StickyBits – barcode scanning

Mobile barcodes are quickly gaining momentum – they’ve been around for years, I’ve tinkered with 2D and MS Colour Tags for years. It’s really only been in the past 3 or so months here in NZ that 2D barcodes are starting to gain movement. Of course in the USA we have Google rolling out 100,000 to restaurants to try and ramp this up.

2D Barcodes are unique in that they hold information within themselves, and the scanner app can decode this and tell you the message.

Barcodes however have been around for many years – are line based and represent numbers. Stickybits has come along and joined the two ideas + location together. Using the Stickybitst app on your iPhone or Android device you can scan ANY barcode and attach content too it.

Try this barcode:
If you scan that with your iPhone/Android you should see some info about Studiowhiz.com.

Here however is where StickyBits becomes fun – it’s social. So you are now welcome to add your comments, photos, video and other content to this barcode. When other scan it they can see the history of items added to this code.

It’s a great fun way to share content & I could see review engines for Restaurants/Venues leveraging this technology to quickly and easily gather social recommendations and share feedback straight from the venue. Barcodes on menus, till receipts, napkins or anywhere really.

The thing is you don’t have to generate a complex barcode – snap any barcode & away you go. StickyBits have the ability to make barcodes like the one above, so what are you waiting for? Start tagging the world around you with barcodes!!

How to deactivate Google Buzz

Hot on the heels of my post on How to activate Google Buzz I bring you a quick post on how to deactivate Google Buzz.

You might have noticed there is a lot of noise in Google Buzz and people are now wondering how to clean up the Google Buzz in their Gmail Inbox. Turns out the Google Buzz item added to Google is a LABEL for incoming notes. Unlike Google Talk you can’t separate Buzz from Email – effectively Buzz is email .. just formatted in a different way.

So, if you use Google Buzz, expect to see crap in your inbox.

Help is at hand

Of course this is also a good thing, because Buzz is basically email, you can set up filter rules within Gmail to find any Buzz item and automatically filter it out to another label (How to set up filters in Gmail)

How to Kill Google Buzz

For some however setting up filters will NOT be enough and they will want Buzz gone. After all if you are already using Facebook, Twitter, Tweetdeck, Eventbox etc to manage your life streams, why do you want YET another?

There IS a way to turn buzz off … at the VERY bottom of your Gmail page is a tiny link “turn off buzz”. Simply scroll RIGHT to the very bottom of the page, and there is a row of links. Click turn off buzz and Google Buzz will disappear. (You can turn it back on the same way anytime you like)

NOTE:

This ONLY turns Google Buzz off in your email, it’s STILL in your Google Profile & I’ve not found anyway to turn it off outside of CLOSING your Google Account

UPDATE:

You have to do BOTH – filters & Turn Off … even with Buzz Turned off if anyone @ replies you – it will show up as an email in your inbox. If you are on some marketing list from a Brand, or …. your inbox could very quickly become unusable!

UPDATE 2:

Note: Buzz can re-activate itself if someone adds you to their list – at least that’s what it seems like. I had it turned off, went to lunch, a friend “buzzed” me (I wasn’t following him – yet) and when I opened Gmail again, Buzz was back on!

Stupidity reigns

I’m going to get flamed for this, but okay … !!

I just read a tweet from two of the more respected “guru’s” of the ‘open web’ – Chris Saad and Chris Messina

RT @chrismessina: Someday asking for a site’s API will be like asking which email protocol someone uses. Interoperability FTW!

well .. DUH!

You know what, it’s tweets like this that make me cringe – here are two hugely respected guys, who have done, and do, do great things for the web. Both are huge proponents of the open web & are heavily involved in the Data Portability project (Chris Messina is a founder of said project). Which is why it’s surprises me they put this tweet out.

What’s wrong with the tweet?

I’m all for interoperability and I’m all for open data sharing (in fact I’m all for TRUE data portability – that’s another blog post maybe, if I can be bothered). What irks me is that these two Chris’ think that “one day” we’ll achieve this utopia. For crying out friggin loud, it’s here already. The whole CONCEPT, the whole PREMISE of “API” is it’s a gateway TO another technology.

I find an API, and I leverage it to CONSUME the data. I don’t give a toss what technology is powering it, or what language it was built in. Likewise it doesn’t care if I’m using RUBY or PHP, C# or AS3. It’s an API …

Okay to put it into THEIR metaphore – the API is the email address, NOT the protocol. I don’t ask you if you use IMAP or POP, I simply ask for your email. Likewise I don’t ask if your site is ASP, PHP or .NET, I simply ask for your API.

Interoperability is here now – I can interoperate with AMAZON, GOOGLE, YELLOW, FLICKR, TWITTER and many many more TODAY without knowing anything about their ‘protocol’ – I simply grab their API and go to it. I agree with the last part of their tweet “Interoperability FTW!”

