Google Reader

I love Google Reader (I hear “then why don’t you marry it?” inside my head … been spending way too much time with 8 year olds!). “Well maybe I will” (say’s my 8-year old self). I once said to a friend “If Thai food was a man, I’d marry it” Seriously, there is nothing better than the smell of Thai food, well, maybe chocolate. And grass after it’s been mowed, and maybe towels after they come out of the dryer, but I digress, starting over …

I love Google Reader! It’s a tool that makes life so much easier. I’ve found tons of blogs and websites that I visit from time to time, and bookmark them just like I was taught. But with time being a very precious commodity, I don’t always have the time to check in on them all.

Google Reader to the rescue! It is a great way to read all of your favorite blogs and websites in one place … think of it as a newspaper that is created just for you! You’re the publisher and you get to choose all the information and news that YOU want, delivered to your virtual “doorstep” just as soon as it’s published.

Since Google already has some good instructions posted on their site, I won’t go into the “how-to-do-it” here. Check out their help page.  And if you are a more visual person, Google also offers some video tutorials that you can find on YouTube. If you are unfamiliar with readers, watch the first one and you’ll get a really good overview of how it works.

Make it Work FOR You

After you have it set up, and you’ve subscribed to some feeds, set up some categories (they call them folders) this is the part that makes life easy.

I have 4 folders right now:

• Social Technology (sites that talk about social media, tips & tools)
• News (newspapers, magazines, newsy blogs)
• Just for Fun (comics, Daily Show videos, you know, fun stuff!)
• My city (your feeds can be included in more than one folder … so, I have a newspaper that is also published in my city, I put that in both categories. I’m not sure this is working for me, so this might change, just remember you have the option.)
• Blogs (sites I read that don’t fall into those other categories)

You might need more or less. Think about it like a filing cabinet. If these were magazines or newspaper articles printed on paper, how would you file the content? Just set up your reader, your virtual filing cabinet, the same way. And remember – you aren’t locked into anything. If after a few months you want to change the way you are organizing your content, you can change your settings at any time.

Google Reader has some “pre-packaged” sites you can choose to follow to get you started. I signed up for some of these when I set up my account, but there was so much there that I didn’t want to read, that I deleted them all and started over just adding sites one-by-one as I found them.

Don’t get overwhelmed!

If you haven’t been by in a few days and you open up Google Reader and find that you have over 1,000 articles that you haven’t seen … take a deep breath and say to yourself: ”I am not required to read it all!”

Skim it! Scroll down through the items, read the titles and choose the ones you want to read and just pass by the rest.

Say it again …  ”I am not required to read it all!” If you want to just read one site, you can choose which feed you’re interested in by clicking on that one in the left column. When you’ve looked at the ones you want, simply click on “Mark All As Read” and they all go away. (Remember: It’s all still there, click on “show all items” and the list will come back or you can just go to their website).

I tend to do this with the “just for fun” and “news” categories, they post a lot of stuff and if I have time, I’ll scroll through them and see what’s in the headlines. Other times, like today, there were over 1,000 in the news category, way to much to get through and the number of unread articles may as well be blinking in neon it drives me so crazy. So, bye-bye … there’ll be more to read tomorrow.

I don’t usually do this with the work related stuff. If I don’t have time to read everything I want it one sitting, I can either leave it be until the next time I log in, or check the “keep unread” box as I’m scrolling down. After I’ve scrolled through the list, the one’s I’ve by-passed will go away and the one’s I’ve checked “keep unread” will be saved for next time.

If you find that you are clicking “Mark all as read’ more often than not, don’t feel locked into your lists. If a site posts too much stuff for you to handle, or they go in a direction that you aren’t interested in anymore … simply remove them from your feed.

Most sites have  button somewhere (usually at the top) where you can subscribe, but sometimes you have to hunt it down (why? I don’t know why they wouldn’t want it sitting tall and proud at the top of their site. I think it’s  designers having issues with “how it looks” but I could be wrong). Check out the Google Help section to learn how to subscribe to a website or blogs feed. 

Subscribing to a site saves me from having to remember ALL the places that I want check that day. It takes the pressure off me. I don’t have to go out and hunt down what I’m looking for, instead it delivers what I want, to me, when I’m ready for it … kinda like take-out. Too bad there aren’t any take out Thai food places around here, I’m hungry for some Phad-Thai.

I’ve been getting quite a bit of comments filled with nonsense words, you know when you just hit keys really fast to fill up a page. Email addresses and links are the same way. Since I get to see what IP address the comment originated from I thought I’d check it out and found that I’m famous world wide!

