Never Done

How To Save Skype Voicemails

2008-04-07T17:10:00.001-07:00

I got a really interesting voicemail in Skype that I had to pass along to my business partners, but was stopped dead in my tracks when I find out that there is no way to get at these voicemails other than through the Skype client. I searched the Skype forums, searched the web, tried installing Pamela (which apparently can only save voicemails that you get *after* it's installed) and nothing could work. Until I came across this little gem. It's a pretty old post, but it got me experimenting and allowed me to solve the problem. Here is my step by step.

Get Audacity. It's great, free audio editor and recorder.
Open Audacity.
Unplug any external speakers on your laptop or get your speakers near your mic.
Slide the microphone slider in Audacity to the left so it doesn't pick up too much (you might need to try it a few times to get the volume right).
Press record in Audacity.
Press play in Skype.

That's it. You'll be recording your voicemails in no time and I was very surprised at the sound quality. It turned out very clear!

How to Never Use the Fax Machine Again: Use eSignatures

2007-10-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, the thought of getting some paperwork that I have to sign sends shivers up my spine. I know it's going to sit on my desk for three days, then I'll finally say "Ok, I'm just going to take some time and get this done." So I:

fill out the paperwork,
sign and date on the line,
get in my car,
drive to the neighborhood Kinko's,
wait in line,
tell them I need to fax these 10 pages of nonsense,
they say "it is $2 per page so that will be $20. you can use the machine over there."
I pay the frikin $20 (the $20 has a very hard time leaving my hands I'll have you know, $2 per page is highway robbery),
I go the fax machine,
ask the Kinko's staff how to use it,
figure out how to use it,
send the faxes,
leave Kinko's,
drive back to work,
but now that I spent my entire afternoon dealing with this, it's time to go home.

Sound familiar?

Well luckily there is a better way. A law that was passed in 2000, called the ESIGN Act makes it so you can do this all online. No printing, no faxing, no bulls**t.

So how can you take advantage of this?

Sign up for Middlepost Docs which allows you to send documents for signatures and get them signed online. They are also stored for at least 7 years.

How to Never Make a Late Payment on Your Credit Card

2007-07-18T21:50:00.001-07:00

When you are late making a payment (otherwise known as a default) on your credit card, a lot of bad things can happen such as your interest rate can shoot up to insane levels like 29%, any introductory offer will be cancelled and will now be at the huge rate as well, and the rate will never go back down. Plus it can mess up your credit score! That's a lot of bad for such a small thing as missing a payment. So all in all, you get screwed and the credit card company takes more of your money.

Fortunately, there is a very simple way to never have to worry about missing a credit card payment. If you'll notice on your monthly credit card statement, there is always a minimum payment due (assuming your balance is not zero) and if you make the minimum payment, you will not be "late".

So here's how to ensure this will never happen to you:

Figure out how much your maximum minimum payment would be by looking at past bills. Lets say just for examples sake that you owe $5000, the minimum payment is $50 and your maximum credit limit is $10,000. Then we could say that if you were maxed out at $10,000 your minimum payment would be $100.
Setup a monthly recurring automatic bill payment from your bank to your credit card for at least $100, maybe a bit more just in case, and time it so that it will always get paid before the due date.

That's all you have to do. Bill payment is free so it doesn't cost you anything and you can then make your main credit card payments at your convenience without having to worry about being late.

GoDaddy Founder Bob Parsons 16 Rules for Success

2007-06-06T08:56:00.000-07:00

I was just doing some research into Bob Parsons, the man behind GoDaddy.com and found a post on his blog that provides a good bio of himself plus his 16 rules of success that he lives by in business and in life. Did you know he fought in Vietnam? And did you know that he started a successful
business and grew it to 1000 employees then eventually sold to Intuit?

On to Bob Parsons 16 Rules. Here are some excerpts that I like:

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone. I believe that not much happens of any significance when we're in our comfort zone. I hear people say, "But I'm concerned about security." My response to that is simple: "Security is for cadavers."