Someday is now

I’m ranting, I know it … but really come on guys. Stop making bold statements that sound cool – but mean nothing. You are two guys in a position to really MOLD and SHAPE the web … so get on with it

How to activate Google Buzz

Google Buzz, it’s all the buzz right now and as we know Google are rolling this out to all accounts as they can. There is however a quick way to get Google Buzz into your account.

It all revolves around your Google Profile. Don’t have one? You’ll need one, and you need to ensure it has some information in it about you – this is what Google uses to build up it’s understanding of you.

How to activate Google Buzz

1. Update your Google Profile – make sure you provide some basic information about you, places you lived, work place, etc
2. Ensure you have feeds in your Google Reader – Google needs this to understand your content preferences
3. In Google reader – under YOUR STUFF post some comment
4. Go back to your Google Profile & you’ll see

Buzz is now active in your Google account & will show up in your GMail account within an hour or so.

UPDATE: you HAVE to update your Google Profile with enough information for it to no longer be reporting “need more info” – if on your Profile page you are seeing a YELLOW or BLUE information box at the top – you haven’t given them enough information yet.

UPDATE 2: getting SICK of Buzz in your Gmail? Learn how to deactivate Google Buzz in our follow up post

11 Awesome business tools you’ve never heard of

** UPDATE: now with discount code goodness **

There are so many awesome online tools today to help any business get up and running and work towards that great adage:

Work smarter, not harder

Web 2.0 (and whatever that means), data portability, shared networks and features like Facebook Connect make it so easy these days to have you managing your business time better.  There are some really amazing tools out there that we all know and love the likes of Mint.com and BlinkSale.com that we know of. But there are also a ton of lesser well known yet equally as good (if not better) solutions out there too.

Business Card & Contact Management

Soocial is a brilliant online service for managing and cleaning up your various address books. It works with the address book on your computer, GMail (+ other web mail), iPhone and other mobile devices. It has many nifty features, one of my favourites is the clean up of duplicate records – brilliant.

» Soocial.com – hassle free contact management

Cloud Contacts is one of those web services that is so simple, it’s brilliant. (It’s also one of those …  ’slap your forehead & say doh, why didn’t I think of that’ type services). Built around the often tedious task of data entry from business cards, Cloud Contacts is a service that will digitize the content of business cards you collect. Once digitized, the information can then be imported into Outlook, SalesForce, linkedIn and many many more tools. Fantastic service for those who collect lots of business cards.

UPDATE: use the word ‘studiowhiz‘ when ordering to get a discount (limited to 10 sales to hurry)

» Cloudcontacts.com – for simple business card management

Invoices & Billing Management

Chargify does what it’s name suggests, charges your clients – with it’s simple interface Chargify takes the pain out of recurring billing, credit card processing and all aspects of debt management. Two of the great features of Chargify are it’s ability to help you learn from billing and client history to improve your customer experience and the API which allows you to build it into your own system – very cool!

» Chargify.com – billing management

Curdbee is not as fully featured as Chargify, but it does have a free option & when it comes to a simple billing system, Curdbee does all you need it too. From branded invoices to Paypal & Google Checkout integration and much more.

» Curdbee.com – Simple billing & contract management

Project Planning & Management

Mockflow is a brilliant time saving, real-time, collaborative interface development tool. You can wireframe up concept layouts in any browser while chatting to your team. Anyone can use this to help work out the best placements for elements. Pages can be grouped, and joined, so at a later stage you can link through your wireframes and see the correct user flow.

» Mockflow.com – realtime, collaborative interface design

Slickplan is a more traditional site plan planning tool, that gives you a good set of tools to build a quick site overview document. While not a drag’n'drop type tool, Slickplan is free and very quick to use to throw together flow documents.

» Slickplan.com – quick & simple site overview designer

ProWorkflow (built by some Kiwi folks) helps you manage you projects, time, and resources in one very simple web interface. ProWorkflow is that and more, it has built in invoice management, team management, task management, contacts, reports and so much more. It’s not the cheapest solution, but it’s darn solid and the CEO is on Twitter so you can bug him when you need help. With various widgets, iPhone apps and connectors to Quicken and more, you’ll find almost all you need in ProWorkflow.

» Proworkflow.com – full project management solution

Business Intelligence & Surveys

GoodData is a new but very powerful system that recently launched, that does nothing more than mine your data. It doesn’t collect data, rather it works with your existing data sources to find trends, patterns and more allowing you to better understand the data you have in your business. With integration to all sorts of tools including Salesforce, GoodData is awesome for really getting behind the numbers to the understandings you need.

» gooddata.com – powerful data understanding

Survs is my favourite survey tool of all time. It couldn’t get any simpler really, and yet the power & flexibility of Survs is amazing. It doesn’t do anything other than survey’s but hey, that’s all they claim to do.  Run complex surveys or simple ones, multipage, single page, branded (or not), time based, integrated into your site or stand alone. Within seconds you’ll have your survey running and collecting data. It really is brilliant!

