Baby-Stepping to Mobility!

                                          http://passionped.wordpress.com/

I haven’t exactly made it a secret that I am not the world’s biggest embracer of technology. In my business however, I am miles ahead of my two partners. One partner has a home computer and a basic cell phone with nary a single phone number in her contacts - it's all in her head, she claims. The other one has a smart phone but no home computer. She rejects e-mail, rarely answers her phone, and hardly ever listens to voice-mail. Neither has any idea what social media is. They are artists, full of whimsical and creative ideas. I am the practical one and the de facto realist. The task of dragging us, as a business, into the 21^st century is going, it seems, to fall to me. While I have done my fair share of whining about technology on this blog, I am finding the prospect of introducing some mobile device technology into our business strategy a little less daunting than I might have previously because of what I have learned in that last few months and in my recent research. Actually, I am feeling downright inspired at the moment... kind of!

Feeling so inspired, I dragged the netbook computer I received as a gift last year out from its home under the couch and blew the dust off.  I am now taking it to work with me daily and have started using it to track my inventory and place orders on-line. I have also started updating our Facebook page more frequently, and have used the netbook for some on-line business banking. I have also been using it for product research as well as being more timely with my business correspondence.  While I was performing these tasks already, I was doing them from home after business hours, hoping that I didn’t forget anything between the store and home.  Often times, this was contingent on the stuff-of-life not interfering. Real-time and on-site is making me feel mighty efficient these day and makes my personal time much more pleasant as well. I recently acquired my first smart phone and am still learning how to use it, but my head is starting to swim with ideas and possibilities!

My partner-peeps are even starting to drink the mobile device Kool-Aide a little bit too. This, in and of itself, is HUGE! I knew we were making strides when I was asked to leave the netbook at the store for them to use on their days at the helm. The mere mention of Twitter is no longer being dismissed with a wave of the hand as unnecessary to business growth, and there has been a sudden epiphany that moving money between bank accounts does not always require a special trip to the actual bank. Progress is being made. Admittedly, it’s in baby steps, but at least it’s in a forward direction! 

I love the series of Verizon Wireless commercials about the little girl entrepreneur and the mobile devices she used to build her lemonade business.  This is the first of the series. I want that little credit card swiper for my phone so we can accept credit sales when we are off-site at shows, which has always been an issue.  I’ve already started doing the research! I am a bit concerned about security with this particular mobile device, but so far, the research says it's quite safe.

Oh, and I see a tablet in my near future as well! Anything else I should be looking at?

Jing Video of an Advanced Search

With three unsuccessful attempts under my belt, I am over the moon with joy this morning! I got this little Jing-y thing-y to work! Going to celebrate this small victory by treating myself to a donut or something...

Booyah on Boolean Searching!

                                          http://www.internettutorials.net/boolean.asp

In my daily life, I am all about shortcuts. If there is a way to perform a task more efficiently, or more quickly, without sacrificing the end-result, I am totally open to checking it out. My little home library of how-to books contain plenty of suggestions for useful short-cuts that will make life a little bit easier... how to be more organized; how to remove a stubborn stain; how to fix this or fix that; how to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less; how to clean my house from top to bottom in one morning...you get the drill.

With regards to short-cuts, however, one area where I know I fall down miserably is in my computer use. I hold hard and fast to the processes I know well and that I know work for me. Call me mule-headed, but I tend to be one of those who doesn't like to stray too far out of my comfort zone with this technology stuff. (If you have been following my blog posts, you have already figured this out about me!) Accepting that this is just part of my personality, I have been perfectly content to complete 10 steps in a process where 2 different ones might work just as well, simply because I trust that the way I learned it originally will continue to work every time. Understanding that this manifests from my irrational fear that any piece of technology under my control is just a single key-stroke away from certain annihilation, I truly am trying to be less fossil-like and to maybe learn a few things here. It is not always easy, and is certainly humbling.

If I had to pick the most personally useful information from Chapter 3 of Shelly, Napier, and Rivers' Discovering the Internet, I think it would definitely have to be the section on Boolean operators. Besides the fact that learning about them had me humming the theme song from School House Rock's "Conjunction Junction" in my head all day, it made me realize that had I known about them when my earlier classes were  heavily research and writing based, I could have saved myself loads of time and probably netted better results. Going forward, I know that I will be using this short-cut a lot.

As I've said before, I am primarily a visual learner. I am also a big YouTube fan. Check out this funny little explanation of Boolean Searching. It gave me a real chuckle, and made me homesick for my two sweet southern girl friends. I do love their accents! Did any single topic in Chapter Three stand out for you?

Lunchroom Chat

http://youtu.be/cs4py0OB9vk

OK...so I have been beyond frustrated. I couldn't seem to figure out how to get my cute little video to run except through a link as opposed to a video. While it would appear, it wouldn't run from the thumbnail while I was working in draft or in the preview mode. A process that was supposed to be relatively self-explanatory turned into a two day thorn in my side. I tried to get this thing working properly at least three times, from every angle I could think of.

I decided to throw up my hands in defeat and post it anyways. Fully prepared to cry "Uncle" and beg for advice from my readers,  imagine how silly I felt when I hit publish and everything seems to be running properly. Picture who quickly I scrambled to edit my original text, which admittedly bordered on hysterical. Feeling mighty foolish, foolish, foolish!

If I am lucky, my family will eventually forgive me for foisting my little problem on them and ruining what should have been a peaceful weekend! I am suddenly reminded of the line from the movie A League of Their Own", where Tom Hanks states, "There's no crying in baseball!" Well, as far as I am concerned, there shouldn't be any crying on Blogger, either. Unfortunately, that was not the case for me this weekend.  I'm starting to think that this old dog can't be (or shouldn't be) taught any of these new tricks....

My PLN is Right Outside My Door...

                       Grand Finale - Hip Gypsy Fashion Extravaganza - February 12, 2012

So, I started digging into this whole PLN thing. At first blush, I was a little bit intimidated because most of the information seemed geared for educators. Concluding that it will require a little thinking outside of the box, it occurred to me that I have just had the experience of learning through a PLN and didn't even realize it!

My business partners and I had the privilege of coordinating a fashion show in our business neighborhood to benefit a local charity earlier this month. While our goal was to do a little good for our community, it would be disingenuous to say that, as newcomers to the community, we also weren't also hoping to promote our own business as well. We floated the original idea at our local merchant's association meeting back in November to a rather lukewarm response. Knowing that this was a project we could not pull off on solely on our own, we started reaching out to other businesses in the neighborhood who were not actively involved in the association.

Across the street from our store happens to be a historical old theater. They offered up a venue for the event. We started visiting our neighbors to brainstorm how they might be involved in the project. Long story short... we had buy-in from nearly all of them! Our show, which was really  more of a theatrical production than a traditional runway show, included merchandise from numerous antique stores, thrift shops, art galleries, the local Harley Davidson dealer, a tack shop, and even the two area tattoo parlors! Our models, consisted of or friends, families, and customers. By mixing and blending our collective wares, we pulled off, in six weeks time, a professionally choreographed production that blended fashion, skin art, cowboy, biker, vintage, and gypsy. We even threw in a little PG-rated pole dancing for good measure. Our restaurant neighbors got involved by providing the food and beverages. A local limousine company taxied VIP's from the parking lot to the theater red carpet where the paparazzi snapped pictures as they entered the theater. The local newspaper helped us promote the event in advance and we tapped into every resource we had at our disposal. The evening was a huge success, with over 400 in attendance, and culminated in a tear-jerking tribute to our veterans, Jimi Hendrix-style. The entire street is abuzz with plans for next year and how we can make it even bigger and better!

Upon reflection, it occurs to me that all of these business owners, some sophisticated in their business practices, some not as much, can be the foundation of my PLN. Many of these folks have successfully run businesses in our neighborhood for many years. Now that we are all on such friendly and collaborative terms, I think I have found a good jumping off point. What do you think?

I Wonder What Will Happen If I Push This Little Button...

                                         http://comics.dp.cx/dailystrips-2009.11.27.html

So… after reading Chapter 2 – Browsing the Web in the class text, I come away realizing how little I really understood as far as even the most basic workings of a simple web browser. While as a rule, I don’t use Internet Explorer; I do have occasion to use it at certain times; mainly if I am using my net book while at my store, or if I am using my work computer at my office.  At home, we mostly use Firefox, mainly because it seems to run more efficiently out here in the back-of-beyond where I live and is the majority favorite in my family.

I’m probably the only uber-dork who actually followed along with the book and went through all the practice exercises. For a visual learner like me, the process of going through all of the steps, simultaneously reading and doing, is actually quite helpful, although I’m feeling even more amateur-ish than usual now that I know what many of those little icons actually represent! Prior, they were just a bunch of scary things that I was afraid to click on lest I (1) launch myself into some great abyss in the internet ether, never to find my way back to where I started, or (2) blow up the darned computer. How happy am I to learn that neither of those things was going to happen??

I am shaking my head over how much time I can save myself now that I know about some of those handy-dandy browser shortcuts. While I did use the Favorites and History options quite regularly, I now know about Web Slices and Accelerators! Those were buttons I would previously never touch, for the reasons mentioned above! The RSS Reader is a tool that I would see on sites as I surfed, but again…never willing to go there. If I am going to be spending time in the blogging world, I think that particular tool will be extremely helpful!

Because I am a self-proclaimed privacy-lover, and because I recently had my personal e-mail address hijacked (and for the record, I was NOT peddling an ED pill to everyone in my e-mail address book), the section on the various risks and safeguards while using the Web was helpful to me. I think I will definitely do as the textbook recommends and make a point of deleting and restricting acceptance of cookies, as well as check out the opt-out features of more web sites. Anyone besides me like to keep their "biz-ness" as private as possible?

What is this Net Neutrality thing?

Net Neutrality is a term I’ve heard bandied about for the past few years.  Quite frankly, I really have not paid a whole lot of attention to it because it didn’t strike me as particularly relevant to the day-to-day workings of my little world.

It is the principle that all data traveling along an Internet connection should be treated equally. The practice of net neutrality would prevent network operators, namely Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) from giving preferential treatment to some content while slowing down or blocking other traffic. Historically, ISP’s have mostly been responsible for policing themselves on the matter without a whole lot of government intervention because the “rules” have not been codified into law.

Proponents of net neutrality argue that actual net neutrality regulations are necessary in order to prevent ISP’s from blocking or limiting the publics’ access to all of the on-line services, information, and technology that is currently available on the net. Anything less, it is argued, amounts to a violation of our free speech.

Detractors of net neutrality claim that ISP’s are entitled to control their networks as they see fit.  Without some modicum of control, portions of their customers are negatively impacted by a different segment of users who are utilizing greater bandwidth for some of their Internet activities.

As with most things these days, the topic has become a hot-button political issue, with camps on both sides of the isle. Pro net-neutrality advocates believe that government controls are necessary, while the anti net neutrality folks posit that the free market will drive fair play and the government needs to stay out of the way.

Having delved a little deeper now, I have mixed feelings about the whole issue. Having spent a lot of time studying the law for the last four years, I see a whole bunch of Constitutional issues coming into question. I just printed out my own copy of Comcast Corp. v.  Federal Communications Commission, which was decided in Federal Court last April. I plan to take a good look at it before deciding where I stand on the issue. 

Do you know where you stand yet?