• 2/24 California
• 2/21 Chelyabinsk in the Russian Federation
• 2/15 Tokyo Japan
• 2/12 Madrid Spain
• 2/7 Hong Kong
• 2/3 Atlanta, Georgia
• 2/2 Belize City, Belize, Central America
• 2/2 Amsterdam ~ spammed me 2 times … unusual to see same IP address show up and only 1 minute apart
• 1/31 Maharashtra, India

There’s more but I got bored. I realize that this is only telling me where the server they are using is located, but someone in Texas, for example, is probably not using a server located in Chelyabinsk. The 2/24 IP address is a google server, so it’s probably someone with a gmail account and they most likely live in California.

Then there’s the advertising. “Come to my site and all the riches in the universe will automatically land at your feet … and all for free!” kind of thing. On the 18th, I got the exact same advertising blurb about “a very interesting way to market on facebook” from 2 different people at socialterrain.net: 2 different IP address, 2 email addresses that look legit (I didn’t check them out) at the exact same time. Are they paying people to post this stuff?

From ‘bad credit home equity loan’ I got: “Generally I don’t post on blogs, but I would wish to pronounce that this place in truth pushed me to make so! truly superb post.”  ~ Wow! A “truly superb post” … can I use that in my advertising and ignore the rest?

I also learned something that I didn’t know before: I didn’t realize there were so many longharry’s in the world:

• “Damn, that sound’s so easy if you think about it.” -longharry498
• “I cannot believe this is true!” -longharry49
• “I cannot believe this will work!” -longharry46

And the author whose website is purecleansedetox.freehost10.com gets around a lot and apparently doesn’t have a lot of time: “Love this blog I’ll be back when I have more time” was found on multiple sites. I got that message 2 times, but it seems she wasn’t sincere, because she never returned.

My point? I don’t have one, but I was curious and this is fun and, I’ll admit a bit of a distraction from all the paperwork I’m suppose to be working on today.

Happy Friday!

Goodness, it’s hard to keep up.

Looking around for some guidelines on the “how often” is enough, I found quite a few articles. 

From 2006, How Often Should a Blogger Post?  by Darren Rowse talks about writer/reader burnout from too many postings, length, topic and quality over quantity. He finishes by saying, rhythm and consistency are most important: “People want to know what to expect.”

People want to know what to expect – they buy into things that they know fits in with their own rhythm of life so if you start out writing daily but then increase the frequency to hourly you’ll probably find people reacting against it (and the same goes the other way around).

How Often Should You Post a Blog? by Terri Paajanen, also talks about quality over quantity, that readers … interested readers … will subscribe to your RSS feed and may even be turned off by too many posts.

Don’t assume that lots of posts makes a good blog. There are several variables to consider when trying to work out the best blog posting schedule for your site.

I know I get overwhelmed when I log into my Google Reader and see way to many posts to read. I will either just “mark all as read” and move on, or even unsubscribe if I returna few days later to too many posts to read … so maybe semi-weekly is good, huh?

I’ll leave you with the following link: Best Practice Guidelines for Business Blogging by  Loreena Walsh from August of 2009.

Business blogging is a path can be a positive or destructive depending on its implementation. Knowing how to plan a blogging campaign is vital for any business.

This articles lists out questions to ask before you start your blog, talks about writing a plan, putting together a topic calendar and how important it is to track your results.

Google “how often to blog” you’ll find tons of articles that might help you on your “path to enlightenment.” I’m going to shoot for 2 times a week,  but am not going to stress if it turns out weekly. I guess I should also start on my topic calendar! Which brings me to my final paragraph:

Give me ideas!

What do you want to read about? Facebook posts seem to get the most hits, last week my post “Create a ‘Become a Fan’ page on FB” got 14 hits and it’s been viewed 66 times over all. Maybe I’ll do more of that?

In the right column of this page, you’ll find the link to subscribe to this feed or you can signup to receive post via email. You can do this with most blogs you find. Google Reader is a great (free) service that allows you to subscribe to whatever interests you. Think of it as a ‘newspaper’ filled with only the kind of stories that you want to read. Unfamiliar with RSS and Google Reader? Drop by next week for my next installment!

How to Replace (and Store) Crucial Documents (By Erik Jackson)

The article is full of information about how to get copies of:

• birth certificate
• social security card
• passport
• copies of your college diploma and school transcripts
• tax returns
• car title
• property deed

It’s broken down into easy to read paragraphs including:

• Why you need it
• Where to get a new one
• What you need to get it
• How long it takes

The last 3 pages are about storing and protecting your papers from what you can safely laminate to what should be stored in a safe-deposit box.