» survs.com – mindblowingly simple yet powerful surveys

Getting things done & having fun

Getitdone is a getting it done tool with a difference – delegate tasks to your team (provided they are on getitdone). Organise your tasks into projects, schedule them for future dates & update your tasks direct from email. Beautiful and simple – oh and of course it has an iPhone app coming soon too.

» getitdoneapp.com – mindblowingly simple yet powerful surveys

Sketchfu is one of those really useful but great fun apps that generally are used for fun. When you need a quick app to sketch out a idea but don’t want to use Photoshop or something complicated, Sketchfu makes it simple. Draw it, share it .. and my gosh, some people can really use it to draw amazing things! I’ve used it a number of times for whipping out quick ideas to send to people for feedback before progressing to full mockups.

» Sketchfu.com – mindblowingly simple yet powerful surveys

Elgato eyeTV in New Zealand

The world is moving, analog TV is on it’s death bed and digital TV is streaming into the world at faster speeds, higher rates, better quality. At home we have a dodgy 21″ CRT tv we bought brand new for $250 – yeap big spenders. It’s not ready for the digital world – sadly my wallet too isn’t ready for the digital world.

Being typical in this modern world I wanted this digital TV, here in NZ we have the Freeview platform that is being rolled out & between now and 2012 we will follow the USA’s lead and turn off our analog signals. So what were my options. I could spend $200(ish) and buy a Freeview decoder to sit by my TV and give me these signals, or I could spend $800+ and get a nice Freeview decoder + Digital recorder to watch one channel while recording another. I could switch to PayTV (Sky) and puchase their MySKY HDi option … but that binds me to monthly contracts.

Enter stage right, Elgato eyeTV. Elgato have a range of (I think Mac only) TV tuners that are as simple to install as a USB plug. I’ve known of their range for a while but never really was sure if they’d work in New Zealand or not. I’ve seen plenty of mixed results from people who’ve tried to install and run these before.

I did a bit of looking around and Elgato themselves say they support the Freeview network – albeit the European version, but it’s Freeview none the less. I found a few kiwi’s who had the Elgato system working and I figured at $155 it’s worth a shot.

What to buy:
Okay one of the more confusing things for those of us not so savvy to TV terms, it can be a bit confusing. I was under the false impression that Freeview in New Zealand needed a satellite dish. This is NOT true, Freeview is broadcast both on satellite and UHF (or is it VHF), so for those of you without a Sky Dish (or Freeview one) on your roof, you can just use your UHF/VHF aerial. NOTE: the eyeTV device will come with an aerial – but trust me, in NZ it’ll be next to useless, you’ll want the big one on your roof. (click product name to go to Elgato site for full details)

• eyeTV DTT – great introductory item for UHF/VHF (DVB-T) signals, just plug in your aerial
• eyeTV DTT Deluxe – same as DTT, with extra aerial & subscription to online EPG (program guides – not available for NZ)
• eyeTV Diversity – same as DTT but with 2 tuners allowing easier watching of 2 channels
• eyeTV Hybrid – same as DTT but also includes support for Cable TV (DVB-C)
• eyeTV 250Plus – DVB-T tv tuner, plus extras for video & TV conversions
• eyeTV Sat – best option for satellite (DVB-S) this unit supports card systems like sky to unlock content. I’ve not used this so can’t tell you if it does or doesn’t work with sky cards.

Where to buy:
Buying is, well interesting. I went to JB Hi-Fi who have the device in stock for $195, I didn’t pay that for it. Ascent Technologies have the eyeTV DTT for sale online for $155, and JB Hi-Fi will match that price. So I picked it up in store for $155!

Setting up:
I got it home, plugged the eyeTV DTT usb stick into the Mac. BTW the stick is about the same size as a USB Memory Stick. You then plug in the aerial (I tried the supplied one first) and run the brilliant EyeTV software. It scanned it’s channels and failed to find anything – oh no.  I had sudden visions of just kissing $155 goodbye.

I decided to then plug into the big aerials on the roof of my place. (As a side note, my house has multiple aerials the past owner put up & has some signal merge units under the house, this means I have both UHF & VHF coming into one place – I think this is kinda common here in NZ, but check your place). As soon as I re-ran the tuner it found all the channels.  Note some tutorials you find say “in New Zealand run the exhaustive scan” – this is over 1,300 channels and it takes a while.  You don’t need too. All of the NZ channels are found within the 88 common channels it scans on the common scan setting.

Using eyeTV:
I have to say, watching TV on my iMac just seems wrong. Beautiful, crystal clear … but wrong :) Anyway, that aside, eyeTV is software that just works. It will find the channels, it’ll use the DVB information where it can to tell you whats on and give you program information. The interface for setting recording schedules etc, is simple and the playback is brilliant. I am still impressed with how clear it is.

