Aligning your (technology) office space with your core values

July 22, 2009 By

I’d like to remind everyone that the beautiful and brilliant Jen Hofmann of Inspired Home Office will be my special guest on tomorrow’s free teleclass.

Jen is an expert on office space and organizing, but what she does is much deeper than simply helping people color-code their files or suggesting a layout for their office furniture (though I can personally attest that her suggestions to me on both those topics have been enormously helpful in my working life!).

Working with Jen has given me a new appreciation for the effect that my workspace has on my work… and that translates into my whole life. My whole house. The space I carry with me each day.

Ever since I first came up with the Small-Business Tree, I’ve known that physical things like office furniture could be important roots (life-support systems, sustaining factors) for a home-based business. As I’ve worked with Jen to explore how my own brain works best, I’ve come to see that the alignment between physical space and core values is crucial.

Which leads to the question of the week:

What about my virtual office space?

We’ve all got email inboxes and files stored on our computers. Many of us are overwhelmed by the number and complexity of the messages and files we are “supposed to” read and keep track of each day. And there are tons of guides out there for “taming” “managing” and “conquering” your email and your file organization.

I don’t have a one-size-fits-all seven-steps-to-a-clean-desktop system to sell you. Even if I did, it would only work for those of you whose brains work pretty much like mine does — the rest of you would be bitterly disappointed.

That’s the genius of working with Jen. She’s got principles that apply to everyone, but the specific methods each one of us will use to align ourselves with our workspace and organizational system will be different, because each one of us is unique.

And isn’t it interesting how different you feel when you say things like “align” and “bring into harmony” and “depend on” instead of “tame,” “conquer,” or “zap”? It’s not just language, not just semantics. Our choice of words matters.

That’s why I think it’s genius that Jen’s new offering is called Jen and Charlie’s Work Party (yes, she’s pairing up with another of my most favorite people ever, Charlie Gilkey — it’s going to be beyond awesome)! It’s a party! It’s fun! And the name A Course in Compassion for Clutter is brilliant — you know right away whether it feels right for you.

Learning to look at your email inbox a new way, or realizing that you don’t have to organize your file folders the way you were taught or the way everyone else does it, is enormously freeing. Finding a way that works for you is a deep and true affirmation of your core values.

And that’s what tomorrow’s call is all about. I can’t promise a quick-fix solution to your overflowing inbox, or an easy way to find those missing files. I know we’ll be talking about technology and organization, about email and files and websites, and I’m certain that Jen will bring a new perspective, true compassion, and her full and generous heart to the conversation.

Oh, and did I mention that Jen has one of the most beautiful, soothing voices on the planet? It will be worth it to dial in just to hear her talk, I swear.

Plus we’re guaranteed to laugh and have fun. I’m honored to call Jen a friend, and I can’t wait to join her tomorrow!

Join us, won’t you?

Filed Under: General How-To's Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Why it’s OK to get naked on the internet

June 24, 2009 By

Here’s one from the mailbag:

What’s the deal with the “www” in a web address? Sometimes I see a link that looks like http://www.wendycholbi.com/ and other times I see links that look like http://wendycholbi.com/. What’s the difference? Are these always the same thing? Why do some sites include it and some leave it out? Can I leave out the w’s when I’m typing a web address?

OK, great topic! Let’s start by breaking this this nebulous area of confusion down into some specific questions:

What does the “www” mean?

The simple answer is that it stands for “world wide web.” In the Internet’s olden days, “Web” wasn’t synonymous with “Internet” (technically, it still isn’t, but these days the terms are used so interchangeably that it would be futile to protest). There were other ways of using the Internet: Email, file transfer (FTP), usenet, and more. So the “www” simply meant that the address pointed to a website and not some other type of Internet resource.

What do you call the “www” part of a web address?

A domain name comes in the form yourdomain.com (or yourdomain.org, or yourdomain.name, or many other variations). WendyCholbi.com and ebay.com are both domain names, for instance.

Anything before the domain name, separated with a dot, is called a subdomain. So the “www” in www.WendyCholbi.com is a subdomain. The “tickets” in tickets.ebay.com is a subdomain. If you have a blog on Blogger.com and you have an address like yourdomain.blogspot.com, the “yourdomain” part is a subdomain.

A domain name without any subdomains is called a naked domain (ooh, racy, am I right?)

Those of you using Blogger may be interested to know that the prudes folks who run Blogger won’t let you use a naked domain to host your blog. Yes, you can use your own domain name, but it has to be non-naked (it must have a subdomain, whether it’s “www” or something else). This leads to a complication when using your own domain name with Blogger: You have to figure out a way to point the naked domain to your “www” subdomain. The easiest way to do this is to forward the naked domain to the “www” subdomain (here are instructions for doing it with a GoDaddy account).

Why do some sites have a “www” and some leave it out?

Now that we’ve left the olden days behind, the vast majority of URLs do point to websites, whether or not they contain a “www.” That subdomain became ubiquitous and therefore nearly meaningless. Although “www” is still probably the most common subdomain, and many websites still use it, it’s becoming more and more common to just drop it entirely.

Yes, that’s right: More and more website owners are getting naked with their domain names. Rowr!

So it’s merely a choice made by the site owner, whether to use the “www” subdomain or get naked.

Are “www.yourdomain.com” and “yourdomain.com” always the same thing? Can I safely leave out the www when typing a web address?

I would love to give you a simple answer to this question, but because it’s up to the individual website owner whether to include “www” or not, different websites are going to act differently. Usually, the www-containing version and the naked version of a domain point to the same page, but sometimes they don’t.

The simplest rule of thumb I can give is that if a naked version of the domain doesn’t work, just try typing “www” before the naked domain and that should probably work.