The article is broken up into 12 pages and (I think) the navigation on the site is a bit cumbersome. Make sure to look for the arrows on either side of the graphic to advance to the next page, otherwise, you’ll miss the guts of it.

The following is a list of 10 things you can do to get the most out of your Facebook page. I have linked most to an example and a “how-to” page of instructions.

1.  Increase your number of fans by setting up a custom landing page. When someone visits your Facebook fan page for the first time, they will “land” on a custom welcome page. This page can include text, graphics and links.  [Example] … [How To]

2.  Get more exposure by importing your Blog into Facebook.  There are (at least) 3 ways to do this:

• Option 1: You can import posts from one external blog so that they appear along with your notes. Facebook will automatically update your notes whenever you write in your blog. [Example (Click on "Notes" tab)] … [How To]
• Option 2: Use the application “Networked Blogs” ~ this application allows you to choose to either import your posts to your page wall and also distributed to the home pages of all your fans or just show the blog on the “Blog” tab. [Example (Click on "Blog" tab)] … [How To]
• Option 3: Use SocialRSS.  [How To]

3.  Promote your upcoming events.  Create a static HTML page like the welcome page. This can include text, graphics and links.  [Example (click on "Where's Sandra" tab)] … [How To]

4.  Add a Facebook Fan Button to your Website.   The fan box lets users see how many fans you have, read recent posts from the page and become a fan all from your website.  [Example #1 (small badge): this page ~ right column | Example #2: large badge (right column)] … [Create one here]

5.  Encourage your fans to create a FAN BADGE showing their support for you!  Fans can put a fan badge on their website or blog. Fans can create an “I’m a Fan” badge here … [Example: this page (right column)]

6.  Add a YouTube badge to your profile.  You can display either your videos, your favorites, a playlist, a tag, or featured videos.  [Example (left column)] … [Create yours here]

7.  Link your account to twitter.  When you update your Facebook status, your twitter status will be automatically updated as well. [Link yours here] …  or add “Twitter for Pages” where all your twitter updates will show up on one page.  [Example (click on "Twitter" tab)] … [How To]

8.  Promote your “Team” with pictures, information and links! [Example (click on "Team" and "Twitter" tabs)] … [How To]

9.  Use the “Favorite Pages” ~ links to other Facebook pages. On the Facebook page you want to add as a favorite, click on “Add to My Page’s Favorites” in the upper-left corner. The pages will show up in the left column or you can move it to the “Boxes” tab.

10.  Upload your videos to Facebook.  You can upload video files, send video from your mobile phone, and record video messages with your webcam just like on your personal page, but you can also set the permissions to allow fans to upload videos to your page as well.  [Example (click on "Video" tab)]

Good luck and have fun!

To begin, click on “Applications” in the lower left corner (in Facebook) and choose “Browse More Applications.” Type in “YouTube Badge” (w/out quotes) and you will find the application.

You can share videos:

By Tag: A single word keyword.
By User: A Youtube login name.
By Playlist: The Playlist ID found in the URL.
By User’s Favorites: A Youtube login name.
Featured: Nothing needs to be entered

You can put this on your personal facebook page very easily, click on “Add Application” and follow the on-screen directions. If you want to put this on your fan/business page it will take a few more steps ~ you can find the directions to add to pages under the “Discussion Tab” of the YouTube Badge page.

One more way to “link up” your world!

Do you ask your customers where/how they heard about you?

I said I would post the results, so I am, even though only 1 person responded to the poll … maybe February’s poll should be, “did you see the January poll?”

The choices were: Yes! Each time/every time; More often than not; Sometimes, but not as often as I should; Occassionally, when I think about it; Never.

My one respodant answered “More often than not” ~ LinkedIn gives you lots of stats:

• Job Title (my guy was in management)
• Company size (small business)
• Job Function (sales)
• Gender (mail)
• Age (25-24)

… so if I had a group of answers, I could use the stats to … well, to do whatever it is you do when you have stats. Scrolling through the polls on there now, it doesn’t seem like many get answered.

Any ideas for the February poll?

Creating the page is easy and the people at The Social Media Guide have written a great set of directions. So, instead of me re-creating the process, I”ll just direct you to their site. You can check out their page here. This link will open a second window, keep that window open so you can scroll through the directions as you set up your own page. 

I’ll start by saying, the process took less than an hour. The directions are very well written and most people who can follow directions and click and check as they are suppose to should have no problem setting one up. If, on the other hand, you are the type of person who throws away the directions upon opening any box … well, you’re on your own! 

Before you start, decide what kind of page you want. My page is really wordy … and I will probably change that soon. Some pages are just graphics and some are a mixture of both. 

Here are some examples: 

• Sierra Club (inclues a newsletter signup)
• BlissWeddingsMarket.com (lots of links to their website)
• Coca-Cola  (“click to enter” starts and application ~ I haven’t gone that far because I want to know what I’m agreeing to before I agree to it)
• eWomen Network (clean welcome page with a “become a fan” button above the fold)

Here’s the basic steps: 

1. Add the application that will allow you to create the page and add it to your page
2. Edit the new page and add your HTML code (this bit might be difficult for some … let me know if you need help with this part)
3. Under Settings you will add the “Tab” (your new page) and set it as your default landing page

That’s it. After you set up the page anyone who isn’t a fan will be directed to your new custom landing page and after they become a fan they will end up on your Wall just like normal. 

You can invite anyone in your facebook friends list to become a fan, and they can then invite their friends, and so-on and so-on. I have 2 fans so far!  (Thanks sis!) 

Try it! You’ll like it! 

The new year has begun. Resolutions made last week still seem fresh and new and do-able. I hear that some people actual accomplish their new year resolutions. I’m not one of them. Maybe that’s why I don’t make a lot of resolutions … new resolutions anyway! I seem to revive old ones, probably because they tend to be something I would really like to accomplish, but then let them lapse and I start all over the next year. For instance, every year I say “this year I’m going to send everyone in my family a birthday card” … want to guess how many cards I sent out last year? None. Not a one.

My goal for twenty-ten is to work on something that has both intrigued and annoyed me for quite a few months. I’ll start by saying that I love computers. I love technology. I’m am happy as a cat in pj’s to sit in front of a computer and learn a new program or software or just figure out how to make something work … but there is lots to learn with new sites and programs coming out daily … and the more I learn, the more I add to the “figure this one out” column.

It is time to make IT work for me. Make IT flow and work together … break IT down and make IT simple and understable. I wish to create HARMONY out of the chaos that is TechNOlogY. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of sites that offer help. Forums and how-to sites … some are GREAT and some suck … and all are SELF help! My intention is to bundle and link and explain and help make sense out of the massive overload of information – both for you and for me.

The Facebook page is step two. I think Step One was creating a blog. I started it last year ~ http://myharmoniclife.wordpress.com ~ initially it was to learn HOW so that I could offer this service to my clients. I was surprised when I actually enjoyed the writing and kept at it pretty regularly but there really wasn’t a direction or plan, it was just something I did and then … crash and burn. Life happened and I lost interest. Now is the time to get moving on that again. My goal is to make them work together (in harmony) along with twitter and other social networking sites/plans.

I’m still working on the MASTER PLAN for all this … had to write MASTER PLAN in all caps, looks impressive, right? and although I’m not sure exactly where this is heading, I know that I want to break IT down into an easliy understandable form.

I borrowed a “Facebook for Dummies” book from a friend last year and it seemed overly complicated and pedantic.

excerpt from page 195:
chapter 12: Creating and Joining Groups on Facebook:
Street: If the group represents a real-world organization that has a physical office, you can enter its street address here.

Really? I’m not judging … I’m just saying … This needed to be explained? If a person needs help understanding WHAT information to put in the “Street” field of the form, then they wouldn’t have made it to page 195.

This is a work in progress, my way of creating a “local” converstation; and by “local” I mean people … what’s that song about “people that you meet each day?” you know, “people that you meet when you’re walking down the street” … a group, a network, a consortium (like that word? I wasn’t sure that was the word I was looking for and had to look it up …http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consortium: “a group formed to undertake an enterprise beyond the resources of any one member”). So not strictly geographical and not industry based, but more a group of people who are interested in helping others figure out how to do “stuff.”

I know stuff … you know stuff … they know stuff … if we pool all that together, who knows where it will lead?

Tree Lighting Celebration & Holiday Parade at the Weslake Center
Nov 28 @ Westlake Center
Parade 8:45 a.m. | Macy’s Star and Tree Lighting Celebration 5 p.m.

Seattle Center Winterfest
November 27 – December 31, 2009
Free concerts, dances, an Outdoor Classic Carousel, the Winter Train, and the Winter Ice Rink

Zoolights
Holiday light display at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium.
Nov. 27, 2009 – Jan. 3, 2010

Great Figgy Pudding Event Street Corner Caroling Competition
Friday, December 4, 2009
Downtown Seattle, Westlake Center | 6:00pm – 8:30pm