Click here to view the embedded video.

I met Julie as she was looking to find a room share for BlogHer next weekend and the converstation moved to how we would stay in touch.  I asked if Julie had a Twitter account and she said no.  I explained how everyone would be chatting in real time via Twitter using the hashtag #blogher09.

Within a couple of minutes, Julie had setup a Twitter account and had the necessary links to get Tweetdeck installed and learn more on the Twitter help site.  I also talked about how CoTweet allowed people to share a Twitter account without revealing the password and schedule future tweets.  Julie’s off to a great start!  She blogs at Mamapedia (cute site name!) in the Voices section and her new Twitter name is @juliemamapedia

Twitter Power User Links

Tweetdeck  is a desktop client for Twitter so you can track, filter and find things easier

CoTweet allows you to share your Twitter account and schedule tweets

More on Hasthtags

Follow trending hashtags

What are Hashtags? Excerpt from twitter.pbworks.com

Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.

Website: http://timebridge.com

What’s Out There for Screenshot and Screen Recording Software?

I’ve been in IT for 10 years and always find sharing images makes things easier to understand. A year ago, I began doing  video tutorials to help my clients really get the hang of technology training topics.  I found out these were called screencasts so I began researching my options.  I started out by trying free and open source tools like Wink and some screenshot tool that fit on my flash drive, probably sourced from PortableApps.com.

Video Screencasts with Camtasia Studio

Camtasia Studio is the most professional product for creating professional and easy to follow video screencasts. I tried free products and found them bulky, slow and lacking features.

Powerful Screenshots with Snagit

Snagit is amazing because it saves you time taking screenshots. You can take sequential images, upload directly to Flickr, use the Snagit Editor for quick cropping and text overlays.

Quick and Easy Screenshots and Video for PC and Mac!

Jing is the newest product by Techsmith and it allows you to quickly capture and share screenshots and short videos. I’ve found Jing to be a lifesaver when I need to share a screenshot via a forum or through a chat session. No FTP or complicated web addresses. You get a short and tiny url to share your image or video. The screencast recording abilities in Jing just keep improving! With Jing Pro you can upload directly to YouTube or edit the recording in Camtasia Studio. Screen capture with Jing is just plain easy!

Testing, Testing, Is This Thing On?

I kept testing tools, asking for feedback from my clients, friends, family — “How does this look?”  ”Is it clear?  Is the video smooth or jumpy?”.  I kept reading reviews on screen recording software that kept talking about Camtasia Studio.  Jeff of CodingHorror who always lays down the essentials in a quick and dirty format also listed Camtasia Studio as screencasting option.  I was ready to take a trial run of Camtasia Studio.

GTD My Screenshots

photo credit: yusheng

Meanwhile, I’d come to a similar conclusion about my needs for a screen capture solution.  I was trying to take a lot of screenshots and wanted to GTD the process as much as possible.  I looked at the most time consuming parts of taking screenshots:

• Naming the images
• Organizing the images
• Sizing the images
• Quick edit of the images
• Sharing the images

I did a trial of Snagit and knew it was the right tool for me!  I could create profiles which allowed me to set preferences about the file name, size, save location and more.  For $50, it seemed a bit steep as I’d never paid for a screenshot program on Windows before but I got my money back in saved time.

Technology Stories Come To Life

Just like I’m still new to creating videos at AskAdria.com, I was green to recording screencasts and had no idea about size, frame rate, editing options or making videos that were HD quality.  I struggled to catch up with this image of “professional video creators” who used tools like Camtasia Studio flawlessly.  I watched videos created by companies like 37Signals, read the Techsmith blog for tips, read through their online training so I could understand the scope of the software.  I wanted to deliver the best product I could.

One of my earliest videos I uploaded to YouTube, “Joomla, Make your website beautiful overnight“.  Now while I look back at it and go, “sheesh!” it’s been viewed over 29,000 times and I’ve had people contact me via email, phone calls and leave comments about how helpful it was!

After The Purchase

So a lot of technology reviews talk about how exciting and amazing a product is but don’t tell you about the product after it’s been in use for a while.  Well…here’s the skinny!  Techsmith is great!  Their support staff have always gone the extra mile when I’ve contacted them for support.  In addition, they have spent time and resources to grow their website to include an active blog and have a technology evangelist, Betsy Weber,  on staff to be the face of their products.

They are on Twitter (@TechSmith), do live streams on Ustream and basically do whatever they can to reach out to existing and potential users of their screencast/screen capture/tutorial/learning kingdom!