Another couple of terms you want to get your head around. DVB & EPG … DVB, I think stands for Digital Video Broadcast – it’s really the signal, and as part of this the providers can send some of the information about what’s coming up, what the show is etc. EPG stands for Electronic Program Guide and is an external solution for getting a guide as to what’s coming up. The DVB that comes over VHF shows you maybe the current day’s details if you are lucky – nothing more.

New Zealand doesn’t have any formal or paid services, however the underground community has some EPG solutions & some people have set up ways of making this work with your eyeTV system. I found this video & it had shows how to add the EPG for NZ & get a weeks details in one shot:

Extra bits: – Multi Channel Support
One of the things that I had to learn after I got this was that the eyeTV DTT doesn’t let you watch more than one channel at once. Okay well actually that’s not true. See digital channels are often Multiplexed (yeah it was a new word to me too) – this means they send more than one channel on the same frequency. For example, TV one, TV two, TV 6 and TV 7 are all broadcast to Freeview on the same frequency. You can easily watch (or watch & record) these channels at the same time. EG: Watch something on TV One while recording something on TV 6.

To do this, you need to be watching your channel, then using the file menu, open a new window – BUT – you must hold the CONTROL key down on your keyboard. (HINT: open the file menu, then toggle the CONTROL key and watch, one of the menu items changes – click that one!) You’ll see a new window open with one of the multiplex channels in it.

However, you can’t watch PRIME and record TV3 – they are on different frequencies. If you want to do that you either need 2 eyeTV DTT units OR you need eyeTV Diversity.

Extra bits: – iPhone
There is a nice iPhone app for eyeTV which allows your iPhone to access eyeTV on your Mac (provided it’s running) so you can watch TV on your phone. This is brilliant and I find myself using this a bit already. For example the other night my wife was watching CSI, while recording NCIS and I was watching a pre-recorded episode of Mythbusters on my iPhone in another room of the house.

You can stream live TV to your iPhone over wifi with eyeTV converting the signal to H.264 on the fly for your phone. You can set eyeTV to convert (or export) recordings to H.264 for iPhones once it’s finished recording – meaning your content is available all the time. If it’s not converted, the iPhone can’t watch it.

NOTE: this is a slow & CPU intensive process – if you do this lots, invest in a Turbo.264 HD device from Elgato to help speed up this process.

The iPhone app is NOT a remote for your computer, and if you change channels on the iPhone, you will change channels on the computer, running the risk of annoying whoever is watching TV there. One annoying factor is there is no way from the iPhone app to tell what channel is currently playing on the computer.

You can look up the guide, schedule recordings and watch any recording over wifi with your iPhone – it’s great. Also if you use the FREE Elgato MyEyeTV service, you can remotely get access to your TV & content over any WIFI & internet connection. Yes that means I can watch LiveTV or my recordings, over WiFi here at work – from my mac at home. Of course bandwidth will be expensive and I’m sure my employer would “love it” – but hey, I can :D

Summary

So there we have it, my thoughts on using eyeTV in New Zealand.
In Short:

• eyeTV works great in New Zealand
• eyeTV supports NZ Freeview
• eyeTV DTT is a good introductory TV tuner for mac’s in NZ
• JB Hi-Fi stock eyeTV DTT’s & will match Ascent Technologies $155 online price
• Ubertec (in Parnell) carry a wider range of Elgato gear
• eyeTV 3.2 supports multiplex channels (watch one, record another – as long as they are on the same frequency)
• eyeTV 3.2 is required for iPhone support (some routers will not support uPnP required for remote access via MyEyeTV)
• eyeTV supports pausing & resuming live TV

Any questions, throw them in the comments & I’m happy to answer where I can. I’m still learning with this stuff, but I have to say I’m pretty impressed at really how simple and easy this process was.

Sure fire secret tips to drive up traffic

Traffic – websites live and breathe with it – without, well we might as well all pack up and go home. I’ve increased traffic to studiowhiz.com by .. well a ton recently. The past week has seen this site having over 70,000 unique visitors stop by.

How do you do it? Well traditionally it’s hard to build up traffic and maintain it, however you can get spikes in traffic reasonably easily. What you do with that traffic is up to you, but here are my “Sure fire ways to drive up traffic to your site”.

1) Talk about Social Networks

Talk about social networking, typically talk about how to get more friends on Twitter, Facebook or StumbleUpon. These posts are big hitters as people love to brag “I have XXX number of friends”.

2) Tear apart a gadget

This one is a bit expensive – but will drive HUGE traffic to your site, that will stick around, at least long enough to view your pics. Tear apart a gadget. This of course is time sensitive, but if you are one of the first to have exploded views of the next iPhone on your website – you are guaranteed a traffic increase.

3) Top/Ultimate lists

The internet loves lists! Many of the top ranking posts on popurls.com are lists. Pick popular (related to your site) topics and write some lists. Of course having some meat on your site is going to help in the long run – otherwise lists are useless. NOTE be original, find your OWN content to fill your lists. No one likes seeing the SAME fonts, the SAME Photoshop tutorials!

