new camera, I keep my eyes open as I’m frustrated with my camera’s poor performance when I don’t use the flash. When the flash is off, the picture is blurry. A clear picture comes through in about one out of ten pictures. I know it’s awful, but there is no reason for me to go off and spend money on something like this.

But out of curiosity, I look around and compare prices. The lowest one I could find without shopping costs included is from Stargate Photo. The lowest price I’ve found with shipping is $350. I add the camera to the cart (as I can’t find shipping costs after 10 minutes of searching), and it asks me to enter my login ID or Sign up.

Two problems. First, it doesn’t give me a way to check out without registering. Many carts are abandoned because of this. Second, on the sign up page (the first page you see after clicking sign up), it asks for credit card information and the submit button says, “Submit order.” Hey, I never got a shipping cost!

On the shopping cart page, there is a drop down for shipping with four choices. The first one displays, “UPS-Ground 6%.” I assume this means shipping is 6% of the subtotal of the products you buy. But it could easily be something else. If I am right, the form shouldn’t make the customer figure out the shipping cost.

I tried in both Firefox and Internet Explorer. No difference except the formatting is better in IE. Even if I wanted to buy a camera, I don’t think I would buy it from this business because it has no reputation or reviews yet.

When I first met Sudoku last June, it was Writer-On-Line.com’s puzzle for the month. It took me time to figure out how the game worked. Since then, the puzzle has appeared in more and more places.

The Dallas Morning News publishes one every day (it’s rated one to five stars with one being easy and five is challenging) and that’s the last thing I do before I get to work. Thankfully, the challenging ones appear on the weekend otherwise I’d get little work done. Yesterday was the first time I correctly completed a five-star puzzle. I took my time and I was determine to beat it.

Astraware also has Sudoku for handhelds. Of course, I got it as soon as it was on sale. I will NOT be buying it for my computer otherwise bye bye work.

Anyone addicted to Sudoku?

Thanks to Becky. Created my own Sudoku of books. Didn’t have time to mess with the pictures to get them to look right. Thanks to Steve Rubel for the pointer.

Have a full entry in the features section with lots of pointers.

Updated: October 21, 2005

TownOnline.com – Chelmsford Independent has an article on how to write stories related to youth sports. While it’s may target parents and coaches who want to submit articles about their teams, it offers 10 excellent tips for any writer interested in covering sports. Go Athletics! Go Mini Mavs! OK, those are my son’s soccer and basketball teams. Seemed appropriate.

I grew up playing sports. That was my thing. Softball, volleyball, basketball, and soccer. I miss those days. It’s not the same being a parent of kids playing sports as it is doing it. But I always root for my kids. My daughter is trying out for volleyball club in a couple of weeks. Wish her luck. I think club sports are a little too much, but if she wants to make her school volleyball team next year — it means she needs to get experience through a club.

Commercial Break…

Imagine a job in which you set your own hours, and live wherever you
please: at the beach, in the mountains, in an apartment in Paris,
London, or Berlin. As a copywriter, you can.

Back to your scheduled programming…

One thing I love about the Internet is I can find the answers to my problems without calling anyone, schlepping to a repair store, and buy replacements of things no longer made like remote controls and mini appetizer forks made in the ’60s that my mom said she wished she had bought more of them and I surprised her with two sets.

Web sites have helped me solve software problems, get minor upgrades that improve or fix software, fix hardware problems like my PalmOS device and printer, download newer drivers that come in handy when I’ve upgraded my computer or operating system, research products so I can make informed decisions, and much more.

If you have problems with a specific product, try starting with the manufacturer’s Web site for answers. I had problems with Adobe software and almost always find the solutions on the company’s Web site.

Windows Process Libraries

ProcessLibrary.com
Security Task Manager
WinTasks Process Library

When you press Ctrl+Alt+Del to review the processes currently running, chances are high that you’ve run into at least one process you don’t recognize. These process libraries are like a dictionary for processes where you can look up a process and get details on it.

Tech Support Forums

Annoyances.org
HelpOnThe.Net
Mark’s PC Help Forum
Suggest A Fix

Get free technical support through these discussion forums. For most forums, you don’t have to register to read the postings, but it’s required if you want to post. Suggest A Fix PC support forums, affectionately known as SAF, has been around since 2000 with over 100,000 posts and 11,000 members! Annoyances.org is based on the O’Reilly Annoyances book series.

Urban Legends and Myth Busters

Snopes
Vmyths.com

How many times have you gotten panicky emails saying watch out for this! Watch out for that! I recall an email floating around with detailed instructions for removing a teddy bear icon in Windows. Heh. The file was as useless as a gall bladder that came with Windows, but it was no virus. Instead the teddy bear virus was a bad joke meant to cause mass hysteria. So when you get another one of these chain emails, here’s a place to go before following instructions or hitting “Forward.” The stories on Snopes are enjoyable to read as they often have a touch of humor.

Geeky Terms and Definitions

Acronym Finder
CompInfo Directory
ComputerUser.com High Tech Dictionary
FOLDOC
Glossarist
Microsoft Glossary
NetLingo.com
TechEncyclopedia
Webopedia
WhatIs.com
Wikipedia

Need geeky words translated? This dictionary of Internet terms has thousands of words related to the online world of business, technology, and communication. I’ve probably used all of these resources at one time or another. See new terms to ensure you’re up to date with tech-speak. You can quickly look up a term by adding a FOLDOC button to your browser. Wikipedia has a lot more than just geek terms.

File Extensions

Almost every file format in the world
FILExt
WhatIs

As a power user, it’s still impossible to recognize many file formats. In fact, a friend of mine sent me a file and asked if I could get its contents. It was a format I didn’t recognize. So I went to FILExt and got my answer.

General Category aka Everything Else

PC Pitstop
http://www.pcpitstop.com/

PC Pitstop provides free PC diagnostic tools for tuning up your PC, testing download and upload speed, tests pings, checking disk health (requires IE browser), scans computer’s privacy, and more. The site also has a blog, forums, and articles / information.

Tech Support Alert
http://www.techsupportalert.com/

Gizmo Richard has been running this site for a long time and has a wealth of resources to Web sites and software applications, which are all reviewed and rated. Find out about the best free utilities, free support sites, security sites, and much more. Also check out the how-to guides for performing common tasks in Windows.

Computer Gripes
http://www.computergripes.com/

While you might not find answers to your problems here, it’s a useful site to visit because there are detailed descriptions behind the problems and the attempted resolutions. You might discover information that help you in your search for a solution. Remember that even though someone could not solve his gripe doesn’t mean you’ll have the same problem. Every computer is configured differently and there are too many variables that can cause something not to work with one computer and run like a dream on another.

Tech-Recipes.com
http://www.tech-recipes.com/

Site has over 1000 step-by-step tutorials for dealing with tech problems including MySpace, Internet Explorer, Macs, Unix, and much more. It has forums and a blog.

Updated: February 2, 2006

Connected, a quarterly newsletter, untangles the major obstacles that IT professionals face. It attempts to clear the piles of information to get to the heart of the world of technology, which changes too danged fast. Also, the newsletter comes with insights on how to better lead staff (and pointy-haired boss), balance life (What life? Definitely need to do some balancing there, pal.) with your career and make customers happy in spite of all the challenges at hand.

The feature gets the first issue off to a running start with a hot topic: outsourcing. Why would the TV show Dallas appear in an article on IT outsourcing? Find out and get a reality check on outsourcing.

The first challenge posed to readers comes from a CIO who can’t decide which of two teams to put on a project as each has its strengths and weaknesses. Even C-level executives can get stuck on a problem.

The last part of the HTML and XHTML series, at least for now, works its way to CSS so you can control your content’s font type, size, and colors. Plus, the tutorial explains the right way to emphasize content.

Why another HTML intro when many tutorials are available out there on the Web? Most of them teach deprecated markup. Deprecated means “obsolete,” but browsers still understand them — the concept is similar to backward compatibility. Bold <b> is a common deprecated element. Instead of <b>, standards recommend using cascading style sheets (CSS) for adding heavy emphasis on text because bold is presentational. Ick, we’re getting into jargon country now. Never fear, it becomes clear in the article.

You can read Part I, which covers HTML files, elements and tags, and document structure. It looks at creating a basic HTML page, opening and viewing the page, and adding structure to the page.

Part II looks at the tags along with their attributes and values. You can create a basic HTML page, open and view the page, and add structure to the page.