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Powerful Blogging: Can Twitter and Email Replace Comments?

March 18, 2011 by Guest Author

A Tools Review by
David Berti

cooltext451585442_tools

Can You Sleek Down YOUR Life This way?

Whether you’re a blogger or an entrepreneur, you’re probably using the net to get in touch with lots of people out there. You also know what to do, how to do that. But you feel there is always something missing to get to that so called “next step” everyone of us is longing for.

As bloggers, we can absolutely tell that wonderful feeling… that feeling of having our digital life going great, that side of our digital existence handled for good; I will be serious about that. The best advice I have been able to find on the net goes like this:

“write the greatest, deepest content you can produce and let the machines do the rest, without worrying about visitors, comments and similar stuff”.

That is to say: all the effort you really have to make is about content. Creating, is the only thing we, as bloggers, editors and writers, are allowed to worry about.

What is not so clear for the vast majority of bloggers is that the interface between the user and the internet can become a great obstacle because of the vast choice of applications, addons, plugins and widgets that are available for us to use on our pages. These features are totally irrelevant on the quality of the material we can find on a blog page.

By simplifying the blog interface, I guess I have made one of the most important and wise decisions ever in my (digital) life. What did I do, exactly to simplify my blog interface?
1. I removed the comments section under every post
2. I removed plugins and reduced my blog interface to the essential

No need for comments and features that bloat my page. I need content that is valuable for what it is. Looks doesn’t really matter to me, and all I want to look at is the content I am interested in. That is why I also removed comments.

The Results:

I uniquely use 2 communication channels that are completely free: my email account and my Twitter. This way, I don’t create clutter in my life and all I do in the virtual world remains there.

Plus, my blog remains clean and usable; no visual clutter is present on my screen and whenever I feel like I can read what I write with no need to close and click ads, useless windows and pop-up stuff.

Moreover, in absence of plugins and different elements I can have a blog which is usable and viewable by almost every kind of device out there, and doesn’t make the user wait for the content to appear and load.

No time to waste, no clutter. Just you and the deep content you’re going to enrich your existence with.

What might you gain or lose by sleeing doen your down your (digital life) to these two communication channels?

David Berti is the creator of the Ubuntulook project. His webisite is(unbuntulook You’ll find him on twitter as @ubuntulook

_______

Thanks, David! Always love a distinctively new point of view!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

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Filed Under: Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, blogging, comments off, LinkedIn, tools

7 Outstanding Web Tools to Organize 2011 and Get the Right Information to You

December 31, 2010 by Guest Author

A Guest Post by Lior Levin

cooltext451585442_tools

The Internet has put more information at our fingertips than ever before, and, at the same time, given us more to remember. As great as the digital age has been, it’s also been a nightmare for organization, giving us more mental clutter than we ever thought possible.

Fortunately, developers are finding new ways to use the Web to help people stay organized. In every area from finance to news, new Web-based tools are cropping up to help you stay organized and avoid information overload.

Though they target different challenges, their goals are are all the same: Filter out the information that one doesn’t need and ensure that the info you do need is available and easily accessible.

That is something all these tools do very well.

Contacts: Gist

gist-logo

Being on the Web means that we have an ever-increasing contact list and those contacts have an also-increasing number of means of contact. Between email, Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds and more, it can be hard to keep track of who we know, where they are and what they are up to.

Gist, however, makes it easy, by syncing up with your various accounts, it unifies your contact list into one easily-digested list that is sorted by importance and includes all means of contact.

Finances: Mint

mint-logo

As great as online banking is, most of us have multiple accounts and our finances spread across more and more companies. Fortunately, Mint makes it easy to view all of these accounts in one place, by accessing your various banking, loans and credit accounts and then displaying the information in one place, making it easier than ever to get a clear picture of your finances.

Best of all, since Gist automatically categorizes your purchases, you can easily see where your money is going and where you can save money.

Files: Dropbox

dropbox-logo

If you use more than one computer, the frustration of having to more files from one machine to another are well-known. Though flash drives and email can help, they are clunky and slow solutions. Fortunately, Dropbox can help.

Dropbox automatically synchronizes files between computers, without you having to do anything. It just runs in the background and when a file is changed on one computer, the other machines on the account get the update almost instantly. Also great for collaboration and backup.

Social Networks: Tweetdeck (Chrome App)

tweetdeck-logo

If you are like most people, you have at least a few different social networking profiles spread across several different sites. Keeping track of them all can be a huge pain. Fortunately, Tweetdeck’s new Chrome Application, which is a Web-based HTML5 app, lets you follow your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare accounts and more all from one multi-column pane.

