I had seen this happening at twitter since the early days, people paying money for “friends” and followers. And of course I thought to myself, “what a worthless load of crap!”

Hey, if you are paying for friends, let me ask you something. Back when you were a loser in school, did you pay for friends then? Did they really like you?

You see, if you need to pay someone to follow you on any social network, they don’t really care what you are saying. The beauty of the social networks is that the people who follow you actually care! They are customers and clients, not sales people providing a service.

As far as I am concerned, taking money for following and friending people is another incarnation of the world’s oldest profession.

What really bothers me is that it is dishonest. There was once a time when you could determine the social value of a site, profile or page by how many friends and followers there were. No longer. Now the only thing that says is that they have deep pockets.

These people taking money for extending the social graph are pimps. The followers you gain are their whores. The red light district always becomes seedy and run down pretty soon after these folks move in.

Facebook, Digg, twitter, and the others can try their very best to police this, but you and I need to take an active interest in our communities and take the following steps.

1. Never take cash for your social friendship
2. Immediately unfollow anyone you suspect of paying for friends
3. Immediately unfollow anyone you suspect of selling their friendship
4. report every solicitation to the authorities as spam

If we work together we can save our communities from becoming a bunch of whore houses.

However, there are some people who probably don’t need one.  Here are a few reasons you might not need one.

1 – If you believe everything you read, you probably don’t need a computer.

Let me break it down for you.  Ever since Gutenburg created the printing press, morons have been able to disseminate information rapidly.  I could point to examples, but it would pretty much offend everyone.  Because you all have certain news outlets that you like.  They are all liars.  Most things in print are created by people with a bias in one direction or another.

The internet made it even worse.  Why? Because any yahoo could create a password and start spewing out idiocy.

You doubt me?  I won’t link to them, but try out a search for “American Nazi” or even “Earn Money online” if you would like to see the spewing forth of the fingers of morons.

If that fails, try a search for “fox.”

2 – If you think whatever Twitter is, it might be illegal in some states, you probably don’t need a computer.

Oh My Gosh!  Twitter has taken off in the last year.  I realize that with the way things change, by the time I hit publish, twitter could be irrelevant, but right now it is the thing.  And so many people don’t have a clue what it is, or why they need to use it!

Ok let me break it down like this.  If you would like to keep in touch with anyone, or expand your reach beyond your own nose, you need twitter.

I just walked into a restaurant in a brand new town and shook hands with the owner of cosmic kitchen because I follow their account on twitter.  I felt like I knew the guy.  Instant connection.

If you would like that or if you think it might be beneficial to your business, how about get on board and figure it out.

You can read more about twitter if it helps.

3 – If you didn’t know google was a verb, you probably don’t need a computer.

Yes, I realize that Google is the large multi-national corporation that runs the world in every futuristic movie ever made.  (Really it is… you wait… and now it’s in print).  But for now, it is incredibly useful.

Still wonder what twitter is for?  Why not type in “what is twitter for” in google.  That is called googling.  It can answer most of your questions.

4 – If you really believe you can protect your Privacy, you probably don’t need a computer.

If I had a nickel for everyone who asked me if it was really safe to reveal your identity online, I would buy an island and retire.  Of course its not safe! But it doesn’t matter.

Your information is connected to servers all over the world.  Some fake prince in Nigeria is probably checking your credit right now.

I got an email as I was writing this from Land of Nod.  They said they had some nice new gifts for my brand new baby.  Let me ask you something?  Do you think I told them I was having a baby? NO!  They got it from some marketing list someplace, probably sold to them by the hospital my little girl was born in.  Privacy is dead.

By the way, smile every time you pass a stop light.

5 – If you spell website with a “gh,” you probably don’t need a computer.

I mean, I honestly just don’t know what else to say about that.  Web Sight? …  really?

So If any of these points apply to you, how about do me a favor and ship your PC to me.  I will be happy to take it off your hands.

Seriously though, if you have problems or are learning about these things, refer to point three above and go google it.

You  like this?  Subscribe for more.  And then Share it below.

Now that I have inundated you with that information, I want you to reflect with me for a few minutes on why that whole experience was important.

On this blog, I often play the role of a snarky rude jerk, but if you know me you will understand that I really do care about you and want you to be successful in life.

I recently had a conversation with someone who is simply not doing the things necessary to succeed in business.  As I began to challenge and ask the hard questions, I discovered that this person has been giving away their time to two different friends who are dying of cancer.  One of them died a few days ago.

Of course, at that point I said something to the effect of  “business should never get in the way of life.”

I believe that.  I hear people sometimes say “life just gets in the way.”  The best response (which I can publish) is, “hold on a second there cowboy!”

What do you mean life gets in the way? Have you lost your mind?  Life is all there is! And it will soon be gone, so don’t blow it in a vain effort of attaining success.

Life Matters

You will probably recognize the painting below.  The Persistence of Memory was painted in 1932 by Salvador Dali.