Bonus question that wasn’t asked, but I’ll answer it anyway: If I’m a website owner, should I use “www” or not?

Definitely go naked!

Let me clarify:

  • As a site owner, you should always make sure that people can get to your site whether they type the “www” or not. This means pointing the “www” subdomain and your naked domain to the same place. Most web hosts have a setting that lets you do this with a few clicks.
  • But when you mention your site (in conversation, when linking to it, in your advertising, on your business cards, etc.) just drop the w’s. They’re cumbersome to pronounce, they take up space, and the “.com” (or “.org” or whatever) is enough to identify your web address as a web address.

Whew, that’s enough nakedness for today, thankyouverymuch! Stay tuned for more questions by subscribing to the blog, and feel free to send me your own question. You might get featured here!

–Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood swim-goggle-wearing technology-to-English translator

Filed Under: General How-To's Tagged With: , , , , ,

How do I create a customized PayPal payment button?

June 10, 2009 By

When I demonstrate how easy it is to add a PayPal button to your website, I’m commonly asked this question:

I want a button that matches the colors of my website. But PayPal only lets me have one color (yellow) and two text choices (“Buy Now” or “Pay Now”). Can’t I customize this somehow?

Why yes, yes you can. I’m about to show you how. And you don’t need to hire a designer or buy Photoshop to do it.

Here’s one of the basic PayPal buttons (it’s a real, working button for my Website Wish Kit):

You can change the size a bit, or remove the credit-card logos, but there’s not much customization available beyond those basic tweaks. So, what if the traditional PayPal golden-yellow clashes terribly with your website color scheme?

1. You head on over to a free button generator like CoolText (yes, it’s completely free). You play with colors, fonts, and size. You snag yourself a great button or three.

2. You save the button(s) to your computer with CoolText’s handy “download image” link, or right-clicking (on a Mac, Control-clicking) on each image and selecting “Save Image As” from the pop-up menu.

3. You give your button(s) a home online by uploading them to your WordPress Media Library, or if you don’t use WordPress, to a free service like Photobucket. Here’s Photobucket’s FAQ on “How do I upload an image?” Other free services include Flickr (owned by Yahoo) and Picasa (owned by Google).

4. You copy the unique URL (web address) of your button image, now that it’s got a permanent home. Here’s Photobucket’s tutorial on “Linking Basics” which shows you how to get the address (you want the option called “Direct Link.”

5. You log into your PayPal account and start creating a button (click on the blue “Merchant Services” tab at the top of the screen and then click either “buy now” or “add to cart” to get to the main button-generating screen).

6. You paste the URL that you copied in Step 4 into the field labeled “use your own button image” (you’ll have to click on “customize appearance” to see this option). Don’t worry if “buyer’s view” stays blank. It will still work.

Continue through PayPal’s button-generating process, and paste the HTML code into your website just as you would with any PayPal button. Here’s a real, working PayPal button that uses one of the custom designs I created with CoolText:

7. People visit your website and pay you! Of course, it helps to have something to sell, fans who visit your website, and clear language on your site that describes your offering…but this post is just about the buttons.

Go have fun creating buttons! But don’t let choosing the perfect font and color get in the way of installing that first button. If you need more help with PayPal, you can ask me a question or leave a comment here.

Filed Under: General How-To's Tagged With: , , ,

How long will this download take?

June 3, 2009 By

I got a great question about audio downloads:

I ended up missing a teleclass. I have the link to download the recording. However, I am concerned about attempting it since I only have dial-up internet service. Should I even bother trying to get it?

I’m so glad this question came our way, because I have broadband (high-speed, which in my case is delivered through fiber-optic cables) internet access, and it’s easy for me to assume that downloading audio files is as easy for my readers as it is for me. Oops!

Here are a couple of helpful tips on downloads and connection speed:

First: Check your speed. While there are rules-of-thumb about how long downloads will take, you really won’t know for sure unless you check your actual connection speed in real-life. Many sites will do this for you. Here’s a link to a free speed-tester provided by CNET.

Just enter your area code, connection type, and, optionally, your ISP:

CNETs bandwidth tester

CNET's bandwidth tester

After you click “go,” you’ll get a screen that indicates testing is in progress. Let this run its course (especially if you have a slow connection, don’t worry if this takes a few minutes). Next, you’ll see a chart that looks something like this, with your result in red, helpfully labeled “you”:

Chart showing the results of CNETs speed test

Chart showing the results of CNET's speed test

Pay attention to the red number, the one that is in kbps (kilobytes per second).

Second: How big is the file you want to download? An hour-long call can be up to 30 Mb in size. I recently downloaded a free PDF that was about 750 kb. Video files are often much bigger.

Now you get to do some math. If math scares you, just use this handy online calculator (you still need to know your connection speed first!). Basically you take the file size and divide by your connection speed, and the result is the number of seconds your download will take.

And then keep in mind that a ton of factors can influence the actual speed (usually to slow it down).

Using the online calculator, I figured that downloading an hourlong call that’s 15Mb in size on a dial-up connection would take at least half an hour (and of course it could be longer).

As an alternative, you can always try listening to the audio file straight from the web (this is called “streaming audio,” and it’s the default behavior for audio links. You’ll have to judge for yourself whether you get good audio quality with streaming audio. I don’t have dial-up myself so I can’t test it, but I would love to hear whether any of my readers are able to do this successfully. Please chime in on the comments or contact me to let me know.

Or, of course, there’s the freeloader plan: Ask a friend with a fast connection to download it for you and burn it to a CD, or perhaps download the file on your office computer (if you have one and if you won’t be violating any company policies by doing so).

Whichever way you choose to go, we want you to have free and easy access to our audio files. So please do let us know if you have problems or concerns.

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