You are here: Home / Archives for

Capture those Moments in Time: A Review of Digital Diary Services

Posted by on May 10, 2012 · 3 Comments 

Life is about capturing those “moments in time” and what better way to do it than with the click of a button! If you are looking for a way to store those memories in digital form, consider MemoLane and Timekiwi. Both are a digital diary of sorts that allow you to capture and record your life in a timeline format by connecting your favorite social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter.

MemoLane

Memolane allows you to connect more services than Timekiwi. The list includes social favorites such as Google+, YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr, and even your blog RSS feed. Memolane also allows for creation of multiple “lanes” which allows you to mix and match the services you’d like for each lane. You can also add friends as contributors to individual lanes – a great use of this would be a handful of people who have similar blogs being “housed” together in one lane.

It’s incredibly easy to get started with Memolane and to connect the services you’d like. Start with your bio and photo, add your desired services (social networks) and then create your lanes. Once you’ve finished that you can find friends or follow other people’s lanes.

What I like most about Memolane are the daily “memory” emails they send me (referred to as “MemoMail”). How they determine what memories to send when is a mystery, but I almost always smile when I get them. Not a fan of black websites, I find it somewhat frustrating that I can’t edit my Memolane to a lighter color.

TimeKiwi

Timekiwi has made some significant aesthetic changes recently and simply put, it’s beautiful and a visually pleasing piece of digital art. One of the best and most surprising changes is including the photo that is part of a tweeted blog post to be recorded as shown below. Pictures you post on Facebook also are now part of the permanent digital record.

TimeKiwi does allow a bit more customization to your profile. Unlike Memolane where you are stuck with the dark background, TimeKiwi lets you choose from a handful of backgrounds and pick between a light or dark layout.

A word of caution: If you tend to be a private person on social media, you may want to give some thought to what services you connect to Memolane and Timekiwi. Data you’d prefer to have private may now be open to public eyes. Proceed as you see fit.

The Notable Differences between Memolane and TimeKiwi:

  • Timekiwi is the most attractive and visual
  • MemoLane has the ability to add in more networks than Timekiwi. For example: you can your YouTube account (fantastic if you are like me and click “like” on a lot of music videos)
  • MemoLane provides the daily “memory” emails
  • MemoLane allows you to follow the lanes of other people you may be interested in (it’s more “social” in the aspect that you can connect with friends)
  • MemoLane provides you the ability to set up several lanes allowing you to create your own desired mix of content that is captured in a way that suits you best.

Personally I enjoy both Timekiwi and Memolane and will keep both accounts open for myself. Have you tried either of these? Are there other similar tools that you would also recommend?

Filed under Social Media Savvy, Work LIfe · Tagged with , , , , ,

Business 101: How to Get your Website up FAST! A Beginners Guide to Building a WordPress Site

Posted by on July 7, 2011 · 3 Comments 

Remember back in the good old days when if you wanted a web site, you had to hire a web programmer? Thanks to tools like WordPress you can get a basic site up and running in less than an hour. All you need to get started is a domain name!

What makes WordPress so appealing for non-programmers is how easy it is to install. I promise you the most time consuming part is trying to find the theme that best represents your business personality (see the bottom of the post for a few resources to get you started finding a theme).

Before you start, the first thing you want to do is to make sure you have a hosting package that has the “one-click WordPress install” option. If you have a host such as WebHosting Buzz, Bluehost, or GoDaddy that option is in your cPanel. Note: the screenshots included are based on the configuration of the WebHosting Buzz configuration – yours may look slightly different.

Ready? Grab your kitchen timer and see how long it takes you to do the following steps:

5-Minute WordPress Install Instructions

#1: Log into your host company cPanel and find the Fantastico icon (normally towards the bottom and a pale blue smiley face)

#2: Select “WordPress”

#3: Next choose “New Installation” and you will be guided through the next several steps. The most important thing at this point is if you have multiple domains hosted on the same site be 100% certain you are not over-writing any existing website.

#4: Under “Install in Directory” leave this blank

#5: Fill in the next few fields as indicated and click “Install WordPress”

*WordPress Security tip * Do not chose “Admin” as the admin name – chose something that is a little harder for hackers to guess.

#6: You’re done!

#7: Log into your WordPress dashboard at the URL they provide – most likely in this type of format: http://yourwebsite.com/wp-admin.php

By default the free theme 2010 is installed. Check the resources at the end of this post for free theme collections.

WordPress Dashboard Settings and Configurations

Let’s do some backend maintenance under the Settings section of your brand new site. None of these steps are actually required; you can start blogging or creating your pages now, if you wanted.

On the left, scroll down to the Settings section and go to “General”.

  • Add or change your Site Title and Tagline as you would like. Some themes will show the tagline and others will not.
  • Membership: I suggest leaving this box unchecked.
  • Change your timezone, date and time format as you desire.
  • Be sure to save your changes and then go back to Settings and we’ll go to “Reading”.

Determine if you want your home page to show your latest blog posts or if you want a dedicated home page. If you want a dedicated home page and a different page for your blog then there are a few things you will want to do. On the right side menu go to “Pages” and create the page you want to be your home page (or rename the one that was installed by default). Create another page called “Blog”.

