| James Burchill = Internet + Marketing |
| Business Speaker, Corporate Trainer & Consultant |
Hello, my spidey senses are telling me you're new here ;-) You may want to checkout Why Subscribe? and thanks again for visiting, I appreciate it. ~ James
I’ve just made the MASTER PASSWORD freely available on my Business Fusion Marketing website.
It’s easy to get and unlocks all secured materials. With your free master password you can access any protected content.
It’s been a while since I had to do weird math with odd numbers like bits and bytes. So you can imagine how much fun I had trying to figure out the time it will take to upload some of my new video materials to the server.
But do you think I could remember the basic math I needed to trot out the numbers - nope. I drew a total brain cramp. And no matter how hard I tried the numbers kept making no sense.
After a few attempts I thought “gosh darn it…” OK, my language was a tad more colourful… and decided “to heck with it, I’ll use Google” and find someone online who had written about this wonderful formula I so desperately needed.
Long story short, didn’t find a person, I found a machine! GOOGLE CALCULATOR
Google is officially starting to freak me out with this tool. I mean come on! Who knew the Big G could take in the file size, divide by the transfer rate (in kilobits per second) and then spit up a number converted natively into minutes!
Try it yourself. First figure out your connection speeds. I used http://www.speedtest.net/
But if you don’t like that one simply Google “internet speed test.” Once your test is complete, use the UPLOAD number and type it into the search box like this: 100 MB / 512 kbps
This was my example to find out how long a 100MB video file will take to transfer to my server with an upload speed of 512kbps.
So I discovered for a typical Cable connection you can upload about 100 MB of stuff in approx 27 minutes - give or take a few 
Correspondingly… the download speed is annoyingly faster. Must get more monkeys.
Technology & computing uses abound and when used properly make for a wonderful servant. When abused, technology becomes a terrible master. Consider this: at no other point in recorded history have we ever been more dependent on technology and computing uses.
For many, this level of dependency is a little unsettling and for those, who are not quite full-blown technophobic, the very thought of developing a sales presentation or a monthly budgeting spreadsheet, or something as apparently banal as sending an email to a group while privately copying others, is quite a challenge. So why am I discussing this today?
PushButtonBlogging.com continues to grow. As a sampler of what’s in store, here’s a FREE Hi-Def Video Screencast Tutorial of how to add and insert images into your WP blog. This 11 minute and 45 second video shows you how to upload an image, how to add it to your post, how to align the image and host of other veteran blogger tricks.
If you want to get more free videos and other great blogging content, visit PushButtonBlogging.com and download my recent blogging interview - you’ll be added to the list and you’ll be first in line as I release more freebies.
Click the image below to WATCH THE FREE BLOGGING VIDEO
I just heard about a new search engine called SearchMe.com, if Google and Apple had a baby this might have been the result SearchMe is still fairly new so there’s not much to see other than this cool video, however I had a couple of “Uh Ohs” after I watched it - the biggest is this:
If people start searching using their eyes, then there’s a possibility the “slick” sites will get selected over the good quality content sites. [Sidebar: I've read the official statement about relevance etc... BUT] Remember, no matter what you might say, we do judge a book by its cover (initially…) SearchMe might be a quantum leap forward in usability, but it may also represent a quantum leap backwards in user search experience. “Oooh, pretty pictures… let’s click on that one.” The proof as they say, is in the pudding… or in this case - the pictures
I’ve spoken of this before, “disposable email.” It’s brilliant, it saves you from having to use your real email address when you want to try something from a site and don’t feel like getting any more ‘junk email.’
My current favorite disposable email provider is http://www.guerrillamail.com/
*TIP* And while I’m on the subject of enhanced email filtering, for those of you that have BlackBerries (or other PDA’s) consider enabling the filtering so that ONLY important emails are forwarded to your unit. That way, the little doo-hickey isn’t constantly pinging, vibrating, or beeping it’s way through your day. Remember, I advocate checking your email in batches and that runs contrary to the BlackBerry (or other PDA) way.
Hopefully you agree that efficiency and effectiveness are not one and the same thing. The confusion surrounding these two words is in many cases the root cause of much unnecessary effort and stress. In fact that’s why I’m writing this today because about a month ago, I read a book by Timothy Ferriss called The 4 Hour Work Week. Cool title don’t you think?
Anyway, Tim is an interesting fellow and in summary he was overworked and going down with all the pressure - not to mention the fact (as he puts it) his business wasn’t scalable. Tim figured the only thing he could do was “reset”, he said it was something like unplugging yourself from your diet of information and technology and then implementing systems of support to handle your workload more effectively and efficiently.
