Obstacles Welcome: A Review

// October 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Books, Technology

If you are a tech guy and enjoy business books, this is a pretty good read. I got the book to read and review free through the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers program. I say pretty good because the business book side of it is like many run of the mill business books. The good parts of the book were learning more about Ralph’s story in communist Cuba from the eyes of someone who lived through it in the early days. Don’t be fooled into thinking Castro has the interests of the people at heart. I’m sure Ralph and his family can tell you horror stories if the ones mentioned in the book are any indication.

On the technology front, I was intrigued learning about the AT&T and Cingular merger from the COO’s view. What was accomplished in 15 days from the time of the announcement until the time of launch seemed like an impossibility. Ralph, however, has no clue about the word impossibility means. He just charges ahead and not in a foolish manner. His approach is one you can learn from. So if you want to learn from the someone on the front lines of the technology revolution and the Cuban revolution, give this book a try. If you are interested in purely a good business book by itself, it may not be the best use of your money.

Cirq Media officially launches

// August 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // Technology

It’s a bit past due, but I’m officially announcing my new company: Cirq Media Solutions, LLC. The delay was due to the www.cirqmedia.com website which is now running, though not as full as I’d like. Still, you can get a flair for what we are doing. It is an exciting time. Swing by and take a look. Do you need help with your internet presence?  Questions about how all this stuff works together? Need a site makeover? My team can help it all make sense.

ShareThis, not that

// April 9th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Fun, Technology

Ahhh, the joys of Facebook.  You know, you get all those friends from High School and college wanting to reconnect.  You message back and forth a few times and then get busy with life again.  Well, I got reconnected with Tim Schigel last fall.  He and I were fraternity brothers at Case Western.  We used to play in a band we founded called Skydiver because we actually went skydiving during out first couple weeks of college and couldn’t really think of a better name. We played a lot of Rush classics and other party tunes of the day. We opened for cover bands in the Cleveland area.  Good times… Good times… 20 years ago.

Tim would go on to create ShareThis, a really cool sharing app that actually has some real usefulness outside of just being a fashionable widget.  Me… I would go on to… hmmm… nothing quite so glamorous.

Tim calls me every now and again and tells me that he just met so and so at ESPN or MTV or House of Blues and that they are implementing the ShareThis widget on their site.  I saw the widget appear on FoxNews.com one day and realized he’d made it to the big time.  Tim is one of those humble guys not just chasing a dream but grabbing it by the horns.  He and his family had a nice write up in Family Circle about the trials of running a huge multi-million dollar internet company while trying to keep family a priority. He does both well and because of that Tim is one of my heroes.

So what is ShareThis anyway and why should you care share? ShareThis is more than just an easy way to get social media content from one place to the next.  And if there is one thing that is certain: we are bombarded and overwhelmed with managing the information we see on any given day. ShareThis is like a platform for managing this information you find during your travels online. If you’ve seen the ShareThis icon on a website, that site owner has recognized the benefit to its readers by making the article sharing process a one-click event. In the past, you’d see an article you like and you’d have to copy the URL, paste it into an email, find the person or persons you’d like to send to, and then send it on its way. Or you find something useful for yourself and you’d like to save it to read later. You create a word document or notepad for “useful links” or just bookmark it.  If you are like me the bookmarks on the browser can get large and unorganized quickly.  Or suppose you want to Twitter something useful to your tribe.  There’s a better way.

ShareThis comes in and saves the day by making these multiple keystrokes and clicks a thing of the past.  First, you create a free account. Next you get the widget for your blog (easy with Wordpress).  Next you get the free add-on for your browser of choice.  Then you go have some fun with it.  With Wordpress, it just shows up below each post by default.  The admin area provides customization of location and color themes.  A visitor clicks and sees the following:

As you can see, there are a host of options available to you. From facebook to twitter to email to texting.  And it takes your page info and passes it along automatically when you Send or Post.

One of the neatest features I really like is the ShareBox.  I’m constantly putting articles in there that I want to read later.  These can be shared or deleted directly from within your sharebox after you’ve had a chance to review them.

Curious which pages are being shared the most on your site.  ShareThis provides reporting capabilities of sharing activity on a per page basis.

So, there you have it.  I’m leaving out a whole lot more of what it is capable of.  So why not give it a try.  Just click ShareThis below and see how much fun sharing can be.

Latest Wordpress update is stellar

// December 20th, 2008 // No Comments » // Blog, Technology

Wordpress has had a couple of updates this year with major interface changes.  I just got used to the last one when 2.7 came out, but I really like it.  2.5 had a really boxy look and you had to go through a bunch of clicks to do basic actions. 2.7 has a smooth look and feel and from the WP blog it looks like a lot of feedback was applied to this release.

