Social networking site Pinterest has recently catapulted to prominence, reaching the rarefied heights occupied by the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. I joined in response to a couple of “invitations” but I can’t say I’ve made much use of it yet. My focus is on Linkedin, while I also follow Twitter and dabble in [...]
TechnoZen
Create a professional email signature
I have a confession to make: I stole the design for my email signature. Maybe I can make it right by offering my design to you.
The Apple Experience, by Carmine Gallo (book review)
Apple Inc. sells smartphones, tablets, computers, accessories, other hardware, and the software and services needed to make them all work as they are meant to. Other companies do these things too, but few of them can boast the success Apple reports during quarterly earnings calls like the one on April 24, 2012. This type of [...]
ISP email addresses, part 2
A couple of years ago, I suggested people not use their Internet service provider’s free email address. Earlier this year, a podcast I follow made five arguments against using ISP addresses. I agree with everything in the podcast except for the implication that a GMail address could be more professional than an ISP’s email address. [...]
Are you discoverable?
Imagine yourself in the following clip from the 2002 science-fiction movie Minority Report. Specifically, imagine your name is John Anderton: Advertising technology reads the protagonist’s retinas, which are as unique to him as his fingerprints, and then tailors ads with his name as he strides through a shopping center. We, of course, would never accept [...]
Avoid using manual tabs in Word
Want to line up specific elements over several rows, to make them look like individual columns? You can do this using tabs, but to do so means that if you want to change the spacing later, you need to change each line one at a time. There’s an easier way to space elements of contiguous [...]
Increasing text size in web browsers
Have you ever seen people with poor eyesight hold magnifying glasses to their computer screens? I haven’t either, but I could imagine that happening given how difficult it can be to read certain web sites. Fortunately, there are easier ways to make web sites easier to read. Browser menus offer zoom options, and certain web [...]
Rebooting smartphones
They’re pretty dependable devices, but even today’s smartphones sometimes “hang” or “freeze”. No matter what you do, they refuse to respond when you touch their screens or press their keys and buttons. Worry not. Smartphones are pretty easy to reset, or “reboot” to use the computing term, and the chances of losing your data in [...]
Signing PDFs without printing them
Increasing numbers of organizations offer documents to be completed as PDF forms. Just open them using Adobe’s free Reader software, click the fields you want to complete and start typing. The point of offering forms as PDFs is to help people reduce the amount of time it takes to complete forms, as well as cut [...]
Protect your privacy on Skype
Skype may be the most popular computer-based tool in the world among people who want to talk to one another using their computers. It offers conference calling, video conference calling, chat and document transfers, all in one software package. It also offers advertisers the opportunity to pitch their wares to Skypers. I chose to avoid [...]
