Friday follies: Live from the brake shop

December 2, 2011 By 3 Comments

This blog post comes to you from a Midas brake shop in Fontana, CA, where I’m waiting for someone to take a look at the squealing brakes on Bridget, my adorable family car (she’s a Honda Fit, so really her whole name is Bridget Fonda the Honda — all of our cars have had names, and all the Hondas have been named after members of the Fonda family).

I’m sitting in a fairly comfy chair, I’ve plugged in my laptop, and there’s actually a decent wireless connection. I’ve worked in worse places, so I’m pretty happy at the moment.

Normally I’d be reading a book at a time like this, but the internet connection at my house isn’t working, so I’m grabbing all the online time I can.

See, we had a super-apocalyptic version of one of our normal fall Santa Ana windstorms on Wednesday night, and at 4:30am the power went out for thousands of people in our area. After a 15-hour outage, power blinked back on at about 7:30pm on Thursday. Hallelujah! We could cook! Bathe in hot water! Watch television!

I secretly was hoping we’d have to have a completely candlelit evening, though. I love candles.

Except that the router wasn’t picking up an internet connection. So after trying the various reset-restart-reboot operations, and spending 45 minutes on the phone with Verizon tech support, I learned that we’d need a new router. Which Verizon was happy to ship to us at no charge.

So I’m without internet until Monday.

(I did try to arrange to pick up a new router from a local Verizon store, but that turned into a scavenger hunt game of chase-down-the-right-phone-number and then take-a-number-and-wait-in-line-in-the-store-where-they’re showing-Secretariat-on-TV (I haven’t seen the movie yet! Spoiler alert: HE WON THE TRIPLE CROWN!! Then I got to see what I think was the first 10 minutes of the Karate Kid remake, featuring Jackie Chan eating noodles with chopsticks) and then leave-before-my-number-got-called-because-I-can’t-miss-my-brake-appointment…)

This is an interesting situation.

I had to reschedule a client call, and of course all my client work is being delayed, because working on live websites requires being connected to the internet.

There is non-online work I can be doing, of course — planning, writing, filing, organizing, etc. But the actual work, the part where I run backups and install plugins and publish blog posts and tweak sales pages? Can’t be done without an internet connection.

So it is fascinating to notice that part of my reaction is logical and sensible because the majority of what I do requires being online. And that another part is the jittery, twitchy, impending delirium tremens of internet withdrawal.

Of course I never considered myself addicted until I couldn’t get my fix.

And then it was a surprisingly short time until I caught myself thinking ridiculous nonsensical things like I can’t learn anything! and then doing weird things like booting up my laptop in the brake shop. Kinda like your alcoholic uncle rifling through the fridge and downing a jar of maraschino cherries with a chaser of vanilla extract.

This “unplugging” thing people talk of? I don’t really do it. I work at home and my computer is always on, always connected.

That advice to batch email checking and only do it once or twice a day? Never thought it applied to me.

I never thought I suffered from Internet hangovers because I’m never offline long enough to get the shakes.

So this weekend will be an interesting experiment.

Remaining conscious and noticing what’s going on will be key.

I don’t know how I’ll feel about it — I’ll have to experience it first. Right now I’m OK, but of course I’m still online, and that’s about to change.

Have you ever tried an experiment with batching email, limiting internet access, or intentionally unplugging? How did it go for you? What did you notice? I’d love to hear about it in the comments (but I may not reply until Monday!!).

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: , ,

This is where we ALL start

April 18, 2011 By
Zero views

Look at those pretty zeroes!

I just learned about about.me, which is yet another site that lets users create online profiles.

The site’s front page says you can create a “personal profile page that points users to your content from around the web.” Seems to me that the ideal “personal profile page” is your very own website, over which you have complete control…but of course that would be the opinion of a professional website creator, wouldn’t it?

Regardless, I was curious enough to create a free account. I customized a few basic things on my profile, mostly so that I could claim the personalized URL about.me/wendycholbi. It’s a fairly easy and painless process.