If you really think about it, you will notice that time seems to be melting away.  There are ants eating one of the clocks.  The monstrous, rotting carcass in the center is Dali himself, yet the cliffs stand firm despite the collapse around them.

I once read a quote that went something to the effect of “no man has a right to pass through the world without leaving behind some reason for having passed through it.”

Sooner than any of us think, we will be gone.  We can and should learn ways to manage our time well, not so that we can get rich or be famous, rather so we can leave a good reason for having lived.

I hope that as you practice time management you will keep that in mind.

Life is wonderful. Stop and smell the flowers.  Enjoy your family and friends and have a glass of red wine.  I am convinced that red wine is one of the best medicines known to man, with beer running a close second.  Make sure you arrange your schedule to allow you to enjoy life, rather than allow your schedule to master you.

There are indeed multiple options for this sort of thing, you might use google docs, one of the most popular is evernote.  Evernote is a nice option for online notebooks, but springpad is bigger, stronger and meaner.  So don’t screw around with it.

SpringPad Notebooks

SpringPad allows for multiple notebooks. You can see above that I have notebooks dedicated to different projects that I work on.  I even have a notebook where I can put down books I want to read.  (feel free to buy me one).

Not only can you put in todo items, simple things to remember, jot notes or ideas to follow up on later.  You can also create events, with times and dates.  There is also a simple way to export these into your google calendar.  YAY!

So for instance, I can easily turn to springpad when I am planning or thinking through things.  I can click and drag ideas from the “to be filed” pad into their appropriate place.  Then I can look over my notes, plan and add events or important tasks that need to be scheduled for a time or day.  These will then show up in my Google calendar!

You can also Share items with the world via facebook and twitter, or you can share with other springpad users.  Need to communicate better with co-workers?  How about a spouse?  SpringPad will help!

There is also this cool little bookmarklet that allows you to highlight from any website, then create a springpad with the highlighted text! See a news article?  a cool quote you want to save?  A recipe?  highlight and click!

This is freaking awesome stuff.

I know some of you are thinking, “what is google calendar.”  And I know that people will email me asking why this springpad thing is so important.  So let me break it down for you.

What’s the Big Deal

We live in a hectic cultural moment.  No time before in history have so many demands been placed on people to produce so much and multitask so efficiently.  It’s absolutely insane if you think about it.

If you are running a business, volunteering in a social organization or church, raising kids, cooking dinner, attending soccer, tennis and football games; then your life is simply not the way it is supposed to be.  I realize that that might be the way it has to be right now, I am an webpreneur, and a church planter for Pete’s sake, you don’t think I feel a bit schizophrenic sometimes?

But Springpad can help.  Springpad lets you organize and manage your time very effectively.  And by the way google calendar?  If you aren’t using it, you probably aren’t being very efficient with your time.  Yes there are options.  But shut up and try google huh?

Here is a great little video intro about springpad.  If the beauty and simplicity doesn’t make you salivate, then the restaurant options they demonstrate will.

If you had several projects running, with a variety of teams working on several different tasks then hitask would be an almost essential tool to keep handy.  You can click and drag events and tasks in order to assign them to different team members.   Plus, its hot!  I love the design! Check it out!

No kidding, If I used hitask on a regular basis, I think I would have a better day.  Really!  Looking at this just brings calm to my chaos.

But alas, I don’t use it on a regular basis and let me tell you why.

Why I Don’t Use Hitask

If I used everything just because I thought it was hot, it would cause me a great deal of agony in life.  hitask is one of those things that while being Hot, is not really all that deep.

Here is the main reason.

While you can import calendar and tasks from hitask TO say google calendar (which I cannot be torn away from), I couldn’t seem to find a way to go the other direction.  In a perfect world, it would be possible to bring things into hitask, edit, overwrite, rearrange and assign and then send them back out to google calendar.

If I didn’t already use gcal, I would be all over it. It is gorgeous, streamlined, easy to use and I think has the ability to increase your productivity by not making you juggle your schedule and tasks list.

It’s definitely recommended, but not if you love your Gcal.

Here is the link again if you want to check it out – hitask.

Todoist is a web application.  In order to understand what that means, make sure you read about cloud computing.

Three main advantages of using todoist.

First of all, its a to do list! A to do list is an important thing.  If you are going to be successful at running an online business you need some sort of a system where you can quickly add items that need to be done.  You see, information comes at us these days like a shotgun.  Once upon a time, you needed to wait on the Us Postal Service (which we all know can be like waiting for a healthy three year old to die of emphysema).

For example, right now I have my friend feed running and information is hitting me instantly as people post it. Occasionally, there might be a bit of this information I need to follow up on.  Maybe I am made aware of something I need to look into further.  Whatever the task I need to perform, I obviously can’t perform it right now because I am in the middle of writing.  Who wants to be interrupted when you are int he middle of writing?

So, this leads us to the second big advantage of todoist. A Firefox Sidebar.

Check this puppy out! As you can tell, if you look closely, I am way behind on writing this post.  Moving and changing my life all around has been difficult on my time, but now it’s time to get back on the wagon.