Bottom line is this, Tim now works less because he has systems, processes and other people supporting him. He suggests that we begin thinking about how to implement the suggestions he puts forth in his book, and one of them is batching. Basically you don’t allow something to continually interrupt you and you let them batch up until you are ready. A perfect application of this is email. Tim suggests that this alone will radically change our lives.
I don’t know about you, but I get a lot of email and so the idea of managing it better appealed to me. That’s why I began testing Tim’s idea recently. And you know what, so far it’s working. No major foul ups, nothing missed or overlooked. So I’m continuing the test and now I’m checking email at 11am and 4pm - which batches up the email into two times allowing me to be the most productive throughout the day. And guess what happens if something is important… they use the telephone and call me instead…
I suggest you read Tim’s book, here’s the link to his site “The 4-Hour Work Week” and if you want to download a short white-paper from Tim about the challenges we face and how you can improve them with simple actions in under 24 hours, follow this link and click on the big DOWNLOAD button - your email or anything else is NOT required - it’s FREE.
Don’t just scratch the surface…
…and attend an advanced workshop!
You Will Learn:
“I like to think of you as the King of Blogging…” ~ Deb Crossen, Fiesta Buckhorn (Past particpant of ‘Blogging for Business, Fun & Profit’)
Course Benefits:
Internet Marketing is constantly evolving and knowing what path to take when considering your company’s IM strategy can be daunting. Join James as he leads you through an array of powerful techniques and strategies that will help you devise your own IM plan and show you the best way to move forward.
Who Should Attend:
Business owners, managers, marketing execs and anyone involved in corporate brand building, or the creation and management of ‘web content’.
“Working with you has been a complete pleasure.” ~ Rob Crocock, FEO Ontario (Booked James for their annual conference)
How To Book:
Space is limited to 12 attendees so call or email your order today. Payment in full 1 week prior to attendance is required to ensure your space.
Seminar Includes:
BONUS:
One lucky seminar participant will win* the following IM Blog package valued at over $1,200:
*Please note the winner is selected at seminar start. Prize redemption begins during workshop as part of the practical demonstrations and continues afterwards as necessary. Some conditions apply
For more information please contact us.
About The Trainer:
James has developed and delivered training around the world for companies including Rolls Royce, the Bank of NovaScotia, CG, the British and US Governments and more…
Thank you to those who attended my recent training course on Strategic Content and I particularly appreciate the feedback. After reviewing the comments I am pleased to announce the course was rated as “Very Good” or “Exceptional” by every participant. And congratulations to Don Jess and Ken Bolt who both won door prizes!
Here are a few comments from the attendees:
- “Great knowledge of many subjects. Easy to understand.” - Allison Roberts, Burloak Home Staging
- “Very knowledgeable and conveyed information in a very understandable fashion. Whetted my appetite to learn more.” - Rob Stansfield, Mr Handyman
- “Very valuable info! Well presented.” - Rudy Bayoumi, Mortgage Intelligence
- “Enjoyed the content immensely, garnered great tips and resources for creating and presenting internet articles.” - Linda Robertson, Dan Lawrie Insurance
- “Great Stuff James! Your technical knowledge blew me away. This presentation was excellent, I can’t wait to try this out.” - Rhona Turner, TurneRound Enterprises
- “Very good presentation. I can’t wait to read your material and actually try it.” - Art Bredlo, Lease Line
Technology. This wonder of wonders makes my life immeasurably easier for the most part. But when it fails, it fails me spectacularly. And the one technology we rely on very heavily is EMAIL.
And mine has been doing some very odd things since early December 2007. Last night at a business meeting I was approached by two associates who asked me what was wrong with my email - apparently at two times that same day, my email server decided (arbitrarily it would seem) to simply reject their email.
I’m sure the server had it’s reasons, it might not have liked the tone, the source, the time, the weather… I don’t know, and I don’t care. What I do care is that for no good reason - or at least a reason I know of - email gets nixxed.
So after doing some research I’m trying an experiment. Today I altered all the routing of all my email accounts through Google’s gmail servers. Considered by many to be ‘da bomb’ when it comes to properly handling email, I will wait and see.
And NO, my email addresses have not changed, everything is still valid - it’s just the routing that’s been tweaked. Hopefully I will resolve the “m.i.a” emails and the added benefit of storage, searching, routing, remote access and other great Googly things , will outweigh the aggravation I’ve suffered at the hands of the errant email gremlins.
And if you sent me email in the last 2 months and got an uncharacteristically quiet response - then perhaps your email was lost too. Thank goodness we still have carrier pigeons… and you thought dial-up was slow!