Author: vdebolt

5 Ways We Can All Prepare For the Evolving Digital Future

Mobile Device Evolution
Mobile Device Evolution by Adam Selwood

Google recently debuted “Project Glass,” their new augmented reality glasses that allow wearers the space-age capability to access information, video, and more in literally the blink of an eye.  Project Glass is just the latest proof that technology is evolving at a relentless pace—and if you want to succeed, you’ve got to keep up. We’ve compiled five of the most important facets of preparing for a digital future below.

Educate yourself. Education is the name of the game when it comes to understanding and capitalizing on the digital future. There’s an IT school to suit every style of learning and level of skill, with online courses that offer valuable insight to computer newbies and savvy tech-experts alike. You’re just a few clicks away from finding a class that’ll keep you in the loop and ensure your continuing relevance in the digital marketplace.

Evaluate your digital needs. It’s tempting to get in line for every new gadget on the market, but too many devices can be distracting, not helpful. Evaluate the offerings of a new product before you pounce, and make sure it aligns with your needs; if you rely on practical features like GPS and email access, then a tablet designed specifically for movie streaming is just excess baggage.

Stay current. IT Degree aside, you can stay informed simply by perusing everyday headlines. Tech advancements are always in the news, and following trends in the current market can illuminate tech direction for the future. Set your smartphone to send you auto-updates and stay on top of the latest in the digital evolution.

Upgrade. Still lugging around a phone or laptop that looks and functions like an antique? Step into the light and upgrade to a product that can service your information, entertainment and business needs while streamlining your daily life.

Embrace change. The digital future is here, and you’d better get on board if you want to succeed. There’s no better time than the present to embrace the increased efficiency, reach, and control that technological advances can bring your life.

Guest Author: Philip J Reed, on behalf of Westwood College.

It’s Who You Know

 

For most of my long life I lived in small towns. I wasn’t aware of anyone I knew being gay. In 1993 I moved to Austin and I started working in high tech environments. I met and made friends with several quietly gay people. (It was the early 90s, after all.) I started attending SXSW Interactive events and realize that some of the people I admired in the interactive world were gay. In about 2004 I moved to Albuquerque and met even more gay people. As my knowledge grew about who was writing the books I reviewed on this blog, who was giving the talks at tech conferences, who was leading the meetings I attended, I realized that some of the smartest leaders in the web design field were gay. And one of my best friends here in Albuquerque turned out to be gay.

None of these people are giving me political lectures on gay rights or trying to do anything to raise my consciousness regarding gay rights. Just by being who they are, they’ve done those things, however.

By working with, watching, respecting, and being friends with all these varied people I realized how wrong it is to discriminate against them for any reason.

I don’t have a romantic vision of marriage. To me it’s a legal arrangement that involves binding contracts, wills, guardianship, inheritance, health care, insurance, and community property. Nor do I have a religious view of marriage. It’s an agreement between people to be together. They can imagine that God brought them together and blessed them if they like that thought, but it’s more of a business deal than a religious event.

For a long time now, I’ve thought that gay people deserve all the rights any citizen has – not just to marry, but every other right citizens enjoy in the United States of America. Because they are, in fact, some of the most valuable citizens we have.

As for the gay speakers, programmers, writers and leaders in the tech world, I can only hope they were please by the symbolic  dropping of one more barrier to equality yesterday when the President announced his opinion that marriage equality should become fact.

These are opinions I’m expressing here. I’m sure there will be many who disagree with my opinion, which is their right.  However, I want to declare my support in this public way for my gay friends and colleagues. I’m going to disable comments on this post. I do value the opinions of others, but I don’t want to encourage divisive discussion here when there are so many gay people in tech who have my respect.

Book a Flight with a Tweet

Sure, you could make a charitable donation using Twitter. But you couldn’t really buy anything. Until now. Media Bistro’s All Twitter blog tells us about TweetAFlight Lets You Book Flights on Twitter.

TweetAFlight is a site that has solved the problem of how to book a flight on Twitter. TweetAFlight is selling airline tickets, but you can be sure that if this system works, everything plus the kitchen sink will soon be for sale on Twitter.

chirpify
Illustration from Chirpify

Here’s how it works

So simple, so simple. . .

  1. Follow @TweetAFlight on Twitter
  2. When you see a tweet for a flight you want, reply with the word “BUY”.

That reply message to “buy” gets processed by Chirpify. (On Twitter, it’s @Chirpify.) Chirpify is a new Twitter Commerce platform that handles transactions from Twitter through PayPal. Chirpify doesn’t just sell for giant companies like airlines. You can use it yourself to sell items. It can be used for donations. It can be used to buy any item which someone offers you on Twitter. Stand back, because I’m sure you can imagine how this is going to explode.