Oh and you want to make big lists, top 5, top 10 are okay but lists with 20+ really pull in the traffic. Lists in the 100’s – are pure GOLD in the sense of traffic. Think 101 ways to make you a sex guru or 103+ Photoshop Tutorials, maybe 99 ways to build your Twitter brand – all gold!

4) (nsfw) – Not Safe for Work

Any hot blooded male will tell you the (nsfw) tag on any link is like a bright red button – just begging to be clicked. At work or not, (nsfw) is a 99.9% sure fire way to get people to visit your site. Of course you need to balance this up against your site’s purpose and target audience. But hey, there is no denying it brings traffic.

5) Rising/Falling stars

Facebook’s young CEO Mark Zuckerburg, Twitter’s Ev Williams, Robert Scobble, Allen Stern (who?), Diddy, Bruce Willis – talk about people, talk about trends. It works for the tabloids, gossip rags. Heck Perez Hilton does nothing but talk about famous people – usually falling, ungracefully from fame. Many of the web2.0 stars have alerts set up to spot articles with their name/brand in them & many will link to these. These posts can bring in huge hits in short term traffic, but links from these folks to your article bring in LONG TAIL traffic (think $$ gold mine!!)

6) Secrets of …

Every one loves a secret – if I know something you don’t you want to know it! It’s like forbidden fruit, and it’s how many of these online “get rich quick” schemes work. I know how to make more money in a day than you do in a year – pay me $9.99 now and I’ll tell you. Okay so we are not doing that but you are reading my secret traffic tips right now. How about “102 Secret tips of Photoshop Legends” or maybe “100 Secret Fonts you never knew existed?”

7) Digg, Delicious & StumbleUpon

“Build it and they will come” – well maybe, but certainly not “write it and they will visit”. Sorry you are going to have to do SOME work to spread the love of your link a little. Learn about link sharing through StumbleUpon, Digg and Delicious (not forgetting Reddit and others – go find them my pretties). These tools can be huge in helping you to drive up traffic to your site. Foster that by including easy links (buttons), and encourage link building, pinging and trackbacks. (Note: check out our bonus video to learn how to leverage DIGG for your site)

8) Sensationalize – hype, extend

Another tip from the gossip rags – sensationalize. “I had Mark Zuckerburg’s Baby” – is going to probably grab some attention. Tabolids have been over hyping and preying on our nature to believe the extraordinary – so leverage that. Don’t do it all the time, and don’t over do it – but write carefully thought out titles. This is also known as Link Baiting – but hey, it works. Again what you do with the traffic is up to you & sometimes this isn’t traffic you want. But in the end the numbers don’t lie – if you need to make a splash, sensationalize: Instead of “Unaltered Britney Spears Photos” how about ” Britney Spears nude photos” – you then go on to explain the photos are nude, as they have no photoshop work done to them, not the … well you get the idea.

Summary

I could go on and on, but that wouldn’t leave room for me to share one last secret – “REVISITS” eg: “Secret Traffic Generation Tips – Revisited”.

Feel free to share your tips in the comments – remember this is a DO FOLLOW site, so feel free to link to your OWN list of Traffic Generating Secrets as part of your comment (just don’t spam)!

Here’s a great video showing how to leverage DIGG for your site:

Best Practices in Social Media Integration for Web Publishers and Content Providers (Web 2.0 Expo – Bob Buch, Digg) from Steffan Antonas on Vimeo.

17 incredible nature photos

Nature, it’s all around us all the time and yet we are often moving through life at such a pace we completely and utterly miss what’s around us. From the city the mountains, garden to meadow here is a collection of truly incredible nature photos.

Simply click the image to go through to the full image

Sleeping Beauty Sunrise

Cape Town Ocean Side

Nature Morte

Cuillin

Boraginaceae

Hold your breath while I bring out the light

Sit and Relax

Snow, misty and sunlight

Nature’s Secret

Portrait of hornet

Nature

Duck

WaterFall + Maple Leaf

Sweet Nature

False Widow

When Nature Makes you dream

montagna

Why Facebook sucks

You might think that I’m not qualified to write a post about why I think Facebook sucks – and rewind two weeks and you’d be right. Sure I’d created some account many moons ago for me to dabble with, but after rumors of CIA involvement and other “conspiracies” I decided that was enough for me.

Recently however I have once again joined up, as more and more of my friends were online I began to be missing out on happenings in their lives. Facebook had become their means of primary communication. Photos were no longer added to Flickr or Picasa accounts – they were simply added to Facebook. Without a Facebook account I was left out.

So after much thinking and discussing with  my wife we decided to plunge into the world of Facebook and our lives haven’t been the same since – and NOT in all the ways you think.

Facebook: we aim to annoy

I’m coming into Facebook with over 14 years experience in online user interfaces (read: web design & development). I’m utterly amazed at how Facebook has met and overcome many hurdles facing technology – getting those that are non-techy to use their site … esp considering the Facebook interface is a great big pile of steaming crap.