I’ve got Wordbook turned on again.  I had to add a snippet a code to my .htaccess file for WP to see PHP5 which Wordbook requires.  But that was it and it seems to be working like a charm.

ShareThis wins Big

// December 17th, 2008 // No Comments » // Media, Music, Technology

My buddy Tim who founded ShareThis just passed along the news that ShareThis beat out the competition and won Mashable’s Open Web Awards People’s Choice for best blog plugin.  Mashable has a great blog with some of the best new apps out there for a wide range of categories.  Get the ShareThis plugin for your blog or website.  Your customers and fans will be very happy because you’ll make sharing stuff easy as pie.

At Thanksgiving this year our family traveled up to Cincinnati to visit Tim’s family.  In fact, it was a college band reunion of sorts.  We had 4 of the original 5 Skydiver bandmates together for a trip down memory lane.  During our days at Case Western in Cleveland, Skydiver rocked the campus and we opened for some well-known local bands too.  We derived the name from a one of our first days as freshmen when we decided to go skydiving.  It was a rush.  We also like to play Rush so the band name fell right into place.

We’re a little older now and we still love to play music, some as professional musicians and producers, some just for fun.

A little Google Earth halloween fun

// October 31st, 2008 // No Comments » // Fun, Holiday, Maps, Technology

The Google Earth blog posted about how you can turn your google earth experience into this special halloween edition.  Download this kmz file and open it up in Google Earth. You’ll see the earth in a whole new way.  Make sure to use the ShareThis button below to pass this around to others.

Can’t Get to the Game - let Google take you

// October 22nd, 2008 // No Comments » // Daily Life, Maps, Sports, Technology, Travel

EarthSwoop can take you there with some really cool trips to each of the NFL stadiums.  The 3D realism is close to the real things.  No smell of beer or rowdy fans.  No live action.  No cheerleaders.  No bad calls.

Facebook and ShareThis

// October 1st, 2008 // No Comments » // Daily Life, Technology

I just reconnected with a good friend from college this past week on Facebook.  Tim and I used to play in a band together called “Skydiver” named shortly after we all went skydiving.  We caught up by phone this past week and it was like 20 years hadn’t just passed.  Our drummer was Mike Zimmerman, Tim’s cousin, who lives in Nashville now and plays with Tracy Byrd.  Just talked to him too.  Anyway, Tim tells me about this little company he’s founded called ShareThis.  ShareThis is one of the coolest new widgets out there because it allows you to do in one step what used to take several.  Now you can send a url directly from the page with a single click.  Already saving lots of time.  Oh, and did I mention Tim’s got the attention of some big players looking at what he’s doing.  Try ShareThis on your blog.  You’ll have the capability to track who has shared your stuff with some really cool analytics reports.  I highly recommend it to all the Watercooler Wednesday folks at Ethos.

Wordpress update

// August 5th, 2008 // No Comments » // Blog, Fun, Technology

I recently updated my Wordpress software to 2.6. This last few months have seen a flurry of updates with the latest and greatest. The update process is pretty easy now. The biggest change that affected me on this one is the image add/edit area. I have to manually type in a float style because my template was written before some of the latest W3C standards were written. It only affects new image inserts.  That’s about all though. I’m liking the interface. Template modification is a breeze too.

So if you are updating Wordpress, don’t forget to backup your mySQL database. And whatever you do, don’t overwrite your config.php file. I did once and trust me, it’s not a happy day when you do that.

DSL Direct Works Great

// July 28th, 2008 // No Comments » // Daily Life, Technology

Moving into the country means connectivity limitations. In some cases. Although I’ve got a Franklin mailing address, I’m not exactly in the city limits anymore. For example there is no comcast out my way. I’ve never had comcast and I’ve heard few good things about them. So no loss there. DirecTV is in since I’ve got a decent view of the southern sky. So then the question is what to do about high speed internet? When we moved we decided we weren’t going to have a home phone anymore. Mobile phones would be it. Couple things come up in this scenario. The options are limited with internet connectivity. And what happens if our sitter has to call 911 for some reason?

Problem solved: AT&T has a DSL version for home use if you don’t have a traditional phone plan. You won’t find it on the main site under standard options either. It’s called FastAccess DSL Direct and you’ll have to actually speak to someone to sign up for it. I’ve got a link for it here. There are a couple of versions to choose from, however I’ve got the lowest speed version which is 768k and it’s plenty fast enough. With DSL Direct there are no FCC, 911, or other taxes charged so your bill is a flat rate $19.95 a month. And setup was a breeze. Even with a Linksys router configured for wireless throughout the house.

What’s more is that you can hook up a landline phone to the system and it will accept outgoing calls to 911. So you get the best of both worlds. No home phone but still get 911. High speed internet too. Plus there is a good chance of getting a better deal on your cable or other digital TV service without having to bundle things.