Best of all, with merged columns you can get all of your private communications (IE: Twitter DMs and Facebook messages) in one stream, regardless of where they came from.

Documents: Google Docs

google-docs-logo

Though Google Docs is best known as a tool for editing and creating files on the Web, through features like easy sharing, folders and document upload, it is also a way to organize and access your critical files anywhere you need them.

While it isn’t ideal for all document types, most simple documents can be easily used with Google Docs, making it a natural way to keep your files handy, no matter where you are.

Incoming Links: Zite

zite-logo

Between our Twitter streams, RSS feeds and other sites we follow, many of us have far more links in our inbox than we could ever read. Zite, which is currently in closed beta, calls itself “Your Personal Web Filter” and it goes through all of that to find the stories most important and most interesting for you.

Most interesting of all, Zite learns from your behavior and is always honing its approach to what you find interesting, making it a tool that gets better the more you use it.

Task List: Producteev

producteev-logo

Busy people have a lot of deadlines but keeping track of those deadlines can be a real pain. Though calendars can help, especially with meetings and appointments, there are many tasks that just aren’t right for calendars like laundry or sending out birthday cards.

Producteev helps organize those tasks and, through integration with email, IM and an iPhone app, makes it easy to ad tasks and receive updates on them. is also great for managers who need to assign tasks and deadlines to a team as it has a built-in function for group management as well.

In the end, the Web has both done more to make our lives more cluttered and more to simplify it than any innovation before. We have more information being thrown at us than we ever thought possible and more ways to sort, organize and parse it than we did just a few years ago.

When it’s all said and done, the Web is just a tool and we’ll get out of it exactly what we put into it. If we let it drive us to insanity, it can do so. But if we make it a tool to organize and streamline our lives, it can do that just as easily.

—–
This outstanding review was written by Lior Levin who is a consultant to iAdvize, a live chat support software company. You can find Lior on Twitter as Liors

Thank you, Lior. You’re welcome back here anytime.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

I’m a proud affiliate of

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Filed Under: Productivity, Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, LinkedIn, Lior Levin, organization, Productivity, tools

Simple Social CRM Tool: Rapportive

April 1, 2010 by Liz

Todd Hoskins Reviews Tools for Small Business

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in a small business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Rapportive
A Review by Todd Hoskins

If you do not use Gmail for personal or business use, sorry, this review is not for you. Please come back again next week. If you do have a Gmail account, or your business utilizes Gmail, install the Rapportive plug-in. Believe me, it will be worth it.

Why?

Rapportive removes the ads on the right column of your Gmail page, and replaces them with the social network information of the person sending you an email. This is simple social CRM, immediate information on where to find and interact with friends and customers outside of email. A field to take notes. And, it’s free.

Your browser may not support display of this image.

The latest tweets, job information from LinkedIn, and geographic location all help provide context. For a salesperson, entrepreneur, executive, or customer service representative, the value of getting information right within your browser saves time, can help you prioritize responses, and allows you to know more about your customer than their email address. The notes section is handy for recording birthdays, kids, and conversation cues.

screenshot-rapportive

Takes less than two minutes to set up. Privacy concerns are minimal because Rapportive only has access to your contacts, not your Gmail password. (Thank you OpenID). The Rapportive extension is available for the Firefox and Chrome browsers.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 3/5 – more complex CRM’s are available, but this is simple if you have corporate Gmail.

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Bridges the personal and the professional and saves time.

Personal Value: 5/5 – Did you know Johnny had a Flickr account? Now you do.

—-
Thanks, Todd! You can find Todd on Twitter @ToddHoskins

I’ve installed the plugin. It’s not perfect, but it’s already way more useful than the ads it replaces!

What about you? Have you used it? What do you think of Rapportive?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Register Now!! for sobcon-vmc

Filed Under: Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, LinkedIn, Rapportive, Todd Hoskins, tools

Cool Tool: screenr – Screencasting How to Add Text to Your Twitter Background

November 4, 2009 by Liz

Screencasting Fast and Easy

screenr_logo

Screencasting is recording actions on the screen with narration. It’s a great way to show people how.

What it says it does: allow screencasting without software.
How well it does that: screenr is easy and intuitive.

  1. Size the capture screen to the website you want to discuss.
  2. Click the record button and record.
  3. Pause if you want.
  4. Then wait, a few minutes for it to process.

Embed the screencast in your eCourse, download the video as MP4, upload it to your You-Tube channel, and watch it on your iPhone! Send it to Twitter. Post it on your blog.