You may be saying, “Adria, tell us about the dark side of Techsmith.”  Well, the one downfall they currently have is their antiquated ticketing system (custhelp).  It has a seperate login than the screencast.com site (SSO Single Sign On would be great!) and I’m not successful at being able to reply to updates from Techsmith staff.  This means I have to go to the support site and login.  Maybe Zendesk will help TechSmith slip into a shiny new helpdesk and ticketing system!

By using these tools from Techsmith, I’m able to communicate powerful and effective technology concepts through images and video which I get great feedback on so I give a thumbs up to all the Techsmith products!

I’ve gone over my favorite extensions in the past and still remember being interviewed about my use of Firefox extensions by Julio Ojeda-Zapata (@jojeda) of the Pioneer Press back in 2005.

My Firefox Extensions List 7/16/2009

Hot pick Firefox Extensions that work with Firefox 3.5 say “HOT PICK”

Application: Firefox 3.5 (20090624025744)

Operating System: WINNT (x86-msvc)

July 16, 2009

Total number of items: 40

1. Affiliator 0.1.4 HOT PICK

   http://www.theantichris.dreamhosters.com/category/firefox-addons/affiliator/

   Firefox 1.5 – 3.6a1pre

   Makes generating Amazon affiliate links easier.

2. Affixa – Login Handler 1.2 HOT PICK

   http://www.affixa.com/

   Firefox 3.0 – 10.0

   Makes email attachments easy!

3. Bit.ly Creator 0.1

   (Disabled, Incompatible)

   Firefox 1.5 – 3.0.*

   Shorten Long URLs With Bit.ly Creator

4. Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures 1.11.12

   http://blankcanvasweb.com/pages/detail/id_9/n_gmail_signatures/

   Firefox 3.0 – 3.6a1pre

   Insert multiple HTML signatures into your Gmail emails. (Replaces old Greasemonkey script.)

5. CLC-CLiCkSpeak 1.5 HOT PICK

   http://clickspeak.clcworld.net

   Firefox 1.5 – 3.*

   CLiCk, Speak: A Simple Talking Browser For People Who Like CLiCking On Things

6. Context Search 0.4.4

   http://www.cusser.net

   Firefox 2.0 – 3.5.*

   Expands the context menu’s ‘Search for’ item into a list of search engines.

7. Delicious Bookmarks 2.1.041 HOT PICK

   http://delicious.com

   Firefox 2.0 – 3.5.*

   Access your bookmarks wherever you go and keep them organized no matter how many you have.

8. dragdropupload 1.6.8

   (Disabled, Incompatible)

   http://www.teslacore.it/wiki/index.php?title=DragDropUpload

   Firefox 1.0 – 3.0.*

   This extension helps you to upload files

9. DT Whois 1.7 HOT PICK

   http://www.beysim.net/dtwhois/

   Firefox 1.0 – 3.5.*

   Domaintools.com whois button for Firefox

10. Email This! Bookmarklet Extension 2.2.6

    http://www.lazyrussian.com/my-projects/email-this-firefox-extension/

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.6a1pre

    Email This! will send your recipient the link, title, and a selected summary of the webpage you are viewing.

11. Evernote Web Clipper 3.0.0.126

    (Disabled, Incompatible)

    http://www.evernote.com/

    Firefox 1.4.0 – 3.0.*

    Provides a button and context menus to easily add a selection or an entire page to Evernote

12. Extension List Dumper 1.14.2

    http://sogame.awardspace.com/ HOT PICK

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.5.*

    Dumps a list of the installed extensions.

13. FEBE 6.2.beta3

    http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions

    Firefox 3.0b1 – 3.*

    Backup your Firefox data

14. Firebug 1.4.0b7 HOT PICK

    http://www.getfirebug.com/

    Firefox 3.5b4 – 3.5.*

    Web Development Evolved.

15. gDocsBar 0.5.7

    (Disabled, Incompatible)

    http://www.gdocsbar.com/

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.1a1pre

    Perfect companion for Google Docs.

16. Google Calendar Notifier 2.5.3 <— Someone needs to pick up development on this!

    (Disabled, Incompatible)

    http://extensions.npike.net

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.0.*

    This extension provides robust notifications and display of your Google Calendars for today, as well as showing any upcoming all day events for tomorrow.

17. Google Gears 0.5.29.0 HOT PICK

    http://gears.google.com/

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.5

    These are the gears that power the tubes!