And the first thing I saw as soon as my profile was created was a screen full of zeroes.

Really big zeroes, in fact. Click the picture to see the exact real true size of the screenshot I snapped. I know, right? The zeroes take up the entire screen!

My first reaction was something like, Geez, are the people at about.me trying to make me feel bad about setting up a brand-new profile? Because those those were some seriously in-my-face gigantic monuments to my own insignificance. Zero views. Zero clicks. Zero links to me. And of those zero views, zero of them happened today.

I mean, why not make those zeroes a little more discreet, at least when you first sign up? Because of course nobody has viewed or clicked on or linked to a profile that is mere seconds old.

Zero History

Zero history

But then I started thinking about how, as soon as one person (or robot!) viewed my profile, the symmetry and purity of that row of zeroes would be destroyed. Permanently.

So of course I had to grab a screenshot before that happened! And I grabbed one of my history, too, since that was another weirdly beautiful page full of huge zeroes.

And I remembered how it wasn’t that long ago that I had zero RSS subscribers. And zero newsletter subscribers. And zero buyers of my products. And zero money in my PayPal account.

I don’t have screenshots from all those occasions, but I remember. I remember feeling insignificant and unseen and small and lost and overwhelmed.

I remember how it was painful to even think about checking my statistics, whether it was Google Analytics or AWeber subscribers or E-Junkie buyers. Because even the possibility of facing those zeroes again was just too much.

No wonder that seeing the gigantic zeroes in my about.me profile brought that all up again.

But here are two interesting things:

One, now is different from then. And different matters. My business has grown, and so have I. The places where I had zeroes in the past? Now have actual numbers. I do actually have subscribers, clients, readers, website visitors, and cashflow. And though there are still plenty of places where I get to start from zero, that doesn’t mean I’m starting at The Beginning of Everything. The anxiety I felt when looking at my about.me zeroes was tempered by my knowledge that I’d gotten past zero before. Many times, in fact!

Two, looking back at my previous zeroes, I can see more clearly that even then, I wasn’t starting at The Beginning of Everything. I did have things I could count on: Friendships, family, work experience, trust in my own ability to learn new things, the willingness to even dare to call myself a business owner and an entrepreneur. These are things I call roots, the things that sustained me even though all those zeroes were staring me in the face.

So now, yes, I can now appreciate the strange, ephemeral beauty of today’s new-profile zeroes. Because even though I’ve immortalized them with screenshots, they will eventually change (just by linking to my own profile in this post, I’ve changed at least one of them already).

We all start here. All the time. It helps me to remember that. How about you?

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: ,

Yes, I really do believe you can do it yourself

March 2, 2010 By

Last week, I finished teaching a fabulous group of people how to navigate their own WordPress websites. When I made up the name “WordPress Swimming Lessons” for the class, I really wanted to convey the sense that participants would come away with some new skills, and ideally a new sense of empowerment.

Plenty of people ask me if I’ll build (or fix, or manage, or change) their websites for them. And I usually say no. I mean, technically I could do the work. But I’d much rather spend the time teaching them to do it themselves.

That’s why I write posts like How to build your online empire for free. It’s why I think it’s perfectly OK to have a blog built on Blogger if that works for you. It’s why I teach classes, answer emails from readers, and why I hold Open Office Hours every Thursday to talk to anyone who needs help.

Because I believe you can do it yourself.

Do-it-yourself doesn’t always mean building everything from scratch

There are certainly things (one-time tech hassles like installing WordPress, configuring your theme, and setting up your email newsletter sign-up form) that you might not want to take the time to learn, because you’ll only have to do them once (or very seldom).

It’s like being a homeowner. Most of us don’t actually build our own houses. If you buy a house, you either hire a contractor to do the building for us, or you buy one that’s already built.

When it comes to major renovations, like replacing the roof or adding a room or installing a new water heater, it usually makes sense to hire an expert to do that for you, since learning how to do it yourself would probably take more time, energy and money than getting it done right the first time by someone who already knows how shingles or framing or plumbing work.