It’s free and great to use.

How to Add Text to Your Twitter Background

For fun, I made this screencast of how to add text to your Twitter Background. It was mostly to test the tool.

Here’s the link to the screenr version.

Lots of ways to share information with people using screenr and your expertise.

I make connections . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Buy the ebook and find out the secret.

Filed Under: Marketing /Sales / Social Media, Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, LinkedIn, screencasting, screenr, tools

Collaboration Tools

February 10, 2009 by SOBCon Authors

One of my favorite things to result from my experience at SOBCon last year were the fantastic collaborative efforts that I was able to put together with other attendees.Online College Blog and School Reviews provides a list of online apps for managing your own collaborations.

The question is, what are you waiting for?

Collaboration

Working with others means managing the thoughts and ideas of more than just yourself. Don’t go crazy trying to keep up with everything; instead, use these collaboration tools to keep connected, share ideas, and work together on projects successfully.

Collaboration

Working with others means managing the thoughts and ideas of more than just yourself. Don’t go crazy trying to keep up with everything; instead, use these collaboration tools to keep connected, share ideas, and work together on projects successfully.

  1. Backpack. Whether you are working with fellow students or in a professional setting, Backpack allows for easy collaboration with features such as shared to-do lists, announcements, calendars, files, and even centralized discussions.
  2. Basecamp. Basecamp makes project collaboration easy and smooth. Share files, track time, schedule milestones, assign projects, make to-do lists and more.
  3. Highrise. If your business need a tool to manage your contacts, leads, and on-going deals, Highrise offers a centralized way to share everything happening at your company.
  4. writewith. For writing projects, this app keeps everyone together with shared documents and tasks, discussions, and more.
  5. iLeonardo. This social network allows you to collaborate on research with friends or others who happen to be working on the same subject you are.
  6. LooseStitch. Create outlines, share with others, and keep all your changes together with this tool that helps facilitate brainstorming and working together.
  7. Famundo. Families and organizations alike will find useful ways to use Famundo to keep calendars, to-do lists, shopping lists, share photos, and communicate in one place.
  8. Thinkfree. The free services with this app include document creation and sharing, file access and sharing, collaboration with colleagues, blogging, and iPhone access. Other services for a fee include server access, complete mobile access, and an alternative to MS Office.
  9. Pidgin. Download this tool so you can IM with anyone on 16 different IM accounts.
  10. MeetWithApproval. Plan a virtual meeting with coworkers or clients or organize a face-to-face using this meeting planner.
  11. Thinkature. Collaborate, organize your thoughts and research, and prepare your paper or project with this tool.
  12. ProBoards. Create a discussion board easily and quickly so you can collaborate. You can also leave the discussion for others to access as well.
  13. ThinkFold. If you have a group working together, it can get confusing and messy trying to track everyone’s ideas. ThinkFold allows groups to create interactive, real-time outlines without all the trouble.

Read more –>

Filed Under: Attendees Tagged With: bc, cloud apps, collaboration, tools

Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: PicMaster

January 28, 2007 by Liz

How Do They Create Those Mosaics?

Great Find: PicMaster

Permalink: http://www.graphics-tools.com/

Target Audience: All Windows users

Content: This week we’re taking a look at a program called PicMaster. There are a number of features this program is known for, but the one I like the best is the mosaic function. I’ve seen those mosaics made with a lot of little photos and wanted to try it. This software makes it easy. Make sure you have a large selection of photos that can be made into thumbnails for the finished piece. Then it’s just a matter of telling the software what you want and waiting a few minutes.

Voilá! A mosaic for your viewing pleasure.

Jim
Jim as Mosaic

PicMaster is offered as Shareware so you can try it before paying the $29.90 U.S. fee. There are restrictions though, so if you like what this tool offers, you will want to purchase it to eliminate the watermark and realize the full potential of the software.

Here are seven things I like about PicMaster :

  • Create mosaics.
  • Remove red-eye with the image editor.
  • Manage your pictures with the image browser.
  • Print individual pages to make a huge poster.
  • Morph images (e.g., a cat into a dog).
  • Use the filters (preview first) to create neat effects.
  • Add sound comments to your pictures.

I had fun with this program. Let me know what you think.

Stay tuned… next week we’ll have a graphics tip!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

Related articles:
Great Graphic Find: Pixel Ruler
Great Graphic Find: FavIcon from Pics
Great Graphic Find: SnagIt

Filed Under: Design, Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, Pixel-Ruler, Sandys-Great-Graphic-Find, tools

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