18. Google Notebook 1.0.0.22

    (Disabled, Incompatible)

    http://www.google.com/notebook

    Firefox 1.5.0 – 3.0.99

    Allows notetaking while browsing

19. Greasemonkey 0.8.20090123.1 HOT PICK

    http://www.greasespot.net/

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.5.*

    A User Script Manager for Firefox

20. GTDInbox 2.0.11.5

    (Disabled, Incompatible)

    http://www.gtdinbox.com

    Firefox 3.0 – 3.1b2

    Getting Things Done with Gmail

21. is.gd Creator 0.2.2

    http://postspectacular.com/

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.5

    Provides easy access to the is.gd URL shortening service

22. Firefox 1.5 – *
23. Live PageRank 0.9.6

    (Disabled, Incompatible)

    http://livepr.raketforskning.com/

    Firefox 1.0 – 3.0.*

    Display live PageRank for active URL

24. LogMeIn, Inc. Rescue Technician Console 6.0.0.515 <— This is if you use Logmein Rescue

    (Disabled, Incompatible)

    https://secure.logmeinrescue.com/HelpDesk/Home.aspx

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.1.*

    LogMeIn Rescue Technician Console

25. NoScript 1.9.5 HOT PICK

    http://noscript.net

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.6a1pre

    Extra protection for your Firefox: NoScript allows JavaScript, Java (and other plugins) only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site). This whitelist based pre-emptive blocking approach prevents exploitation of security vulnerabilities (known and even unknown!) with no loss of functionality… Experts will agree: Firefox is really safer with NoScript

26. PriceDrop 1.06 HOT PICK

    http://pricedrop.stuffstuff.org

    Firefox 2.0 – 3.5.*

    Tracks Amazon price changes, and notifies about them

27. Print Context Menu 1.2

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.5.*

    Adds the ability to print and print preview a web page from the context menu

28. Read it Later 0.9947 HOT PICK

    http://readitlaterlist.com

    Firefox 3.0b3 – 3.6a1pre

    Save pages to read later, then bookmark.

29. Skype extension for Firefox 2.2.0.102

    http://www.skype.com

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.*

    Skype extension for Firefox

30. TinyUrl Creator 1.0.5

    (Disabled, Incompatible)

    http://mozmonkey.com/

    Firefox 1.5 – 3.0.*

    Convenient tool to create small url redirects from longer ones.

31. Tunebite Firefox Surf and Catch Plugin 1.3.6900.0

    (Disabled, Incompatible)

    tunebite.com

    Firefox 2.0.0.0 – 3.0.*

    Surf & Catch support for Mozilla Firefox

32. Web Developer 1.1.8 HOT PICK

    http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/

    Firefox 1.0 – 3.5.*

    Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.

33. YSlow 2.0.0b4

    (Disabled)

    http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow

    Firefox 2.0 – 3.5.*

    Make your pages faster with Yahoo!s page performance tool

Chocolate Covered Cherries Arrive Special Delivery!

While doing research for a SXSW panel submission (more down below on that), I saw a character buying a box of chocolate covered cherries.  She looked to be enjoying them, A LOT!  This got me thinking about how long it had been since I’d tasted the sweet, creamy, delicate texture of cherries wrapped in a cream center and encased in rich milk chocolate.  So I tweeted it!

This started a dicussion online about how good chocolate covered cherries were and I linked up to some on Amazon for @kimberlyoh and @missashe who both expressed their love of chocolate covered cherries.


And then I took a big step and told Twitter what I wanted!  I had been hiding my Amazon wishlist after a few folks had bought me things…feeling sorta embarrassed I guess.  I decided success did not walk with modesty so I added back my wishlist to my blog as a page and put it on my About page too!

Thank You @wr3n For The Chocolate Covered Cherries!

I’d like to give a special shout out to @wr3n for picking up some delicious, mouth watering chocolate covered cherries from my Amazon Wishlist!  They arrived special delivery to my door, packing in ice! How awesome is that?

Research for SXSW Leads to Inspiration

Last week, I was watching a string of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” shows on Netflix for inspiration.  I submitted a panel topic for the 2010 SXSW conference on how Sci-Fi has shaped our interent experience and what better way to pitch this then by going old school!  Hitchcock’s series started in 1955 and I found it funny how he would make jokes about the sponsors.  As the show moved on, he mentioned the sponsors less so that has inspired me to do an upcoming series of pitches to some of my favorite companies on the web like Timebridge, Zendesk, Eventbrite, Harvest, Techsmith, Mozy and Moo on how I can connect with them to promote their awesome products.

This has been a long time coming to change the theme. My blog turned one year old in May and was hoping to launch a belated birthday blog gift of a new theme…but…the person working on it is still…working on it.

(I made this screenshot using Snagit from Techsmith)

So I decided to boldly head out and find something that will work for me functionally and visually. Both Robert Scoble and Brian Gardner have changed themes on a regular basis, providing blogging commentary about their decisions so I’m in good company.