It doesn’t cost you any extra cash to make a payment for something with Chirpify. It’s like any other payment you make through PayPal. The sellers pay a small percentage – between 2 and 4% to process the sale. Chirpify even works with retweets – an important point for those who might be collecting donations.

Not Just Plane Tickets

As GeekWire points out in Chirpify lands $1.3 million to sell music and concert tickets through Twitter, it isn’t just plane tickets going on sale. According to ChrisTeso, Chirpify started out to be for musicians. From that humble beginning, and with funding of only $1.3 million, I believe something huge this way comes.

The notion of selling anything on Twitter has got to make millions of people’s eyes light up with new money making ideas. It may also make millions of people want to run from Twitter as quickly as possible. Which camp are you in?

[Note: Cross-posted at BlogHer.]

Useful links: Accessible Apps, Mommy Bloggers, Google+ Hangouts on Air

Designing Accessible Apps  is from Moms With Apps.

Mashable has a huge infographic about Mommy Bloggers. If you have scoffed at the importance of mommy bloggers, this will be an education for you.

Educators will no doubt be eager to take advantage of the newly announced Google+ Hangouts on Air. Here’s a post telling you how to get started using it from ReadWriteWeb. And a bit more about how it works from Mashable.

Power Your Comments: WordPress vs. Disqus vs. IntenseDebate vs. Facebook Comments

Everyone seems to argue the merits of social networking platforms these days. Everywhere you go, it is Twitter or Facebook, LinkedIn or Google Plus, whether or not to Tumblr. It has become the “Mac vs. PC” of the modern day.

But under the radar, a new war is brewing – the War of the Comment Formats. It might seem like a less interesting conflict, but if you think about your own use of commenting platforms, and how they have changed in just the last two years, it isn’t quite such a stretch to understand it.

To find a victor, we have to view the outcome of each comment style’s battle against their main competitor. Here is the breakdown:

Battle No. 1: WordPress vs. Disqus

Disqus

WordPress is the primary blogging platform at this stage, given the free or low cost features it provides its users, and the ease of customization and updating. The comments are very basic, just posting as either a WP user or anonymously (based on the blog admin’s settings).

The downside is that is isn’t a format that works on other sites. So it is pretty much isolated to WP hosted sites, or those that have been activated to be compatible with the service. However, there are plenty of ways that it can be used, without additional and unnecessary frills.

WordPress

Disqus, on the other hand, is like a multi-comment device. It lets you sign in to that single account, and then post on pretty much any major social media platform that has enabled it (which is most). This means Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Tumblr and many others.

Another great feature is it keeps a log of all comments on each platform you have synced and used through Disqus. You even get automatic email notifications of replies, though you have to put that against frequent server crashes and problems that seem to be slowly smoothing out.

In the end, I would have to say the winner here is Disqus.

Battle No. 2 – IntenseDebate vs. Facebook

IntenseDebate

IntenseDebate means well. Certainly, they have their share of loyal followers that swear it is the best open source comment system you can find. So far, they are integrated with Facebook, Twitter, OpenID and Gravatar. You can add it to WP, Blogger, Tumblr or Typepad.

Facebook Connect has dominated the scene, as it is generally already enabled on most commenting systems, along with their Like buttons and easy sharing syncing. Not a lot has to be said as there is every chance you have used Facebook for this purpose more than once.

The award between these two has to go to Facebook, for its multi-purpose and wide availability.

The Final Battle: Disqus vs. Facebook

Facebook

When it comes to these two, you have their usual pros that might make them seem fairly easily matched – especially if you find that you don’t want to connect all of your posts in one place like Disqus does, or if you do, like Facebook does not.

The bigger issue, however, is privacy, which can only be gained through one …

The Champion: Disqus

Disqus

Unlike Facebook, you can still maintain some anonymity. It is all inclusive, easy to use and efficient. Between all commenting platforms, it is probably the best. Of course, this is a matter of opinion, but I feel confident in the proclamation.

Image Credits: 1, 2.

Guest Author is the SEO manager at PsPrint, an company specializing in online printing. PsPrint offers an array of free tools, for example it lets you make your own business cards online.

Weebly Goes Mobile

I reviewed the web site creation tool Weebly in 2008. See A Look at Weebly.  Now they’ve created an app for iPhone that lets you create posts from your mobile. It’s really simple and may appeal to many people who want to do easy blogging and posting while on the go. Since I already have a history with Weebly, and because they’ve managed to survive and thrive all this time in a competitive niche, I thought a look at their app was in order.