How on earth do the Grandmas & Grandpas that are now flocking to Facebook ever keep up, let alone understand what their grandkids are up too?  My wife and I are pretty computer and web savvy – and we struggle to get our heads around the mess that is Facebook.

Why do I see my friends, friends comments?

This question was put to me by my wife after day one with Facebook. She’d added her sister to her friends list and suddenly her “home page” was full of comments to her sister that were completely unrelated to her. All my wife saw was a page full of utter crap. I see since we joined Facebook have now added 3 little buttons allowing you to fine tune this a little – but it’s still a mess.

Why do I get email notifications (again you can turn this off but when you login your notification box tells you) telling me that someone who is friends of my friend, has commented on my friends photo. I could understand if that friend was a mutual friend of mine too … but 9 times out of 10 they are not.

Okay … wooo up for a second.

I really do like Facebook

Facebook has been very good for me, as I’ve reconnected with some very good friends of mine who I’ve not talked too (in depth) for a good number of years. I’ve caught up with the amazing growth of their kids, seen a mates photos of a recent trip to Ireland and much more … but I swear I’ve become so frustrated with the idosy…crap that Facebook puts you through.

Reasons I hate Facebook

• URL has serious flaws
  Not sure if you noticed but Facebook often puts a # in the url, and simply appends page structures to this. For example I recently was on a fan page, then navigated to my profile, Facebook simply added # to the end of the fan page and then took me to my profile. As I navigated around I notice Facebook simply adds more # and pages to the URL.
  This has bad consequences when you try to add a new app, as the app assumes a certain URL structure & I frequently have apps failing to install.
• Uploading Video PI
  Today at work I looked into adding some video to a fan page created for one of the sites we manage. Sounds simple enough. I head to the video page – btw: we host all our videos with Vimeo. I was expecting to be able to select either UPLOAD or EMBED. Nope, Facebook forces you to upload any video to their servers. Why? Why can’t we simply pass a Vimeo or YouTube URL and have Facebook put this into the video page – it’s not that hard!
• Uploading Video PII
  During the upload process we ran into countless issues. The video upload progress bar actually only worked once out of the 8 videos we uploaded. When it did work it meant the Save Info button would kill the upload and drop you out to the video page. Clicking back to video took you to a page saying “You’ve uploaded no videos” – when we already had 3 videos uploaded.
  After each video we had to go back to the fan page and start the process again – otherwise the video wouldn’t upload.
• Flickr, Twitter, Wordpress … Integration
  Why should I have to rely one some 3rd party application to integrate Facebook with my existing online media? I should be able to go to my Photos tab and select UPLOAD or EMBED (or LINK) and be able to simply copy and paste a Flickr URL & have Facebook show the image as if it had been uploaded to Facebook.
  Likewise Twitter should be a heck of a lot easier to integrate than it is. Again there should be a native integration allowing Twitter & Facebook to be closer tied together. Afterall “status” on Facebook is really just like your twitter “What are you doing”
• Twitter & Pages
  I have a number of Twitter accounts – one is a personal account that I have linked to Facebook so my tweets can update my status. I have another account that is .. well another account. I’ve set up a Facebook page for this & I’d love to have that Twitter account (which has 1 post a day) to update the status of this page. Nope, sorry can’t do it – already have a Twitter account associated to my profile and Facebook/Twitter app can not handle more than one account at once – how stupid?
• Link integration
  There are a number of online bookmarking (or link saving) solutions. The most popular of course is Delicious. Great news, there is a Delicious Facebook app (which doesn’t really seem to work). This app will publish your links to your BOXES tab. Well this is just dumb. Why can’t Facebook itself allow me to tell it to fetch my LINKS from my Delicious account (or other) and populate them into my LINKS tab.

Summary

I could go on and on I’m sure. Facebook as we all know is huge & my little rant is unlikely to change anything. However I do feel that Facebook could build into their system far greater native support for many of the existing tools that are already used. You can only expect developers to do so much with your API – many of these apps are so full of crappy adverts they are useless.

Facebook expect us as developers to build solutions, share our bandwidth so that Facebook users can leverage their existing content OR force users to upload into multiple locations so that those with Facebook accounts and those without can share the media.

I think Facebook should take a leaf out of Wordpress’s books – make things simpler – not more complex. Wordpress makes adding media so simple – Facebook makes adding media .. too difficult.

Facebook – it is what it is, you love it or hate it – but I’ll keep using it.

DoFollow – SEO?

A while back I read a post one some random blog about “DoFollow” which in a nut shell means that links in your blog comments have the <pre>rel=”nofollow”</pre> attribute removed from links.

I thought it was a good idea but promptly forgot about it until my good mate at WebHelp blogged this morning about adding a plugin to remove these.

So, 10 mins over lunch I thought I’d give it a shot.

