Hands-On-Tech Spot

Why Work For Someone Else?

2010-12-20T17:10:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been really uninterested in working for someone else. I know this seems a bit childish but I really want to quit my job. I know, everyone says that. But I really mean it. I'm tired of using my brain to make someone else literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. So I'm doing it... I'm going to start my own business.

The other day (Friday to be exact) I had a turning point. I listen to lots of podcasts while I'm working and on this particular day they all seemed to have people exactly like me as guests. The big difference is that they all decided to do something about it. One person in particular stood out to me though. Amy Hoy, a prior designer/developer, now is designing, developing and teaching others, and making tons of money doing it. You can check her out at www.unicornfree.com and all kinds of other places.

Go to that link and read through some of her stuff..... go ahead, I'll wait.

I know, a ton of it sounds too good to be true but if you think about it, a lot of what she's saying makes sense especially if you look at the stuff she says about 30/500. Basically, what she's saying is that if you can get 500 people to pay you $30 a month for something, it adds up to be $180,000 a year. Now I know 500 people sound like a ton but look at huge companies like Netflix or Gamefly. They had a service that probably started with only a handful of customers (don't quote me on those companies specifically, but yous should get the idea) and now they have more customers than I could ever imagine having.

I think the idea is to come up with something that solves a problem that you have. A good place to start would be to figure out what the heck is tedious and frustrating where you work. In reality, it can even be something that already has a solution. We're not trying to take every customer Microsoft or Adobe has. We're just trying to get a little piece of the market for ourselves. Even 150 customers at $30 a month is $54,000 a year, which is probably more than what the average entry-level programmer makes.

Even if you're not a programmer, I suggest going to check out her site and a few of her suggested reads. She has some awesome ideas about selling info-products like ebooks and training that anyone can come up with. I think anyone can do this. I know I will.

The Bread Machine...

2010-12-19T22:26:00.000-05:00

So today I bought a bread machine today and I'm all kinds of excited about it. Bread is one of my favorite things so this should be an awesome new adventure. I think this is the one we got: Sunbeam 5891 2-Pound Programmable Breadmaker

But what does this have to do with technology? Everything! I've said that I think technology can make everything easier and that includes cooking. So what's the first thing you need to do when you're going to cook something? Find a recipe! And that's where the tech comes in.

Here are a couple of websites to get you started.

BreadMachineDigest.com - This is a site entireley devoted to bread machines. They've got all kinds of great resources including how to make your first loaf, how to pick a bread maker and a slew of recipes. This looks to be one of the best resources for bread machines out there.

AllRecipes.com - This is the first site that comes up with you search Google for bread machine recipes and it's pretty good. They have a ton of recipes which is great but they also have all kinds of tips and tricks on how to get you started.

Food.com - These guys have a whole bunch of lists including most popular, newest, and highest rated as well as different groups including healthy and easy and quick. Looks to be a great resource.

CooksRecipes.com - This looks to be another site with a whole bunch of recipes. I'm sure there are a bunch of sites just like this out there, but this is probably just as good as the rest. Take a look and see if you can find something good.

These are just a few of the sites out there. If it's not enough you can go to Google and search for "Bread Machine Recipes". As of this post I got 32,700,000 results. If that's not enough, go ahead and return that bread machine.

But what if you just got a new mixer or an ice cream machine? Just hop on over to Google and search for "Mixer Recipes" or "Ice Cream Machine Recipes". You can do that for just about anything you can image and I'll bet you can find just about anything you're looking for.

Got any other sites we should check out? Any questions about this post? Just leave a comment below!

Free Software and Me

2010-12-18T23:25:00.001-05:00

I've got one word to describe why I love free software - cheap. I'm cheap as hell and I don't plan on forking over $50 for software when I can get the same functionality for free. I can't remember the last piece of software I bought at home...

I have a bunch of free things that I use, a lot of them daily. Here are just a couple.

Google Documents - This is Google's version of Microsoft Office and it's a great tool. If you've ever used Office, you can definitely use this. The really great thing about this, besides how easy it is to use is the fact that all your documents are saved "on the cloud". That's a fancy phrase for Google holds on to them. The great thing about that is that you can get to them from any computer with internet access. Don't think that's cool? Keep coming back here... You will.

OpenOffice.org - Despite it's name being a website, it's actually not a website at all. Yes if you go to www.openoffice.org you can get the software, but it's something you need to install on your computer. Anyone think these guys and the Google Documents guys need to have a chat about trading business models? Anyways, this is pretty much a free version of Microsoft Office. It's pretty simple to use too, especially if you've used Microsoft Office before. The only major downfall to this one is that sometimes it saves files in a specific Open Office format if you're not paying attention. (You have to select a more traditional file type to save things as if you want to use it with other programs, which is advisable.)

Music Brainz Picard - This is a great little piece of software I came across recently. It lets you take your music library and adjust the tags on each song to match what the files actually are. This is pretty cool when it comes to putting music on an iPod or some other type of device. It also can help you figure out what you have if you don't know what it is. It basically takes all your music, compares it to info it has in a database and adjusts the tags on the music to match. This is especially helpful for people with huge libraries, as it can save you a ton of time.

Windows Media Player - Why is this one of my favorite pieces of software? Because it's on just about every computer you come across and it does pretty much everything you can do with music. I know there are a ton of other music players out there but are any of them as easy to use or more readily accessible than Windows Media Player. If you only want to learn how to use one media player, this is the one to choose.

Eclipse - Eclipse is a programming environment for Java. If you want to get started programming, this is a great place to start. Java isn't the easiest language in the world, but there are a ton of resources out there that can help you get started. There are all kinds of plug-ins for it too that make it do just about anything you want it to. Very cool if you ask me.

GIMP - No, I'm not making fun if anyone. This is a great image editor that doesn't cost a dime. It does just about everything Photoshop does and there are all kinds of plug-ins for it that make it do all kinds of cool stuff. There's a little bit of a learning curve when you start but that's to be expected with some software. If you're looking for an image editor, this is the one to go with.

Blender - This is 3D modeling software used for all kinds of thing including professional games and movies. The learning curve with this one is huge, but the results are stunning. Go here here to check it out.

This certainly isn't an extensive list, but these are just a few of my favorites. Got any others? Let us know!

Welcome To Hands-On-Tech Spot!

2010-12-18T21:37:00.000-05:00

As the title says, welcome to Hands-On-Tech Spot! I'm excited to share some of my knowledge with you. People are always asking me how to get things done with tech, and I figured it's time to get some of that information out there.

My goal is to teach people how to get things done with technology. I think with the proper training and a little patience, anyone can use a computer to make their lives easier. I'm not talking about converting people to the digital life. I'm talking about taking that person who has a computer, and doesn't have any clue what to do with it and giving them a little guidance. Just like anything else, it all starts with baby steps, and I'm hoping that those steps happen here.

If you have any questions or ideas, leave a comment below! I love helping people, and I'd love to see what people want to know. I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone!