The new site is now located at: http://wunschlawfirm.com

Thank you.

Update 6-25-2010

The site is finished. Check it out with the link below and leave your comments.

North Carolina Attorney

Heidi Drecksler

Guest column by Heidi Drecksler about building quality professional relationships.

After a plethora of diverse experiences pertaining to my career, I have compiled some words of wisdom to help others along their path. Enjoy the following:

HEIDI’S PRACTICAL BUSINESS TIPS:

1) Do not deal with people who are opposed to leaving messages. I have learned this from experience. Ethical business professionals are perfectly comfortable sending detailed emails and voicemails. A person with nothing to hide will not be worried about having legal evidence of their communication with you. This seems obvious, but I’ve been shocked by those who claim to be substantial businesspeople and turn out to have skeletons in their closet when I question their unprofessional tendency of contacting me and not leaving a message. Most people have such busy lives and differing schedules, that texts, emails, and voicemails are a common & primary way of delivering important information. Anyone who is against leaving messages should be labeled with a Red Flag in your rolodex of associates.

2) Avoid those who bring prior experiences into their professional relationship with you. Recently I spoke to a businessman whose stress level was off the charts. He had never met me, nor done business with me, and yet decided it was acceptable to speak to me in a condescending, arrogant manner, interrupting me frequently. The person was riddled with baggage on every level. As a spiritual intuitive, I realized that nothing good would develop with this person, as he was communicating from a place of unresolved pain and self centeredness. As with any area of life (from friendships to major business deals) be sure the people in your circle have released their energetic and emotional blockages, so that your time with them will be as positive and productive as possible.

3) When dealing with other businesspeople, take account of their behavior and accomplishments. What is their reputation in the community? Do they generate large profits but leave an unpleasant impression at networking events? Check to see if their words and actions are aligned. Are there contradictions between what they report to you, and what their actual results look like? I have dealt with many “sweet talkers” who have impeccable presentation, but not much substance to fall back on when it’s time to make things happen. Be discerning and don’t hesitate to check their professional history. The last thing you want is to sign papers with someone who isn’t really what they claim to be.

4) My motto is: If you cannot be kind, conscious, and respectful, you will NOT have a working relationship with me. The best and longest lasting connections are those that are transparent and loving. Indeed, this is simple common sense, but recently, I’ve been surprised and turned off by the level of selfishness and secretiveness that exists in the business world. When dealing with someone directly, attitude & personality are as important as being able to produce major revenue. Otherwise, you may see your numbers grow, but you are unlikely to achieve longevity. From the onset, review your compatibility with an associate or colleague before making anything official.

With musicians in the family and friends in the music business, I am a big promoter of musicians getting paid. But things are changing and it’s up to the music business to figure out how to deal with what’s happening–not me. It doesn’t take a million dollars to make a hit record anymore. That and the fact that the web is the number one way to view media creates opportunities like never before to “make it” in the music business. It’s a matter of relearning what it means to make it and capturing new ways of creating revenue from your online presence. But that’s a different article entirely.

This article is about how to download big things on the Internet. I neither promote nor discourage downloading material that is copyright. Just know before you do that it’s illegal and you could owe a lot of money. It’s important you know how to download and open torrent files. If you distribute free content from your website, consider the option of creating a torrent to save money on bandwidth usage.

First you need a BitTorrent client to open the special torrent files. I recommend uTorrent which is the best and coincidentally the first BitTorrent client. Use that link to download it free now, then install and open. Set uTorrent as your default torrent program and choose the default settings to continue.

After you’ve installed the software, you just need something to download. Visit http://thepiratebay.org and do a search. If you can’t think of anything legal to download, search for mike posner and download his free mixtape. If you like his music, check out his video webisodes at JustinHantz.com

Mike Posner Torrent Search Results

Notice the green skull which means it’s from a trusted source. Click the down arrow or the torrent name “Clinton_Sparks_Presents…” to read the comments and download the file. Sometimes the comments will tell you that a track is missing or that there is a potential virus (for software) so they are important to read.

Click DOWNLOAD THIS TORRENT in green and the file downloads instantly. The torrent file itself is relatively small. It merely tells your torrent client (uTorrent) what to do.

Download Mike Posner Free Mixtape

Hopefully uTorrent is set as your default torrent client so when you click on the file you just downloaded, it should open in uTorrent and give you the following options.

uTorrent Popup

This screen is showing you all the files in the download including the mp3 files and album artwork. Click OK to continue. This is where the actual downloading begins. You are downloading bits and pieces of the files from a large collection of people, or seeders.

Seeds

Notice from your search results earlier that this album has 22 seeders (SE) which means 22 people are uploading that file. In most cases, the more seeders, the faster the download. LE means leechers which are how many people are downloading that album currently but not contributing to the upload. You actually upload parts of the album to other people while you are downloading it.

You can see the progress by clicking on Files in uTorrent. You will see something like this.

uTorrent File Bits

This shows which songs I’ve already finished downloading (for the impatient who have to play them immediately) and how much I have left.

Now that my torrent has finished downloading, I look in the folder where my downloads normally appear on my computer and there it is! A folder with all the mp3 files and album artwork that I approved for download earlier.

Using torrent files are very easy with those two steps. I hope this article creates some new excitement in your web-life.

Notes:

*In the first paragraph of this article in the expression “places to buy it,” I referred to websites as “places”. I decided to leave it because it’s interesting to me that I consider websites like Amazon, eBay, and even Facebook a place I can visit. In my opinion, successful online businesses accomplish this feeling and yours should too, most importantly if you’re selling something. You want your customers to feel like they just walked into your online store.

Did you know that you can sell t-shirts and other merchandise one at a time, no startup costs, at places like CafePress and Printfection? I have accounts with both of these sites but have never developed anything. I just wanted to learn how to use them so when I meet someone with a good idea, they’d be in business. Printfection has a $2 t-shirt promo so you can see how quality they are. If you felt like making one custom t-shirt for yourself for $2 it’s a great idea even if you didn’t plan on opening a store.

Well it turns out, I wasn’t too far off with this theory. Google’s new SPDY protocol is enough for me to say “I told you so!” Whether or not SPDY becomes the new HTTP is questionable; but Google’s “Let’s make the web faster” campaign is on the right track. Let me explain in the easiest way I can.

When the HTTP web protocol was developed, no-one could predict how fast the Internet would grow. The types of applications or webpages built in 1996 are incredibly different than now.

The web runs on TCP/IP and HTTP protocols. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) allows applications, like websites, to communicate with each other. It was developed in the 1970’s as an improvement to Network Control Protocol (NCP) that was used with DARPAnet, the original Intranet created for the government. Internet Protocol (IP) deals with the routing and delivery of applications. Lost yet? Keep reading it gets simpler.

HTTP’s primary job is to send requests and responses via TCP. This process allows us to visit websites, upload, download, etc. If TCP are train tracks, IP is the train, then HTTP is the ticket booth. It is where we request to visit a place and receive a response on whether or not we can get there.

The downfalls of HTTP are that only one request at a time can be processed. Browsers have adapted to that problem by allowing up to 6 connections per domain at a time but the fundamental obstacle still exists. Also, the client (web surfer) can only request information from the server. The server cannot send the client information even if it knows they need it. The server must wait for a response or request from the user. Both these obstacles lead to a delay in processing and sending data. This delay is called latency.

Wikipedia explains web latency more technically:

Latency is the delay between the initiation of a network transmission by a sender and the receipt of that transmission by a receiver. In a two-way communication, it may be measured as the time from the transmission of a request for a message, to the time when the message is successfully received by the requester.

One of the goals of Google SPDY is to decrease latency by 50%, which means faster page loading. In their controlled testing, Google has been able to reach that goal.

To minimize problems with deploying SPDY, they’ve built the protocol to run on existing TCP. In other words, we’ll still be using the same train and tracks, but the customer service at the ticket booth will increase which makes the whole travel process quicker. The only difference will be that we will need a browser, like Chrome, and a server that runs on SPDY.

Understand that this is just the beginning–the tip of the iceberg. Why stop at improving HTTP? Why not rebuild the entire TCP/IP structure. It will happen in time. Google is smart to work in stages and it makes sense for new technology to work with existing in order for the general masses to affordably adapt.

Google’s SPDY is not the first attempt to revolutionize HTTP. A few examples of previously started projects are SCTP, SST, MUX, and SMUX.

SPDY is open-source and the code will be released by Google in 2010 for developer improvement.

Think about any spy or government movie where the characters are accessing classified government data at lightning speeds using a streamlined interface you’ve never seen before. My first thought was always “Yeah right!” but in another decade, the technology in movies today will seem as outdated as say.. the world wide web.

Who else has Google Wave invitations? I was given 20 Invitations and I immediately sent out 3 but the people I invited haven’t received theirs yet. (11/06/2009 Edit: Took 2 days for the first 3 invites to send.) Wave is no fun without other people to talk to. Immediately after thinking that I see my first message on Wave from the Google Team.

Google Wave is more fun when you have others to wave with, so please nominate people you would like to add. Keep in mind that this is a preview so it could be a bit rocky at times.

Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.

Happy waving!

If you’ve already gotten your Invitation from Google Wave let me know. If you want an invitation to Google Wave, shoot me an e-mail at pauldrecksler@gmail.com –I’ve got 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10  left.

Additional Wave Resources:

Wikipedia – Google Wave

About Google Wave

The news: Bing signs deals with Twitter & Facebook to insta-index status updates. Google signs similar deal with Twitter, and unconfirmed sources say a similar Google/Facebook deal is in the works.  Here is a link to Google’s announcement straight from the mouth of Google VP of Search Products, Marissa Mayer.

The scandal: This is the first time search data will be available on Microsoft and not Google first. Granted, not for long, but given Facebook’s 300+ million users versus Twitter’s 54 million, will people be switching to Bing search in the interim? The answer to that question largely depends on just how well the service works. Think about your own searching habits—how often are you searching for things that are happening… now!

How does this affect my business?

Well if you’ve never jumped on the Twitter train—now’s the time to do it. The truth is, even for companies like Google and Microsoft, it will still be some time before they learn how to manage the 60+million status updates per day. Search as we know it has evolved over years. Google Social Graph API and Bing are now taking the idea of search relevancy a few steps further.

In the meantime, use this transition in SEO evolution to your benefit. Start (or re-start) your businesses Twitter campaign with a formulated attack. Jump to the top of search engines using Twitter in a matter of days instead of months with organic placement tactics. Now I’m not saying, ignore the other 100 fundamentals of SEO—but I am saying to ride this wave now. You’re too late to be considered a Twitter Early Adopter but right on time to use Twitter as one of the best marketing and SEO tools for your business.

For help with your Twitter campaign call me at 828.273.3031

Lastly here is a video from Google about their Social Search API.

YouTube converts multiple supported video upload formats to Flash (FLV) for ease of viewing. If you were able to download videos directly from YouTube, they would come in a variety of formats. Consumers often complain about having to keep multiple Media Players on their computer to accommodate these different formats (ie: MPEG-4, MOV, AVI, QT, WMV – to name a few). I use VLC Media Player as my default and rarely come across a format it can’t play.

Different video formats–no big deal, right? No, not for the average web user. But as broadband speed increases at home, work, and on wireless devices, more businesses and publications are utilizing video on their sites and the impact will become more significant. In an article called “OpenTube” published in the Sep/Oct 2009 issue of MIT’s Technology Review, David Talbot discusses open-video and the effects it could have on the future of the Internet.

A fundamental part of the Internet’s success has been the ability to use programming languages and photo formats that were open to the public and free to use. For example, HTML, Javascript, JPGs, GIFs–all make it possible for websites and bloggers to easily publish content available to anyone.

A similar transformation of video would not just allow trouble-free playback of any video you might encounter. It would also mean that any innovation, such as a new way to search, would apply to all videos, allowing new technologies to spread more rapidly. And it would make it far easier to mix videos together and create Web links to specific moments in different videos, just as if they were words and sentences plucked from disparate online text sources: imagine linking part of a politician’s speech to a contradictory utterance years earlier.

Some of the technologies are awesome–There is already technology that lets you search video by speech or even by face recognition. Blinkx has been the forerunner of this technology since 2004, but other companies are in hot pursuit of developing better technologies. This is where open-video online can really help expedite these technologies as Talbot’s article explains below.

The idea is that you’ll be able to search the Web for snippets of video, import them into a Wikipedia article, and keep track of edits–all using open technologies that don’t require video plug-ins or software purchases. One hope is that Wikipedia, as the world’s seventh-largest website, will help drive video openness generally, says Chris Blizzard, director of technical evangelism at Mozilla, which is supporting the project.

The future of the Internet is a debatable series of topics with too many variables to really predict. Open-anything online is popular because it leads to new technological developments. However, lets not forget that we’ve made it this far with companies like Microsoft keeping their source code closed. Microsoft spends a ridiculous amount of money on research and development–money that was made from licensing their proprietary software. Although open-source would financially benefit consumers and computer manufacturers (who spend the most money on operating system licensing fees annually), the money for R&D ultimately has to come from somewhere.

Granted, Google is making a fortune in online advertising revenues, but can they sustain technological growth at the rate we’ve become accustomed to? A common complaint with working at Google is that it takes too long for new ideas to climb the bureaucratic ladder before they come into fruition–comparably speaking to say, Facebook, which operates from one office in Palo Alto, CA. Facebook is notoriously quicker at implementing changes and new features than Google.

Moving in an open-direction with web video could inevitably prevent the type of format wars we’ve witnessed in the past. (VHS vs Betamax, DAT vs DCC vs MiniDisc, and most recently BlueRay vs HD-DVD) which no-one can deny, these format wars impact consumers the most.

What are your thoughts on open source video?

Is technological advancement worth something to you? If so, whose wallet should pay for it? Yours? Google’s?

Would you be willing to pay for e-mail access if Internet advertising revenue tanked?

Nothing impresses women more than a man who listens to Italian music. I made that up.