Wacky Buttons | Easy, Affordable, Quick Button Site for Conferences
Posted by Dan Hall in Startups, Things you should know on January 11, 2012
I’m headed to a large trade show next week in Vegas and I realized I needed something to identify bloggers in our network. Thinking buttons might be a good idea, I did a little bit of searching and after evaluating about half a dozen sites I chose to use Wacky Buttons: Make Buttons Online | Design Buttons Online | Make Custom Buttons.
A clean(er) website, with easy navigation, and a handy design tool to create your own design. 100 buttons were $40 bucks and they can get them ready to go in less than 48 hours with overnight shipping.
Bookmark this site, you never know when you might need buttons – fast!
Fueling Growth: Elance To Give $1 Million To Startup America Partnership
I wholeheartedly applaud Elance for doing this:
“Online job marketplace Elance has just announced it will give $1 million to The Startup America Partnership, the national campaign that aims to accelerate entrepreneurship, which is chaired by Steve Case, co-founder of AOL disclosure: TechCrunch parent and Chairman of the Case Foundation.”
via Elance To Give $1 Million To Startup America Partnership | TechCrunch.
I will need to evaluate The Startup America Partnership but as I’ve stated before, I firmly believe technology and small businesses especially startups are one of the few bright stops in America with the ability to spur innovation, create jobs, and keep us great.
Dear Evernote, I think I love you but please…
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Creating Efficiency, evernote on January 5, 2012
could you add a contextual auto-tagging feature? It would make my life so much easier. Also, a content recommendation engine based off my tags / clips and my social network would be awesome. Thanks.
Dan Hall
P.S. Why on earth would you create an iPhone app where I can’t add notes or clip while browsing? Sometimes, I feel like we are miles apart. That whole hacking together a JavaScript bookmark makes me feel dirty.
Online shoppers spent $37.2B during U.S. holiday season
Ah, the land of consumers.
Online spending for November and December 2011 reached $37.2 billion, a 15 percent increase over the same period in 2010, according to comScore.
via Online shoppers spent $37.2B during U.S. holiday season.
Make your WordPress site mobile compatible with WPtouch Plugin
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Things you should know, blogging on January 3, 2012
“WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Palm Pre, Samsung touch and BlackBerry Storm/Torch mobile devices.”
via WordPress › WPtouch « WordPress Plugins.
‘Nuff said.
SimpleReach Slide WordPress Plugin | A ‘read more’ footer widget
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Things you should know, blogging on January 3, 2012
Since, I was reading the instructions on Mashable, I noticed their footer widget that encourages you to read the next article. Now, I’ve seen this type of widget before but I thought it might be a nice addition to the new project. After a little searching, I came across The Slide by SimpleReach.
According to their WP plugin site: “The Slide recommends related posts from within your site on a widget that “slides” in at the bottom of the page. You’ve seen a similar content recommendation widget on sites like NYTimes.com, and now SimpleReach is allowing anybody to take advantage of this awesome plugin for free.”
You can get it here: WordPress › SimpleReach Slide « WordPress Plugins.
They also have plugins for other popular platforms such as Drupal, Tumblr, and Blogger. It takes a while for them to index your site so you may notice a lag. I am waiting right now and will keep you posted.
HOW TO: Add the +1 Button to Your WordPress Site
Posted by Dan Hall in Things you should know, blogging, silly things, social media on January 3, 2012
I’m hacking together my latest project and needed to add a Google +1 Button to my WordPress site. I assumed (got to stop doing that) that there would be a nice easy plugin that would take care of that for me. And there isn’t (at least one I could find, let me know if you know of one). Fortunately, Mashable has some instructions on how to do this: HOW TO: Add the +1 Button to Your WordPress Site.
Scratch that. There are several options available, which I found after googling it. You need to use the search term “plus one” in the WP plugin search not “+1.” Kinda silly. I’m trying out Plus One and will let you know how it works.
****Update: Works very nicely. I will need to update this blog with it and some other features.
********Update2: Use Facebook Likes You! Instead. This handy WordPress plugin has both Google +1 and FaceBook Like buttons nicely aligned.
How to change your Admin Profile (Avatar)’s default picture?
Posted by Dan Hall in Things you should know, blogging, silly things on January 2, 2012
So, I decided to change that annoying Mystery Man default profile on my admin user account in WordPress. You really think WordPress would have the ability to change this embedded in the admin panel, but alas. You need to sign into Gravatar and change it there. Why? I don’t know. It makes no sense to me. Had to Google it to find this discussion: How to change Admin Profile (Avatar)’s picture?. Oh yeah, make sure to clear your browser’s cache before your reload the page to see your updated profile pic.
Getting Vets Jobs | Learning To Code | Codecademy
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Startups, coding on January 2, 2012
One of the long term projects that I am working on is helping military Vets find jobs. The jobless rate for Vets is about twice as high as the national average.I am a combat vet myself and am still in the National Guard so I see the impact of this on a regular basis. I also was fortunate enough to have had a startup founder take a chance on me, giving me an opportunity to run Human Resources and Recruiting at Visible Technologies, a social media analytics company. This ultimately led to the founding of my own company which in term produced more jobs (and all my employees are vets).
The first iteration of this project will launch in the next couple of weeks. I’ve put together a great support network of experienced startup execs and founders for veterans to get advice and introductions (after being vetted, of course).
Long term, I would like to develop a curriculum for Vets to learn how to code that would combine on-the-job training with leading technologist, online learning such as Codecademy, and traditional course work at a local college or university. Software engineering and tech companies are some of the few silver linings in the economy. I truly believe entrepreneurs and small business owners are the answer to long term economic growth. Taking demographics who are otherwise limited in career path and providing training, education, advice, and resources is a win-win.
This looks like a cool idea, which I am going to try out for myself:
Still Looking For A New Year’s Resolution? How About Learning To Code … | TechCrunch.
Use the Evernote Web Clipper On Your iPhone
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Creating Efficiency, data, evernote, productivity on January 1, 2012
A number of people have recommeded that I try out Evernote for storing , sharing, tagging, retrieving information across multiple devices.
I tried using Evernote over a year ago for that purpose. Maybe I didn’t give it enough time but it didn’t do it for me.
However, I am giving it another shot and am liking what I see so far. The web clipping tool they have it quite useful. It is quite easy to clip whole web pages or highlighted text to Evernote and tag it accordingly.
I do a lot of browsing on my iPhone so I downloaded the Evernote app and assumed it would have a similiar capability. I was quite surprised to find out they don’t have this feature.
After some searching on the web (it appears this is a feature a lot of people are looking / wishing for), there are two ways to get this basic functionality on your iPhone.
The first is to simply use your personalized Evernote email address to mail the link from your iPhone Safari browser. Of course, the problem with this is that you can’t clip the whole page or tag notes requiring you to duplicate efforts in Evernote Web or your desktop version. I am not of fan of doing something twice.
Larry Keltto over at The Solopreneur Life has instructions.
The second (and better albeit not perfect due to the UI) is to create a bookmark in your iPhone Safari bookmarks with the web clipping JavaScript bookmarklet. Thanks to Chris Bray for the JavaScript (he also has the JavaScript for a number of other tools). Just copy and email it to yourself. Open the email on your iPhone and copy the code. Go safari and add a new bookmark. Go into your bookmarks and edit the recent addition. Paste the JavaScript into the URL and name it something you can remember like ‘Evernote Clipper” and there you go. All set. You will need to login to Evernote just like using the web clipper normally and the UI will only KIND OF fit holding the iPhone horizontally but on the plus side you can add tags, notes, and clip the whole page. NICE!
The Mergy Notes also has some general instructions: the mergy notes » Use the Evernote Clipper With Safari On iPad and iPhone.