The Third big advantage is that you can have multiple projects running and add tasks to whichever project you would like to. The name of the project you are viewing is “blog posts.”  I use this so that when I think of a great topic to write on, or even find a link to help me create a new post.  I can add a link right into my todo list.  If I am at a site, all I need to do is hit the add link button.

Todoist also gives you a full view of all tasks by date or by priority I like this because I can get a comprehensive list of everything I need to do today, tomorrow or last week and in the order of importance.  This has been especially helpful for me over the last week as I have played catch up.

The way todoist operates it works best with my work style.  How about you?  So far have you found a time management tool you like best?

Pros:

RTM, As its affectionately called by those who use it has several great features.

• RTM lets you easily add tasks and then receive reminders either by text message, Instant message or email. If you have a good data plan with your phone service this is great!
• You can add tasks to any number of categories, or lists as RTM calls them.
• A handy Search Feature so you can try to figure out when the heck you are supposed to fill out the TPS report. (that’s RTM’s sense of humor, not mine), and if you don’t know what a TPS report is, you should dance a jig and then watch Office Space.
• Because RTM is “in the Cloud” you can access it from anywhere, laptop, home, office, cell, whatever – and no need to sync!

RTM is a great app that is handy for managing your todo list. If you are on the go a lot, then it’s one of the best. We will also explore some others that work well in the cloud, but RTM is a good one.

Plus its really fun to use, what with the Cow logo and all. Check it out right away and see if it works for you. Or wait till tomorrow when we will address my personal favorite. Todoist.

So, before the torture began, I was talking about time management. And since I have taken a couple weeks off, I think its time we get back to that topic. As if I have any credibility left.

Now you might remember that we talked about cloud computing. This is important because most of the time management tools we are about to discuss will be in the cloud. Nobody uses Outlook anymore. Well, I suppose some people do, but it’s only because they are unaware of the glories of managing your time in the cloud.

So subscribe to the posts and over the next few days, return here so you can learn about remember the milk, Todoist, hitask, and Springpad.

One post a day the rest of this week.

The Bing craze is slowing down now and people aren’t talking about it as much as they were.  So now it’s time I had my say.

I am going to go ahead and tell you that I like Google. Very few companies will ever win my loyalty.  Google has done well for me and they have mine.  But of course, I have to play around a little bit with every new toy.  I don’t care who makes it (even Microsoft).  And I played around a little bit with Bing when the noise started.

Here is what I think

I think Bing will be about like every other release by Microsoft (except for maybe win 3.1, 95 and XP);  heavily touted, billions spent on marketing, and then not really survive.

Let’s face it, MS has a couple products that have survived but the majority just aggravate people.  Can anyone say Millenium? Or would you prefer to say Vista?

And who needs a freaking Decision Engine? Do you really want some techy lab idiot who is so busy programming algorithms that he can’t find a date to make decisions for you about what you really wanted when you typed in “grandma riding a horse.”  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

And what is all this they keep saying about search overload?  Have you seen these ads?  They make it look like when you use Google you just can’t sort through the overwhelming amount of information.

Seriously? Have you ever felt overwhelmed when you googled?  If you have, perhaps it was time for a xanax.

No, I think I will remain loyal to Google.  I will say though, that I do like the random image that bing offers on the home page.  It is fun to waste a little time learning about something new by scrolling over the areas of the image.

Thing is though, when I am really in search mode, the last thing I need is another distraction.

Sorry Bing, you look cool, but you don’t get my vote.

Now, before I get going, you should know that I am in the middle of a series on Time Management.  But I realized that I really needed to discuss cloud computing to make some of the concepts that are coming up make sense.  So if you are following that conversation, this is highly relevant!

The Story

There used to be this period in history when people wrote things down on paper.  These barbarians kept file cabinets in the corner of their offices in order to store these ancient documents in case they needed to refer to them again.

Along came computers.  Some people had a hard time moving into this era.  Some of these people, resistant to change, continued to use paper files by using the “print” button in a repeatedly random fashion.  These was no real reason to do this.  With the advent of computers, file cabinets were moved onto the physical drive of the computer.  Thousands more documents could fit there than ever would have made it into all the file cabinets in all the offices in all the world!

Those stubborn folks who kept using the , they just never came to understand the benefits of computer storage files.

Well, they missed out on that wave, and now the computer era is gone as well.

Enter Cloud Computing

You may have heard this term before.  Instead of managing your file cabinet and all your documents on your actual computer, you use the Internet.  All your files are out there in the ether of the world between the worlds.  Your calendar, to do lists, journal, all your documents and spreadsheets.  EVERYTHING, is out there in the world of the Internet.

Now I realize that this might be scary to you.  If this idea frightens you, then, well… keep using the little .

Cars scared people too. Today, their ancestors are called Amish.

So if you want your great grandchildren to speak in a funny accent and carry file cabinets on their backs every where they go while their peers are carrying around a tiny device that takes notes, writes papers, and makes mint mojitos – then you just go ahead and stay afraid.  Otherwise, join the cloud computing era and leave the old world behind.