Go back to your settings and chose “Reading” and select the bullet for “A static page” and chose the pages from the dropdown options presented.

Save changes and go to Discussion settings – update this entire section as you want.

If you’ve made changes to your Discussion settings save them and then hop back over to Privacy. If you are using this site for business, then please be sure the option to be visible to everyone is selected. If your new site is for personal reasons, you can decide which of the two options you prefer.

Last, but not least, let’s edit your “Permalinks” – the option you chose is entirely up to you. However, many SEO experts will advise that you at least choose “Custom Structure” and use, at minimum, %postname% as the structure.

You officially have a site that is ready to go!

Most certainly you can (and will) spend several more hours of work by doing any of the following:

  • Setting up a service, such as Feedburner, to allow visitors to sign up for new posts via RSS or email
  • Install a commenting system, such as Disqus and set up your profile (be sure to add your avatar)
  • Set up Askimet or G.A.S.P. to help reduce the amount of spam comments
  • Install plug-ins (my list of favorites)
  • Add widgets to your sidebar (depending on your theme)
  • Be sure to get a Gravatar (if using the WordPress commenting system)

Note: Most free themes will have either (or both) a Meta and Blogroll section on them. They can normally be removed by digging into the “Sidebar” code under Appearance>Editor. Some free themes will also have coding in the footer. You may be able to remove it but often it is hard to find and remove.

Need help finding a WordPress theme? Try one of these lists of free theme collections:

Premium themes typically start at about $25. If you want a truly unique and one-of-a-kind website, then you will want to hire a designer to custom code and design your site.

So how long did it take you to set up your basic framework on the new site?

If you want more tips and tricks on using WordPress, stop by my blog where I share time saving tips, fun software finds and more!

Filed under Business 101, Work LIfe · Tagged with , , , , ,

Looking for Android Apps? Top 10 Android Apps for Business Productivity

Posted by on January 5, 2011 · 2 Comments 

There’s an Android app for just about everything you can imagine (and the sheer number of Android apps is growing with new apps being added every day). As Smartphones continue to gain popularity and developers continue to flood the market with their latest and greatest Android app, it will become even more time-consuming and difficult to determine which apps can help increase your productivity (and which ones are a waste of time).

That’s why we asked the questions and found the best Android apps for boosting business productivity (and yes, all the Android apps in the list below are free).

Top 10 Android Apps for Business Productivity

Android App #1: AppBrain
AppBrain is one of the most productive ways to search for new apps to install. The web base site is very easy to navigate and makes the install process a breeze. From the web interface, installing new apps is as easy as marking them as install and then “syncing” from your phone. AppBrain also allows you to connect with friends and other users and subscribe to their public lists. Then from your phone you can install apps your friends have in just a matter of a few taps.

Android App #2: Thinking Space
Thinking Space is for those of you that find your creativity and productivity increased by the use of Mind Maps.

Android App #3: Gesture Search
Gesture Search is hands down the one Android app I cannot imagine living without. If you have a lot of contacts in your phone, then you will find “writing” on your screen a much easier way to locate the contact of your choice. Settings can also be modified to include apps, music, etc. in the results.

Android App #4: Awesome Drop
Awesome Drop makes it a breeze for you to “drop” a file from your computer and have it magically appear in just a few moments on your phone.

Android App #5: Labelert Beta
Labelert Beta will save you time jumping up every time you hear your new mail notification as it allows you to set up labels on incoming mail and to assign those labels a specific ringtone. Note: you must be a Gmail user and have Labels and Filters set up in order for this app to work.

Android App #6: Trip Master
Trip Master is a must have if you often travel for business and need a solution for managing your mileage.

Android App #7: DropBox
DropBox can be incredibly useful if you are on the road frequently and have files in your DropBox that you want to access from your phone.

Android App #8: Bump
Bump makes sharing your personal contact information a snap with other SmartPhone users that have it installed. Not only can you share your contact information but you can also share apps and photos.

Android App #9: Square
Square allows any SmartPhone user to accept credit card payments (both swiped and entered). I haven’t received my swiper yet so I unable to actually attest to its ease of use. However, I may very well drop the Merchant Service provider I have now and only use Square once I do a full comparison of fees.

Android App #10: Lookout Mobile Security
Lookout Mobile Security is a must have if you are often downloading new apps. It will scan for viruses, perform backups and monitor your privacy.

Thank you to @tvorse for his contributions to this list of Android apps, particularly for AppBrain. From there I am able to stalk his public list of installed apps which is how I discovered Awesome Drop.

If you find yourself frustrated with the length of time it takes to bring up web pages on your DroidX with the installed browser, then be sure to download Dolphin Browser. The speed of loading is significantly faster (again, a hat tip to @tvorse for this suggestion).

Narrowing my list to only 10 was quite a feat. Feel free to peruse all of the apps I have installed on my DroidX by visiting my public profile on AppBrain.

If you want more software junky tips and tricks, stop by my blog where I share time saving tips, fun software finds and more!

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Filed under Work LIfe · Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes