Remember the Milk

I recently discovered a task manager that is making me become more efficient with my horrible ‘to do’ list habits. Read more

Time to delete your holiday music audio files

Yeah, the December holidays are over! Time to delete all those songs you ripped to your hard drive and reclaim some drive space. I was suprised to find nearly a GB of Christmas music on my computer. (That was about 12 albums ripped at 192 kbps.)

Easy steps:

• Organize your tracks by artist or whatever your preference is.
• Delete songs you don’t like — Seriously, get rid of those tracks. If you rate your tracks from 1-5 stars, delete all the 1-2 star tracks.
• If you have different versions of “Little Drummer Boy,” keep only the one you like the most and delete the rest.

Once your organized and culled the herd, simply burn the remaining files to a DVD/CD and file it away until next year.

Then you can import it all again next December.

Be brutal and get rid of that unnecessary clutter!

How to buy a new notebook computer

For a personal productivity boost, perhaps it’s time you invest in a new computer. Notebooks are now very affordable, powerful and extremely convenient to use.

FYI… “Laptops” are now marketed as “notebooks” because they run so hot now that users often find them uncomfortable to keep on a lap for very long.

Ready? First you need to ask yourself some questions:

• What do I need a notebook computer for? (Portability?)
• Is this for my personal or professional use?
• What operating system am I comfortable using?
• What software do I have already or need to buy?
• How much am I willing to spend?

Only then can you narrow the field to a manufacturer or operating system. If your looking for gaming, you may be better off with a desktop computer that you can install premium video and sound cards.

I switched to Apple a year ago after more than a decade of using Windows and I am very happy. I’ve used the Apple iBook G4 and now the Apple Macbook.

My two year old Toshiba Satellite was a piece of garbage right out of the box. But I’ll admit that HP business-grade notebooks aren’t bad.

Good luck!
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and AdMadMan.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Saving time, saving money while Christmas shopping

My wife and I no longer desire to visit brick and mortar retail stores, especially during the holiday buying season. In fact, my wife prides herself on completing nearly 100% of her Christmas shopping entirely online, without visits to the local mall.

In the past, it crossed my mind that this might seem a bit impersonal. After all, gift giving should not be about obligation. Each gift should be thoughtfully paired to it’s recipient. While I struggle, my wife excels at that.

With the breadth of eclectic products that can be purchased online, I’ve come to agree that online shopping truly can replace the tactile experience of in-store shopping. No more jambed parking lots, packed aisles and fuss. I can truly withdraw from society except for the occasional trips to the Post Office.

With that in mind I offer these last minute Christmas shopping tips:

• It’s not too late to still take advantage of free shipping to have your packages delivered before Christmas.
• When filling out online order forms, be sure to do a quick Google search on “promo codes” for the retailer. You’d be surprised how often you’ll find something (i.e. 5% off, $5 off, free shipping, etc.) to use at the online checkout.
• Signup and use Upromise.com. Login and click through to the online merchant to gain additional credits (i.e. 1-3%, etc.) towards your account.
• Check if the retailer is part of a family of brands that might offer a discount. For example, ThePopcornFactory.com is part of 1800flowers.com.
• Upromise users who also have a Citi Upromise MasterCard get 1% credit to their account on purchases made with participating merchants.
• Consider paying a few bucks extra to have the retailer ship the present to the recipient, especially if you are concerned you might not get it in time. That also saves you from having to wrap it. Your time is valuable, no sense adding more pressure on you the day before Christmas.

Point is, be a savvy shopper. Keep breathing. Try to relax. Enjoy the holidays.
Merry Christmas!

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and AdMadMan.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Holiday tradition: Re-gifting

It’s that time again. Your opportunity to re-gift. You know you want to.

Wikipedia cites the following rules of re-gifting etiquette:

• The primary rule is not to give a gift back to the person who gave it to you.
• Similarly, re-gifting to someone who knows the original giver carries the risk of exposing both your lack of attachment to the gift, and your failure to select and purchase a new gift for the recipient. (Made popular on the ’90s sitcom, Seinfeld.)
• One should remove any cards and other indicators that the gift was originally given to you.
• Finally, using the gift before re-gifting it — so that it is no longer “new” — is generally considered inappropriate.

Etiquette guru Emily Post suggests that re-gifting should be done only rarely, and under specific criteria:

• You are certain the gift is something the recipient would enjoy.
• The gift is brand new (no cast-offs allowed) and comes with its original box and instructions.
• The gift isn’t handmade, or one that the original giver took great care to select.

According to results of the November 2005 Re-gifting and Holiday Credit Card Use Survey posted at Regiftable.com:

• More than half of surveyed consumers do not find re-gifting rude
• Nearly 4 in 10 people have practiced re-gifting
• Women 35-54 years old are more likely to regift than men
• Re-gifting is more practiced among those who are college educated
• One third of re-gifters do so to save money

In general, don’t regift the following:

• Used or opened items
• Expired items, such as last year’s Dilbert desk calendar.
• Champagne/alcohol
• Eclectic items the receiver might not be interested in

If your feeling tacky about the whole idea, give your stuff to a charity or resell on CraigsList, Amazon or eBay.

Related links:
(You’ll enjoy this song) Regifting for the Holidays by The Alice Project

Regiftable.com

Emily Post

GiftMe.com

MSN 12 rules for regifting without fear

US News & World Reports

That’s all folks. Let the re-gifting begin!
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional who doesn’t regift. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and AdMadMan.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Tips to fight comment spam on your WordPress blog

Do you publish a WordPress blog? Then please check out my article: “Tips to stop blog comment spam on WordPress blogs“.

I think I’ve provided a good list of comment spam prevention tips, especially for new WordPress blog publishers who are getting frustrated by ridiculous comment spam posted by spambots and spammers.

Enjoy.
-Roland

Save time when trying to schedule a meeting

I learned about this time saving tip from Merlin Man and think it’s brilliant.

Normally, in your office environment, you might be able to schedule a meeting with coworkers using MS-Outlook’s calendar to see when they appear to have available time. Outlook permits users to accept, decline or recommend alternate date/time. Unfortunately, these features typically don’t work when arranging a meeting with a group of people outside your network (i.e. clients, partners, vendors).

The simple solution is Doodle. Doodle allows you to structure a simple poll based on the dates/times you recommend. Then you send the link to your team mates and they vote on when they are available to meet. Finally, you review the results and issue your meeting invitation the way you normally would, knowing that the participants are less likely to decline.

Benefits:

• Simple interface.
• Anyone can access it remotely, via a Web browser.
• It’s free.

Limitations:

• You can only vote on date/time. It would be great to have flexibility to turn the columns into poll topics to vote on.
• It doesn’t integrate into your calendar application.
• Keep in mind this is a third-party, insecure tool, so don’t post anything too confidential.

In summary, Doodle is great, free tool for arranging meetings with your distributed work force, teammates, family, friends, etc. It’s not just for the office. Use it to schedule the best day to meet your friends after work. Find out the best day to have family come visit. Poll your friends to pick a date for a get-away trip. Check it out for yourself.

Enjoy!
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and AdMadMan.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

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