Love it?
Hate it?
Let me know!

I did bring back the blogroll which has been missing since March or April. There simply wasn’t any more room on the right sidebar for it…until now!

Feedback for Google Voice

Okay, I had my Grand Central account since 2007 and eagerly awaited Google Voice like everyone else. Well, now that I’ve been using it a couple of months, I see some improvements that could be made:

• Google Apps tied to Google Voice account
• Reply to emails with a Google Voice message
• Send Google Voice notes directly to other users
• Google Voice directory (opt-in or course!)
• Bring back Voicemail for the homeless

Things I Like About Google Voice vs Old Grand Central Service

• Multiple greetings
• iPhone App GV Mobile (gizmodo review)

Social Giving

I would really like to see Google bring back voicemail accounts for people who are homeless or in transistional housing like Grand Central used to offer.  The current offerings to provide voicemail numbers to people is sorely lacking.  Here in Minnesota, people who are homeless get numbers that they must keep calling into or they risk losing the mailbox.  Michael Arrington over at Techcrunch poked fun of this offering, dismissing it as marketing hype.

The Story of Shawn

What I do know is that I had an A+ Hardware Certification student named Shawn Stokes.  He was a war vet and had vision and hearing issues.  He came to the class in hopes of earning his A+ certification so he could get a job…that got him off the streets.

I didn’t know he was homeless at first but after awhile, it became obvious there was something going on with Shawn.  His clothes weren’t always clean, he brought a large bag to class and often it looked like he could use a shave.  Eventually, some of the other adult students began to give Shawn rides and told me he was staying at a homeless shelter about 2 miles away.   I told the program managers that on the days Shawn couldn’t get a ride, he was walking those 2 miles in the middle of a Minnesota winter.  I asked for bus passes.  I won’t go into the shortcomings of the program as to why they couldn’t/didn’t/wouldn’t provide any.

Even though he was homeless, Shawn had the best attendence over an 8 week period!  Shawn was also the first person who was homeless I ever loaned money to for a laptop…and got it all back.  He really changed my thoughts on how homeless people were.  I also gave Shawn rides and was happy to see the classroom of students coming together to help one another.

I kept in touch with Shawn and other students, letting them know if they needed help, I was always here.  You know how I am!

Shawn got back in touch with me the summer of 2007.  He had now been homeless for about a year (he lost his housing approx 4 months before he started the A+ class January 2007).  I set to work to ask Shawn if he wanted my help to find housing, get a job and medical attention for his various ailments.  He said yes so we set out to get him going!

Of coure, one of the first things was communication.  We got him a @gmail.com account and ditched his yahoo.  Next, I wanted to get him a voicemail number and kept saying, “Google is getting really close to reopening up the program, just wait” (geeze was I wrong).  We talked about his challenges with getting help from the VA Veteran’s hospital, seeing his parole officer (long story), getting around on the bus, how his laptop was stolen at the shelter, his upcoming surgery and so on.  I was able to get him a 30 day stay at a local shelter which lifted his spirits…at least for a while.  The first thing he said was, “Adria, they give us breakfast here!”

Thank you to Bob Bono of Alliance Housing for pointing me to St. Steven’s shelter!

Please Bring Back Free Voicemail For People Who Are Homeless

So back to Grand Central, Shawn had trouble hearing so using the phone was tough.  Each day he had to try and find a phone he could use which ment a lot of walking.  Each phone was different so sometimes he could hear better and sometimes not.  He became frustated, thinking he would never find a job or get housing.  I did my best to help keep his spirits up.

I wish Shawn had been able to have a reliable voicemail number to relieve some of the stress he had while trying to stay stafe and find a place to call his own.

Twice a year, I volunteer for Project Homeless Connect Minneapolis.  It’s a large, one day event that happens all over the US.  It’s an all volunteer nonprofit.  People come in, are greeted and have a “helper” for the day to assist them in getting around to the different services offered including

• Legal services
• Haircuts
• Housing
• Veteran’s Benefits
• Internet Cafe (where I volunteer!)
• Voicemail service
• and much, much more!

Main website:  Project Homeless Connect Minneapolis

This is where I mentioned that the existing voicemail service offered to folks is substandard.  The people at the agency, Community Voicemail,  are doing their best but compared to Google Voice, it’s skimpy.

Post from Official Google blog 8/29/2007

For homeless people and others in need, not having a stable phone number can be crippling: you need one to follow up on medical appointments, keep in touch with friends and loved ones, and hear back from prospective employers.

When we acquired GrandCentral Communications last month, we were pleased to embrace their Project CARE initiative, which provides a permanent local phone number and unlimited voicemail service to people who need a way to stay connected.

