Ok, this isn’t anything new but I was just thinking about how useful it is. It is called Dropbox. It could be as simple as an offline file backup… pretty boring, right? Wrong.

A backup might be how you use it if you just have one computer. I have three computers (two Macs and a Windows box) and an iPhone. I use Dropbox to keep client files and other frequently accessed files (like my resume) available and up-to-date on each machine. Once it is setup (which is super-easy), Dropbox will check each install location and your secure folder on their web storage for newer files and either add them to the folders on each machine or replace older versions with the new one. It is seamless. You don’t have to think about it. It just works. That is the beauty of it.

You can also access your files on a computer where you might not have dropbox installed via their website and if you have an iPhone, there is a Dropbox app that adds even more functionality… both also super-easy.

There are three levels of service. The free account gives you 2 gigs of storage. For $9.99/month you can shoot up to 50GB a $19.99 gets you 100GB.

With the free account, you can add space by sharing Dropbox with your friends via a link that they provide… like this one https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTYxNTI3OQ

I’ve been meaning to talk about this for some time. Somewhere in the cross-country move, I lost sight of doing this video. Anyway, I keep seeing commercials for services that use SMS or text messaging to find answers to questions. They cost money! Then there is Ask Cha Cha. It is a service that has been around for some time longer than these TV spots have been on the air.

Check it out:

Click here to view the embedded video.

My soon-to-be ex-wife just shared with me something that she wrote for our kids. I found it to be very well done and asked her if I could share it with whoever might read it here.

She wrote it when our oldest was going through a bout of being possessed by some demon. He is a great kid and doesn’t have many of those bouts these days. Anyway, here is what she wrote:

For years your dad and I have taught you and prodded you to make your own decisions. And for the most part, you have done just what we have asked. As your parents your dad and I have lent a guiding hand but the decisions and choices you have made have been yours and yours alone.

Some of your choices have been good, some not so good and some bad. The good decisions were made with rational thoughts and foresight into the outcome. And you relished in the consequences. The not so good decisions came from an ambivalent thought with little foresight but much hindsight. And the consequences yielded a 50/50 end result. Some choices were fair and acceptable while others had much to be desired and less likely to be repeated. The poor choices were usually made in haste, spite or revenge and you only regretted the choice made.

But every decision you made, each good choice, each not so good choice and each poor choice all taught you something important. What your final decision was is not important. Of course at the time the ultimate end result seemed to be the only thing that mattered. The most important thing that you learned was to trust your instinct and that the here and now is not as important as the long run.

You will make mistakes. Your dad and I did and we still do. Mistakes are good. They teach us what not to do, what to do differently and how to recognize the criteria that makes a good decision or a bad decision.

Never have regrets. You may have disappointments, but never have regrets. Look at each and every obstacle you face as an opportunity. Each obstacle you face will force you to choose a path – to make a good choice, a not so good choice or a bad choice. Your dad and I can assist you, all you have to do is ask for our guidance and we will give it to you. Just remember that all we are giving is our opinion and our advice and that outcome rests on your instinct and your final decision.

Man, I turn around and realize that I’ve been ignoring my blog. Sorry folks.

Not that what I’m adding tonight is terribly noteworthy… just a nametag, woohoo!

The nametag is for any Social Media Club meeting. Two files. One is the generic, download and print PDF version, the other is the PSD (Photoshop) version with layers, it a wants to get all fancy-like.

It looks like this:

Australia Square by frangipani_photograph via flickr.com

The title of this post is a phrase I’ve heard way too many times. It is the refuge for those that either can’t, won’t or just aren’t given reason to think.

Years ago when I worked for a rather large publishing company, I sat in a cubicle for roughly 8 hours a day. Several mornings each week, I would notice a woman making copies. Always at the same time, with the same cart, with the same three colors of paper. She would make a stack of copies on blue paper, then a similar stack with green stock and lastly a lovely marigold color. There seemed to be maybe 50 sheets in each stack.

Once the copies were made, she would place the blue and green papers in the cart and drop the stack of the lovely marigold paper into the nearby trash bin.

