Posts Aboutproductivity
Rockable Gets Creatives Back to 'Doing'
I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of my time "doing".
Sometimes I know what I'm "doing"... however most of the time I am learning as I go with broad conceptual understanding, while at the same time pretending to be an expert. The professional world where most of us live floats primarily in the space between urgency and emergency. I can attest that is especially true in the interactive market where specialities, languages and platforms are constantly changing. As I get older (and maybe wiser), I am continuing to realize that dedicated time set aside for learning is not only few and far between but immensely valuable to progress.
Avoiding the Holiday Coma at Work
If you’re anything like me, December is a tough month to stay focused. There is college basketball, football bowl games, family visiting, cookies to bake, gifts to buy and wrap and on top of it all WORK. Now that we’re all out of college and don’t get a month to relax over the holidays it is important not to waste this last month of the year.
I consider myself a master planner in all aspects of life, and have decided to share my list of five ways I plan to stay productive the rest of December and, after eating myself into a coma, early January.
Forever and Ever...note
I know I'm a little late to the game and our CEO Nick Holland might go all "Executive" on me for writing this before him, but I have something that might change your life (that is, if you're a chronically unorganized person like myself).
Evernote.
Oh Evernote. I kept hearing about you like that restaurant on the other side of town that everyone loved but I had never been to, which meant of course that I would have to TRAVEL to the other side of town which is terribly inconvenient (and the Belmont hipsters make me nervous).
More Cool Finds on the Interwebz
Here are some of the cool things we’ve found online recently:
- Contxts.com
Business cards are so 2007. What with the environment in shambles do you really want to be that guy who is handing out chopped up pieces of bleached trees? Contxts.com lets you share your information via SMS! - Mozy.com
An online backup service for consumers and small businesses. Back up all of your personal files, photos, music, etc. automatically online. Worry free! - SnapaBug.com
Help widget for customer service chat on web sites. - RealTime Inline Validation article on GetElastic
Realtime in-line form validation to improve conversions and avoid shopping cart abandonment.
Traveling? A Tech Toolbox of Resources
If you're heading home for the holidays and just can't stand to be untethered from your laptop while at Grandma's house, consider this collection of 100 Productivity Tools as your holiday present.
This collection comes from the TruckingAccident.org Blog. Truckers without question, are passionate lovers of gadgets. From GPS units for navigation, satellite radio, various calculators for measuring fuel, mileage, and freight to cameras, smartphones, laptops, wifi hookups, DVD players, radar detectors... these road warriors know all of the various productivity tools to stay connected with loved ones back home.
Website Grabber | Offline Browser
Today, we had a client call us and ask if we can 'save' their website from an aggressive website designer that is holding their site hostage. I told them yes and thought an easy solution would be to find a utility that allowed us to easily clone/grab their website. I must say, I was surprised at the difficulty in finding a free utility to do this.
Part of the problem came from the search terms I started with. I thought this would be called a 'site grabber' - and many paid utilities thought the same :) I then switched to Website Clone, but to no avail. Finally, I that download.com called these utilities "Offline Browsers". Doing a quick search for Offline Browser struck gold!
Innovative Helpdesk/Ticketing System
A friend recently recommended: http://www.cerberusweb.com
It is a very popular (and affordable) email management solution for help desks & sales teams. It is a bit complex, so you'll want to take a moment to review the features and consider ways to synthesize it for your business. It appears that everything is managed through email and you have certain email addresses that customers and prospects use (or that it recognizes).
There is workflow, tagging, team resolution, and an integrated knowledge base. Instead of typing an article into the knowledge base, simply answering a client's problem would give you the ability to 'Tag' and file that email into the Knowledge base.
Blacklists: What they are and how to avoid them
If you thought that anti-spam protection for your incoming mail would alleviate your e-mail problems forever, think again – another issue that can cause more than a few headaches are DNS BlackLists (DNSBLs), sometimes also called RBLs (Realtime Black List). DNSBLs are not a new idea, but their usage is increasing rapidly. In short, a DNSBL is an innovative use of DNS to provide access to lists of IP addresses (or other info). These lists are created on varying criteria -- for example, the IP address was caught sending spam, or it's owned by a company known for supporting/sending spam. Or perhaps the IP address hosts a mailserver not following the rules, or a web/proxy server that has been compromised in such a way that it could be used to send spam. In this way, common sources of spam can be compiled into these lists and checked by a mailserver before accepting mail. If you show up in the blacklist, your mail is rejected.
As the spam-war has escalated, DNSBLs have become a double-edged sword. They have probably saved SMTP from being utterly inundated with spam to the point that it's useless. However, blacklists have also been forced to get increasingly aggressive. It's not uncommon for an organization to find itself blacklisted, even if it didn't overtly send spam (that it knows of). If your organization becomes the unlucky member of a DNSBL, you’ll find that most (if not all) of your email is rejected by the outside world because you’re now considered a spammer. The worst part is that you may have no idea why you were blacklisted and no idea how to get de-listed!
USB Drive 101: Actually making it useful
I'm now the proud owner of a 2GB USB Drive & I wanted to share a few tips/tricks I've learned for getting the most use from it! I want my USB to provide a self-contained computing experience that I can take with me. When I pop it in, I want everything that I'm comfortable with at my finger tips :) I'll help you setup your USB drive to address the following needs (no order):
- Sensitive Data Storage - Examples include financial info, passwords, etc.
- Email Access - Allowing you to comfortably check your mail from anywhere
- Synchronization - As storage amounts increase, more data can be backed up
- Buddies/Contacts - Instant messaging to friends is available anywhere
- Office & Productivity - Work on docs, spreadsheets, and presentations
Open Source Office can handle Blackberry
CentreSource has jumped on the Blackberry bandwagon! After complaining for months that I spend too much time with email, I gave up trying to avoid the problem and simply decided to further my addiction :) We purchased three new Blackberry 8703e's and have now started the painful process of getting them to work in our Open Source environment. That's right, Blackberries in a world without Outlook and Exchange. The verdict? It works, but not great.