From now on Studiowhiz.com & italkmagazine.com will both support the “You Comment; I Follow” movement. If you post a comment on either of these sites, we’ll share some link love with you. This applies to both the default link on your name along with any link you post in the comment.

Be warned however: Akismet is still our friend and spamming our comments is FROWNED upon (will get your comment deleted).

So, comment away, knowing we are helping your site gain in page popularity.

Links

• WebHelp.co.nz blog post about DoFollow
• Do Follow Bloggers
• DoFollow wordpress plugin for removing rel=”nofollow”

NZ Internet Blackout – links & more

Okay, okay .. so let me get this straight. There is some hoo haa about some law in some little country called New Zealand, that might stop some people from what now? .. Oh wait, maybe I should pay a bit more attention.

Sections 92A and C of the amended Copyright Act establish a guilt upon accusation principle that can see anyone accused of “copyright infringement” getting his or her Internet connection severed.

[ via geekzone ]

So err, okay what now?

I don’t fully get this bit of law but it goes something like this: If you download or upload copyright material, the law means you can have your internet disconnected, no questions asked. Okay, well that’s kinda okay right? But no, it gets better: If you are ACCUSED of downloading or uploading copyright material (no evidence needed, guilty first) you can have your internet disconnected, site removed or …. – what??

Okay, so this is pretty bad – from what I read, you could accuse a popular newspaper (for example) of having copyright material on their site and “poof” no more number 1 news website.

Alright, that’s enough from me … here are a bunch of links for you to read

• The Techsploder @ Geekzone explains the law
• Rich @ Webhelp shares his thoughts
• Coffee.Geek take a look at the Section 92a law
• Now Public
• Creative Freedom – the official site
• Creative Freedom – the petition
• NeoWin
• Facebook group
• Check out Eventfinder’s Twitter followers – how many are blacked out??
• #blackout trending on Twitter
• #s92a trending on Twitter

I”m sure there are HEAPS more out there, feel free to add them in the comments & I’ll link them up.

2009 a year of change

Yeah I know, you don’t have to tell me, it’s been very quiet around here. Very.

It’s not that I don’t have things to say, it’s tricky finding time to balance things & Studiowhiz has suffered because of it. I thought I’d give you a heads up as to what’s going on.

Recently I took over a site called iPhone Source and started to overhaul it, working on creating new media relationships, reaching out to PR companies and such like. The site had a growing traffic, and was attracting more and more interest – however it had no relationships at all with Apple related companies. 

I embarked on this journey & late in Jan we had a rug pulled out from under us. Apple kicked us out of their affiliate program – an important source of our income. So we embarked on a name & url change to become iTalk Magazine (www.italkmagazine.com). We have a great group of supporting companies along side us now and we are racing into a fantastic year.

In fact right now, we have over $1000 worth of iPhone accessories you could win – check it out now.

This site is taking a lot of my spare time, continuing to develop relationships with accessory companies, expanding the content on the site, editing the content from our team and doing all the advertising.

On top of this I’m trying a couple of new things this year. My personal Twitter account is (as many of you know) @oo00_Mr_K_00oo which is just me rambling, however I’ve started a new account called @bible_in_a_year – this is a place where every day I’ll have approx. 100 chars worth of comment for a given bible passage (usually just a verse).  Why? I guess it’s about time I started to wear my faith on my sleeve a little more. We’ll see where that goes …. I do have a couple of other projects based around faith that I’m hoping to build up this year.

Of course I have a normal day job – so all of my online projects have to be done out of work hours – which of course when you’re a Dad & husband you don’t really have a lot of time ey!

Oh, did I mention I’m putting myself through a few languages this year?

• French – need to brush up on my French so will soon be taking some courses at a local high school
• Mandarin/Hakka – we are teaching our daughter Hakka, so I’m trying to pick up these too, after 9 years of marriage it’s probably about time ey!
• C, Objective C & Coca Touch – I’m embarking on a journey (you’ll be able to follow it on iTalk Magazine) to go from a web developer to iPhone developer

So, how often will Studiowhiz be updated – at least once a month, fingers crossed more often.

See ya around the blogs folks

2009 it’s coming, ready or not!

It’s been said, “love what you do” and this is an adage well worth adhering too – especially in the online world. I’ve been doing what I do for coming up 14 years, that’s a long time. It’s easy to become jaded, it’s easy to become tired and cynical. You see another web 2.0 business claiming to be the bees knees and you think “Yeah right, tell us that in 6, 12 or 24 months” – in the winter it can be even harder to stay cheerful.

As New Zealand heads into the summer, and the northern hemisphere into it’s winter I thought I’d drop a note. I’m thinking at the moment as we are surrounded by doom and gloom re: the financial crisis, it’s even harder to stay positive.

It’s time to be positive

Everyone is facing some sort of uncertainty at the moment. Some companies are about to go bust (eg: GM, Ford or Chrysler) others are facing buy outs & redundancies and others … well others just don’t know what’s around the corner. Probably the only people rubbing their hands with glee are debt collectors.

However this doesn’t have to be the way and online businesses can lead the way to change. It’s easier for an online business to change, to move, to rebuild than it is for say, Chrysler. I think it’s a fantastic time (actually any time is a good time to start a well thought out business), to start an online business. There are HEAPS of solutions that have yet to be created – maybe you have the solution that could be the next big thing – heck, it just has to be the next thing, let alone be big.

Positivity however goes beyond business. You can look at impending redundancy and go “woe is me”, or you can dig deep, realise it’s going to hurt – but do something about it. Okay sure, you might have to sell the house, the car or whatever, but the sun will rise again. How many hugely “successful” people started off on the wrong side of the tracks, laid off, or in the case of Michael Hill (a huge jeweler in NZ) standing facing a burning building?

Be positive going into Chrsitmas & the New Year.

Watch your words

I am a fan of the power of positive words, positive thinking. Words are very powerful things & they have an affect not just on us but those around us. I detest when parents talk over their kids saying things like “He’s not a smily baby” or “That stupid kid of mine, can you believe what he did” or even worse. These are self fulfilling prophecies.

If you get up each morning thinking “woe is me” then woe will become you. If you get up and thinking “Wow, what a day, another day to be who I am” – then at least you are getting into the day with a good attitude. The number of times this year I’ve said to my self and my work mates “It’s going to be a great day”  and it turns out to be one … in fact I’ve even had mornings start off bad, then I’ll go for a walk with a work mate and say “it’s a great day” and by the time I get back into the office, my mental position has shifted and I start to see the good things in the day.

Be positive in words and actions.

Love where you do it

It’s Sunday afternoon, and really I should be spending time with my 14mnth old (and I will after her nap), but I have a lot of work to do today for iphonesource.org – with a big promotion kicking off tomorrow.  I gotta admit I can think of better things to do this afternoon than working on the sites I have to look after.

However, I’m making the most of things. I’m sitting outside beside the BBQ at the outdoor table, the umbrella is up and a cool breeze is blowing. The sun is awesome, the birds are rocking out a beat. I’m sipping a burbon & cola and tapping away on a MacBook Pro – I mean does writing a blog get any better? 

If you have to do something, try to find the best place to do it, so you find something to enjoy about it. I love blogging, and I love running competitions. The fact that I can do that while sitting outside enjoying the summer is bonus.

Summary

As we head into Christmas and we wrap up 2008, take a moment and look back. Find 10 things to be thankful for and write them down. Say thank you to yourself, to your God, to the walls in your room – just say “Thanks for these wonderful things”, and then look forward to 2009. It hasn’t started yet, its still a few weeks away – don’t let the media, the depressors, or the crap some people throw tell you how YOUR 2009 is going to be.

It’s your life, get off your arse and live it! 2009, it’s coming ready or not – so make the most of it! If you have to grieve something from 2008 – then have a cry session. After that get up and move on. Be positive, it’s a brand new year.

Making money online?

I’ve always wondered how possible it really is to make money online. Strange really considering that we are heading into 2009, marking my 15th year working in the online space. That’s right, for 15 years the internet has paid my salary, bought my cars, my house and my gadgets.

Yet it’s only now that I begin to experiment with affiliate marketing and I suggest if you haven’t yet, you sign up to AdBlaze here (one of the highest % payouts) and come for the ride.

I’ve looked through a few systems and in fact do have some affiliate systems running on other sites, and my results have been mixed to say the least. For example on an iPhone blog I now Edit, we earn 5% of any sale that we push to iTunes. In November we made a grand total of $3.64.  However other systems I’ve got are bringing in far more than that.

I have to say though I think banners like the one above don’t really do it for me, but if you are no longer reading this, then I figure it worked for you.

For those still reading, I gotta tell you, this blogging to make money – is NOT easy. I’m sitting here tapping away, when I should be relaxing in front of the TV with my wife. Still the idea is build up the base now, so that the money can flow and maybe in 6 months (ha .. maybe 6 years) I can sit back and relax. 

Tonight I’ve written 5 blog posts, joined another affiliate system, spent 20 mins in Google AdManager checking advertising schedules, emailed out to companies to ask (beg) for product – (oh btw: iphonesource.org is going to be having a competition leading up to Christmas, you heard it here first) & read about 50 blog posts. My head hurts … and now I’m off to make lunch for tomorrow.

Stay tuned for my top 5 tips on how to make the most of your time online.

updating to WP 2.7 beta 3

Hey all, I’m about to update the site to wordpress 2.7 beta 3 – why? Because it’s just so much better for everyone. 2.7’s changes seem to be mainly from the backend, the admin system, which makes managing the site & content so much better.

I highly recommend updating (provided you’re comfortable with beta software), it’s auto update features are worth it – just these on their own.  It’s improved interface is just bonus.

So, go have a coffee – we’ll be back shortly.

Update: and we are back, 2.7 installed and running