Archive for November, 2007

A good friend sends out a weekly email about improving sales skills. One of the reasons I like reading his advise are the questions he asks at the end. Most of the time they are interpersonal questions. But today, her wrote this:

Educating the world is not your job. Go find some smart people and do some business with them.

Several years ago a mentor told me this “If you want to be making a million dollars a year, why aren’t you surrounding yourself with people who are?” The point I think he was trying to make, and the one my friend is trying to make, is surround yourself with smart people who are winners. We learn from example. That is how we learned to talk, to walk, eat, pretty much everything we do we learned from watching someone first.

Take inventory of where you are. Who you are associating with. Are these people helping you reach your goals? Can they? Are you helping those around you reach their goals? Can you?

My suggestion is to have a well rounded set of friends and associates. Make sure everyone is positive and supportive. Those who aren’t need to be removed from your life. If you aren’t positive or supportive, change your attitude, change your friends, change your path.
Describe the kind of person who makes your life better.

This weeks prop goes out to my Sister-In-Law, who held Thanksgiving dinner at her house. I know the amount of work that goes into putting on a production like this. Everyone had a great time.

Past props.

I really don’t like this Project Beacon from Facebook. Even though I spend time developing applications that use services like Facebook, this one is personal. Take for instance these entries from the main user feed in Facebook:

While I appreciate the ability to advertisers to make connections with customers and their social networks, people have to be concerned with the amount and type of data being pushed around. The problem will be people not understanding or forgetting they can turn this feature off in Facebook.

Take for instance the example in the image above. What if the purchase made on Fandango was a gift for my wife, who is also a Facebook user and a friend of mine. Have I just ruined it without realizing? I think so.

I don’t really care if advertisers and Facebook have figured out a way to create a viral buying process, I do care about the exposure its creates. Learn more about Beacon and how to keep yourself from being unnecessarily exposed here.

My WordPress blog uses several plug-ins, and I thought I would share with you what they are and why I use them.

• Akismet: Comment spam prevention. This is an essential plug-in for any blog.
• All in One SEO Pack: This plug-in helps me build SEO friendly links.
• Comment Referrers: This give me additional information when someone posts a comment. Its sent to me via the notification email and doesn’t appear any where on the blog.
• Comment Timeout: I use this to lock comments on posts so many days after I post them.
• Counterize II: This is a great statistics plug-in. I’m using this because I’m trying to find a really statistics program for WordPress.
• Dunstan-style Error Page: This plug-in allows me to create a custom 404 error page.
• Easy Tube: This plug-in helps me embed YouTube videos in a post.
• Enforce www. Preference: I like my blog URL to be www.digitalthom.com. When someone enters digitalthom.com it basically prepends www to incoming URL.
• Exec-PHP: This plug-in allows me to add PHP code top posts or widgets.
• Executable PHP widget: This is a plug-in that lets me add PHP specific widgets to the sidebar.
• Feed Locations: This plug-in allows me to change the default location of my RSS feed.
• Fotobook: Small plug-in that allows me to integrate my Facebook Photos. It integrates right into my blog and works better than the Flickr photo albums I’ve tried.
• Full Feed: This plug-in creates full posts in my RSS feed.
• Gravatar: Some themes require this plug-in to allow users avatars show in comments.
• iWPhone: This is a plug-in/theme specifically for the iPhone. I use this for all my iPhone readers.
• Link Harvest: I’m testing this plug-in to see of it has any value to my readers. It basically takes all links referenced in posts and pages and creates a collapsible list.
• Most Commented: This plug-in creates a small list of the most commented on posts.
• Popularity Contest: This plug-in shows a popularity percentage on each post.
• Recent Comments: This plug-in shows the last number of comments made.
• Recent Posts: This plug-in shows me the last number of posts.
• Related Entries: This plug-in displays 5 links that relate to the current post.
• Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form: This plug-in allows me to create a secure comments form.
• Spam Karma 2: This plug-in eats spam for lunch.
• SpotMilk: This plug-in changes how the administrative tool looks, like a skin, well, it is a skin.
• Subscribe To Comments: This plug-in gives my readers the ability to subscribe to comments via email. I use this so readers can track comments on a post.
• WordPress Heat Map: this plug-in creates a heat map collection of post tags.
• WordPress Mobile: This plug-in makes my blog mobile accessible. I use this plug-in for all my PDA users.
• WP-ShortStat: This is a statistics plug-in.
• WP-UserOnline: This plug-in shows me who’s online reader in real time.
• WP-UserOnline Widget: This is the widget that actually shows who’s online.
• WPhone: This plug-in allows me to manage my blog from a mobile phone.
• WP lightbox 2: This plug-in blows up images in a blog post making them easier to see.

That’s it. Not too many but they really help me keep this blog running.

What do you use on your blog, WordPress or not?

Let us spend the day reflecting, with family and friends; laughing and eating together. I’m thankful for my health and family. I’m thankful for being able to live in a Country that allows me to do and be what I want.

However you spend your Thanksgiving day, please remember a few things:

• Our Military friends, no matter where they are, keeping us safe and free
• The less fortunate in our community
• The less fortunate globally

I wish everyone the best.