But then there are basic maintenance tasks, like mowing the lawn, painting a wall, replacing the furnace filters, and cleaning out the gutters. If you’re renting, these tasks might be the responsibility of the landlord. If you’re a homeowner, it’s usually simpler and less expensive to do basic maintenance yourself. And there are plenty of do-it-yourself checklists and reference books that you can use to keep your home clean, safe, and well-maintained.

For a website, your online home, it works the same way. You might hire someone to build a custom site for you, or someone who can quickly install a pre-configured theme, so you won’t have to learn how to do the setup and configuration.

But the day-to-day maintenance, including writing and publishing blog posts, adding items to your sidebar, creating new sales pages, is something that’s well within the grasp of Regular People. I’ve seen plenty of self-described non-tech-savvy people learn how to perform basic WordPress functions in just a few hours. I’ve even taught some of them how to do it.

And anyone who tells you that WordPress websites are best left to professionals or require special technical knowledge is either wrong or lying.

Do-it-yourself doesn’t mean go-it-alone

I probably could make quite a bit of extra money by perpetuating the myth that you need my mystical technical wizardry to safely manage your website.

But I’m not interested in that.

First, it would backfire eventually, because Regular People aren’t idiots. You’d eventually figure out that I was preying on your ignorance for financial gain. And you’d (rightfully) never trust me again.

Second, I’d be lying. And that’s just not cool. Period.

Third, I’d rather make an honest living by providing services and products that really fill a need. Teaching people new skills fills a need. Doing one-time setup/configuration/fix-it work fills a need. Creating recorded products that include instructions, checklists, and tips fills a need. But keeping people in the dark and making them dependent on me doesn’t fill anyone’s needs. Not mine, certainly not yours.

There will always be technical tasks that are beyond the comfort level of My Right People, and I’ll always be here to say “I’ve got your back” with those — either by offering classes, writing how-to blog posts, or doing one-time client projects.

I believe that’s totally compatible with the do-it-yourself mindset that I’m such a big fan and champion of. We all need help with things outside our comfort zone. I’m here to help when those things are website-related.

And at the same time, I’m here to say that you can be your own webmaster. You can add and change items and pages and posts on your website. You can manage a mailing list and a shopping cart. Yes, you can do it yourself.

And I’ll be cheering you on all the way.

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: , ,

Insight: Using the cruise control button that was right in front of me

December 7, 2009 By

I live in Southern California, near San Bernardino. I’ve made the 7-hour-by-car trip to the San Francisco bay area three times now, and I’ve learned some things.

All out of ice cream, have a Mocha Alert

In August of 2008, I drove to San Francisco with my sister for the Outside Lands music festival. On the way up, it was all “Road Trip!” and fast food (we stopped at the In-N-Out at Kettleman City) and awesome music. Listen, we were on our way to see Radiohead live. There aren’t really words to describe how psyched we were. So, yeah, long trip, but it went by pretty quick with two drivers.

On the way back, it was just me and Bridget (that’s my car — her full name is Bridget Fonda the Honda). My sister had taken the train directly home from Berkeley. It was a Monday, and I set off around 10am.

There were some good things about that leg. I got to listen to OK Computer seven times in a row, and really listen to the words, the rhythms, the instruments. Before that trip? I recognized the songs. After? I could sing every line.

I stopped at a rest area for a bathroom-and-yoga break (oh, my sore sore back), and snapped these pictures of vending machines that totally cracked me up:

PICT0131It was approximately a squillion degrees out. We’re talking August in the central valley of California. Any remaining grass on the hillsides had been baked into lion-colored hay. The fruit trees were heavy and ripe, and the air was still and dry. Any dust raised by farming equipment (and there was quite a bit of it) hung hazily, turning everything in the distance the same shade of sepia.

So, naturally, the most desirable vending machine, the one selling frozen ice cream treats, was out of service. I was actually OK with my large water bottle, but I imagine that families road-tripping with their children had their hopes for a frosty dessert bitterly dashed by the hand-lettered cardboard sign.