GrandCentral has been operating Project CARE (”Communications and Respect for Everybody”) since April 2006, and with the help of more than 20 community outreach partnershas provided more than 5,000 phone numbers and served close to 100,000 voicemail messages to homeless and needy people in the Bay Area. Someone calling a number from Project CARE will have the same experience as someone calling a standard phone number, and voicemail messages can be stored as long as they’re needed.

Audio Recording

This was recorded using the iPhone 3G S!

NOTE: I stand up and go around the room passing out books in the beginning so it will be quiet at first.

Recommended Reading

The books I handed out helped to shape my career. I will be doing reviews of these powerful books at adriarichards.com this summer for:

• Outliers
• Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation–and Positive Strategies for Change
• The Four Hour Work Week
• Get Clients Now!: A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals, Consultants, and Coaches
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity
• Secrets of Six Figure Women: Surprising Strategies to Up Your Earnings and Change Your Life

I won the iPhone the day it came out (June 19th, 2009) at the Blogging While Brown conference in Chicago, IL! They had a drawing that Friday night which was sponsored by ATT.

About 40 people attended the welcome reception event. How did I end up winning? Well, besides my skills at folding contest entries, I attribute this stroke of luck to The Law of Attraction. The movie, “The Secret” explains how if you focus on something you want, the Universe will bring it to you. I first watched this movie in 2006 and it changed my life.

Ok, back to the day’s events that lead up to the win. I didn’t really ever like socializing in the past. May 2009 had been quite a social butterfly month for Adria here! With all the attention I’d received in March on the Norm Coleman database leak, I was trying to adjust to this more “social” lifestyle by going out and doing stuff vs sitting at my desk geeking out.

I left for the airport with plenty of time. I arrived into Chicago late that day due to delays from bad weather at O’Hare. I’d planned to be at my hotel by 2pm for a short nap but didn’t arrive until 5pm. I really wasn’t going to go to this reception/welcome thing thinking, “Why would I want to go talk with a bunch of people I don’t know and stand around feeling uncomfortable”? I realized that was the old me talking and I had a good reason to go. Meet new and interesting people like myself!

I tweeted I was getting ready to head over (a good thing to do to connect with folks attending the same conference) and dragged myself out of the hotel room. As soon as I got to the University Conference Center, there was this sort of “energy” I felt and went right up and started talking with people, learning their names, listening, talking and making jokes!

As we went in, there was a table with a drawing and signup sheet. I didn’t know what the drawing was for but you know how you just sign up because everyone else is? The gal behind me said, “Oh, I never win anything” and I told her if she said stuff like that, it would be true (The Law of Attraction). I filled out my slip and did my “special fold”; my mom said my dad used to win a lot of contests by folding up his entries in a certain way so they “popped” and rose to the top. I’d never actually seen my dad do this but have always folded entries in a way I imagined he would.

Anyway, I had a great time! I played in the spades tournament. Nyasha was my partner and we were cleaning up until…well…that’s for another post about our historic loss against Sean and Syleva!

It turned out the food was pretty good too!

As we were all chatting away, exchanging ideas and getting to know each other, they had the drawing. The first few people they called were either speakers or like Freddy O, the photographer…part of the conference so they weren’t eligible to win. Then they called my name! Yes! My name! I realized this was huge!

I got up, with my chair in hand and ran around the front of the conference area! I was soooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo excited I’d won that I wanted to make sure I was very clear about how this made me feel! I did a few 360’s, making sure to not hit anyone in the head and finally lifted the chair over my head! I had been planning to buy an iPhone 3G S based on @OhDoctah’s advice to hold off and wait until June.

I was quite happy! It turns out they still needed to get the iPhone and send it to me. This turned into about 2 weeks of waiting The good news is that it just arrived today and I’m floating I would like to thank ATT and VOX for putting up an iPhone as a prize.

So folks, keep a positive note about what you want in life, focus on it and look for opportunities that can turn your goals into realities!

I have a great update to share!  Due to your help submitting Google Adsense Abuse reports, the site QuickPwn.com has redone their website so it’s no longer plastered with ads.

Make Note!

The Real iPhone Development Team Is Located At http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

• Yellowsn0w
• QuickPwn
• Ultrasn0w
• Redsn0w

QuickPwn.com is not run by the REAL jailbreak software development team

• No Software Development
• No Support for Jailbreaking
• Domain Squatters

I created a video to show you the improvements.  They are still squatting on the domain and getting paid $$$ for advertising clickthroughs but at least it’s not so blatently obvious:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Busted!

Search engine results now call out Quickpwn.com directly (7/6/2009)