The app is free from the App Store.  It works on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad and requires iOS 4.3 or later. I’d head to the App Store first. If you go to the weebly site, they ask for your mobile number before they send you a link to the app. You may ultimately have to give them your mobile number to use the app, but I found it really annoying that they asked for it even before you’d had a chance to take a look.

 

TeleSummit to Focus on Women in Technology; New Infographic Details Business Benefits of Women Tech Leaders

I signed up for this conference. I’ve participated before and it’s a good conference. You attend from home, so it’s laid back and the snacks are always available. Their press release:

Women dominate technology and social media, and tech companies that recognize this fact are better positioned to innovate, adapt, and succeed. That is one of the themes of the 4th Annual Women Who Tech TeleSummit to be held Wednesday, May 23, 2012.

The daylong summit, held by Internet audio and web from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. EDT, will feature more than two dozen high-profile tech experts speaking on subjects as diverse as funding start-ups, open source software, agile development, digital rights, online privacy, social media and social movements, and women in international tech. But one overriding theme will be the challenges women face in turning their powerful position as tech consumers into positions of power at tech companies.

“Like our last three sold-out TeleSummits, this one will be packed with some of the most thought-provoking discussions led by the most passionate and talented women and men in tech,” said Allyson Kapin, founder of Women Who Tech. “But one thing is very clear – the tech sector no longer belongs to pocket-protector toting guys hooked on sci-fi and video games. The companies that recognize that will be the ones that succeed.”

An infographic released through the organization’s website in advance of the TeleSummit shows that women represent 55 percent of Facebook and Twitter users, and the average social gamer on sites like Zynga is a 43-year-old woman. Yet female tech entrepreneurs begin with about one-eighth of the funding of male-owned ventures. “Diverse tech and start-up teams are critical for innovation,” said Kapin. “We need gender-balanced perspectives in order to create technology and products that are innovative, useful, and meaningful to everyone.”

Kapin also pointed out the male/female imbalance is not restricted to start-ups. It extends to the C Suite as well.  Companies like Facebook and software leader Adobe currently have no female board members. Neither do many recent IPOs like Pandora, Zillow, Zynga, and Splunk. And major players like Apple, LinkedIn, and Groupon have only one female board member. “With the majority of their customers being women, let’s hope they listen to her,” said Kapin.

Several Microsoft stores nationwide, including the San Jose store in Silicon Valley and University Village in Washington, among others, will stream the TeleSummit as part of their Microsoft Retail Group program for women. The showings will be held in their theater spaces that each seat 125 people and have large touch screens. The event is also being recognized as an educational opportunity by several colleges in San Jose, which are offering students extra credit for attending and writing essays on the subjects discussed.

Panelists participating in the TeleSummit include:

  • Sarah Allen, Blazing Cloud
  • Cathy Brooks, Moderator
  • Shaherose Charania, Founder Labs and Women 2.0
  • Jen Consalvo, Tech Cocktail
  • Amy Errett, Maveron
  • Jill Foster, Live Your Talk
  • Sarah Granger, Consultant
  • Kaliya Hamlin, She’s Geeky
  • Liz Henry, BlogHer
  • Tara Hunt, Buyosphere
  • Lynne Johnson, Whispr Group, Inc.
  • Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, Ph.D, Akili Dada
  • Beth Kanter, Author and Trainer
  • Susan Mernit, Oakland Local
  • Shireen Mitchell, Digital Sistas
  • Sarah Novotny, O’Reilly Media
  • Claire Diaz Ortiz, Twitter
  • Elisa Camahort Page, BlogHer
  • April Pedersen, Salsa Labs
  • Jon Pincus, Qweries
  • Heather Ramsey, Women’s Leadership Program, IIE and TechWomen Program
  • Corvida Raven, Shegeeks.net
  • Adria Richards, SendGrid
  • Arthur Richards, Wikimedia Foundation
  • Laurel Ruma, O’Reily Media
  • Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen
  • Michael Silberman, Greenpeace International
  • Amanda Steinberg, DailyWorth
  • Pemo Theodore, Startup Coach
  • Amy Sample Ward, NTEN
  • Jane Well, Automattic
  • Joanne Wilson, Investor

The cost to attend the TeleSummit is $20. Sponsorships are available through the Women Who Tech website. “Access is very important to us,” said Kapin. “We don’t like to turn away anyone due to a lack of funds.”

The 4th Annual Women Who Tech TeleSummit is sponsored by Rad Campaign, Blackbaud, NTEN, Salsa Labs, Singlebrook Technology, Women 2.0, and BlogHer. For additional information visit http://www.womenwhotech.com.

Here’s the infographic, a gigantic JPEG which I fervently hope has loaded completely while you were reading the press release.
Women Who Tech Infographic
I’ll be there. Hope you will, too.