PICT0133But right next to the out-of-order ice cream machine was a machine that dispensed hot coffee drinks. I was intrigued and a bit concerned about the one named Mocha Alert. Sounded like something to worry about — a new color on the national terrorist color-coded scale? Would Mocha be below Orange, or above it?

Anyway, someone had taped a big sign on it to reassure people that the hot coffee was, in fact, available. Maybe they were worried that people would see the “out of service” notice on the ice cream machine and think nothing was working. I don’t know.

Anyway, the whole scene reminded me of the episode of the Simpsons where the kids get a pool, because it’s unbearably hot. The ice cream truck drives by with the driver singing out “Ice cream! We’re all out of ice cream!” and then another truck drives by with Otto growling “Chili! Get your red-hot chili!”

But even though I got funny pictures, stopped to buy fresh fruit, and had great music, I was still exhausted and sore as I approached home. And I hit the LA greater metro area just exactly at rush hour, so the last 60 miles of my trip took two hours. Two miles from my house, I had to stop at a railroad crossing while the slowest train in the universe trundled by. I was so frustrated I wanted to cry.

And I swore I’d never make that drive alone again.

Never say never

Flash forward to last week, when I got a last-minute chance to join Havi’s Biggification day in Sacramento. And it made much more sense for me to drive than to fly. So I had to break my vow and drive both ways by myself.

Again, I stocked up on water, snacks, and great music (Aimee Mann, Better than Ezra, Sister Hazel, and U2 were featured on this trip, with a little digression into Kate Bush). Waiting for me at my destination was a glass of wine, a good friend, and a comfy bed where I could rest up before heading off to be biggified.

The road was long and straight and because I didn’t get started until about 3:30pm, most of the drive was in darkness. Shortly after full dark, I glanced out the passenger window and was slightly spooked by the dim, dusky orange eye of the moon hanging nearly-full and heavy just above the horizon. By the time I got to Sacramento, the moon had climbed overhead and regained her usual pale remoteness, and she gained a wreath of fog as I crossed the causeway to Davis.

But I wasn’t sore at the end of the trip. I didn’t feel that unfortunately familiar lower backache that ends up radiating down my legs (especially my driving leg), or the stiffness in my leg muscles that comes from maintaining the right amount of tension on the accelerator.

Want to know why?

Because I discovered cruise control.

It’s built into my car, and I knew it was there and everything, but I had literally never used it until last Thursday. Even though much of my driving is freeway driving (this is SoCal, after all, where freeways are our biggest unnatural resource), I’m not often on a long-enough straight shot to use it.

But on Thursday, I had plenty of time to figure out how it worked. Although it’s pretty weird at first to accelerate and decelerate using my thumb instead of my foot, boy oh boy did it ever save my back and legs. And I was all like “I can’t believe I never pressed this button before.”

It was right in front of me the whole time.

The obligatory metaphor

So of course since I was on a biggification mission, the whole cruise-control story took on the weight of Business Metaphor in my head. Well, Life Metaphor, really.

As in, where in my life and business am I feeling strain and tension? And is there a cruise-control button right in front of me (or maybe over to the side a little) that I can learn to use? Would it be OK if I asked an experienced cruise-controller for a bit of advice or help? Could I maybe set my cruise control to a certain speed for awhile, knowing that I can always speed up or slow down a bit if I need to?

Or maybe I just need to run my thumb over the button every once in awhile, just to remind myself that it’s there, in case I want to try it. And if I do try it, and it works, maybe that’s the beginning of a support system for me, something that will let me accomplish more, without pushing me into soreness and enforced recovery mode.

Using blog software could be a form of cruise control. So could setting up autoresponders, or a shopping cart that delivers a downloadable file automatically. Or maybe a calendar with reminders, or a way for clients to schedule sessions without sending twenty emails back and forth. Maybe even hiring some help for a scary or difficult task.

What about you? Where could you use some cruise control in your business and life? What would it take for you to notice the button that’s right in front of you?

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips
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