The first time I realized she was discarding one of the stacks, I assumed there was a misprint and she was going to come back and reprint them. She didn’t return. Subsequent mornings I found her doing the same thing. It baffled me.

One morning I asked her about the copies she was making. She explained that the blue were for accounting, the green was for shipping and the yellow (she apparently didn’t know marigold when she saw it) was for a department that no longer existed.

Of course my next question was along the lines of “Why do you print them then?”. Her answer was that it is what she was told to do. No one had told her not to make the third stack. When she asked her boss what to do with the yellows, she was told to just throw them away.

Now, I know this sounds completely silly. Of course it is! But there are so many other things that happen every day that are similar. We do things because it it the way it has always been done all the time. Cars are still predominately made with the engines in the front. Men wear neckties… have you ever wondered why? Many shirts that aren’t designed to be worn with a tie still have collars on them. The U.S. uses imperial measurement… still. Having only two real political parties. There are many more examples out there.

Lately, there have been some examples that are in fact changing… or dying. Geoff Livingston writes about what is happening to the newspaper industry and what happened to department stores. Both have fallen victim to inability to move past the way it has always been done.

What part of what you do every day is done for similar reasons? Do you question the norms? Look around you, the norms are everywhere, every day, in everything we do. Not all of them are bad, but some are just silly if you give it a little thought.

Today, during lunch at Arby’s, I saw a story about someone getting fired because of something they said online. Sure, there are PLENTY of these stories and I’ve written on this subject from a job-seeker’s point of view in the past. This one is a little different.

This time, the comments the employees were terminated for were said in a password protected area of MySpace. Granted, it seems the employer’s legal team has shaped their story well enough at this point to cover their asses, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on whether making a concerted effort to keep conversations private online should protect you from legal action. Is there such a thing as a private conversation online? Is a password protected myspace conversation any different than a conversation via email? If an employer knowingly reads communications they know weren’t meant for them, does that put them at risk?

Hello again! So this installation of bad interface practices is one that has bugged me for quite a while. It is something that many of are so used to that we don’t question it. It is the START menu in most flavors of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Here is what annoys me about it. When a user wants to shut down their machine, when they want to stop using the machine… they have to hit a button labeled START! It seems intuitive only because we’ve been forced to do it for so long.

Now, I’ll make this rant a short one because as you can see here, with Windows 7 and the current, yet hardly used Windows Vista, they have done away with it… FINALLY!

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mag3737/2963094169/

I have had a few of these in my thoughts as of late. They are things that we interact with, some many times a day, that are just plain silly. Most don’t really slow us down too much but, well, they annoy me.

The emergency brake in my Mom’s Chrysler Minivan (and many other vehicles from just about every auto maker)

Here is how it works. To engage the emergency brake, you simply push the lever toward the floor with your left foot. It, like the other pedals under the driver’s dash, has that rubber-like cover. Here is where the annoyance comes in. Unlike the other pedals, in order to disengage it, you use your hand! You pull a lever that is above where the brake pedal rests when it is in the disengaged position. I know, nothing serious. I just have to ask why? Why not allow the user to operate the lever with just one limb?

It isn’t asking too much of the user to do something crazy or anything, but it just feels better to simplify what can be safely simplified. This and the fact that the disengage lever is where the hood pop lever is on most cars is slightly annoying as well.

Credit for this, I’m sure, should be given to cost saving measures which certainly is important. This van was NOT the entry-level model though.

How can I learn from this? Consider watching a few users interact with whatever it is that you help create. Look for places that, even if for a moment, makes the user pause. Don’t be afraid to remove what is not necessary.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I found a rather nice 3rd party tool for responding to follows and direct messages from twitter users.

Credit: justmakeit via flickr

If you haven’t checked out ted.com, you should. Then you can also check out academicearth.org and youtube’s offering at www.youtube.com/edu

It is all the smart stuff with none of the Numa Numa or “boom goes the dynamite”. If you don’t know what those things are, check out those first… They are much quicker. Then get smarterer.

Be sure to check out some of the categories that may hold no interest to you. It is in these that you may find answers and paralels that will help you solve tomorrow’s problems.