5. Focus on what you want to have happen. Remember that old saying, "As you think, so shall you be."

9. Measure everything of significance. I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.

15. Don't take yourself too seriously. Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

After doing more research, the guy has really earned my respect. At first I figured a guy with an earring that rides a big bold chopper and takes his GoDaddy girls to Nascar races is probably an ego-maniac, but there appears to be more than meets the eye.

Anti-GTD

2007-05-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

My friend sent me this funny (or bitter) post about GTD and productivity. I'm not siding with his post in any way, it's just an amusing take on things.

The Anti-GTD'er

Want a Joost Invite?

2007-05-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

Come one, come all. Post a comment here and I will send you a free Joost Invite.

For those not in the know, Joost is basically free TV brought to you by the guys that made Skype.

Commission Junction

2007-04-23T01:58:00.000-07:00

Commission Junction is probably the biggest and most well known Affiliate Marketing service provider in the industry. They've been around forever, and by forever I mean they survived the dot com rise and fall. I first signed up for CJ because that is who eBay uses for their affiliate marketing system and now that I am a member, I have been joining several other advertiser's programs too.

I actually like Commission Junction's interface (especially when compared to other affiliate providers like Performics). It's pretty easy to use and has some decent reporting so you can find out the important stuff quickly: How much did I make today? And from which Advertiser?

Probably the best thing about Commission Junction is that when you are looking for other advertiser's affiliate programs, they show you the following three columns:

3 Month EPC (earnings per 100 clicks)
7 Day EPC (earnings per 100 clicks)
Network Earnings Rating - Shows a comparison rating of the volume of commissions paid out compared to all the other advertisers in the CJ network

This allows you to see which programs actually work and which ones don't. Invaluable information!

eBay Affiliate Program

2007-04-22T11:18:00.001-07:00

A while back, I decided to add eBay listings to the search results on the "million pageview" site because I thought it would enhance the results, not because it could generate more money. While working on adding the eBay results, I found out that it was possible to earn a little extra money by appending your affiliate ID to the eBay links. So I thought, "what the heck, sign me up!"

I joined the eBay Affiliate Program on April 1 and on the first day I put it up, I made $12.00. Not bad. It ran for a few days, but then then things starting messing up. At first I thought my first few days on the program were just luck and my luck has run out since nobody is clicking the eBay links. But then I got an email from the eBay Affiliate team saying that they are aware of the issue and they are fixing it. I was glad to hear it wasn't just me, but my eBay commissions came to a grinding halt. Turns out they had a very serious glitch in their system that is still broken to this day. So I can't really give you any good data on how the eBay Affiliate Program is working out, but it was off to a good start and as soon as it gets back to normal, I will post more updates.

FYI: eBay uses Commission Junction as their affiliate service provider.

Fast Forward to Today - AdSense and AdBrite

2007-04-22T02:57:00.000-07:00

Since I just started this thread about making money online, I'll get you up to speed with where I'm at as of now.

Background

Here's a backgrounder about the "million pageview" site. It's a specialized search engine that I made back in 2005 and suddenly started taking off around mid 2006, growing at a phenomenal rate every month. I'm not going to mention the name here right now because I don't want people to think that I made the site just so I could do this, because I didn't. Which is also the grounds for Rule #1: No Spammy Ads.

Banned. Supposedly you can't show AdSense ads near content of a more adult nature and unfortunately when you have a search engine that people can use to search for anything under the sun, what can you do? Even Google itself has similar content. I had no intentions of having adult content on the site, it just happened because of users. And actually it wasn't quite a full ban, it was more of a "we are pausing your account until you clean up the pages where our ads show."

Which left me with two options: 1) Clean up all the content. 2) Drop AdSense and find something else.

I chose both. I added some features in place to mark content as "Inappropriate for children under the age of 18 (aka: Inappropriate for AdSense)". I also dropped AdSense. Which of course is partially why I am writing this blog. So maybe being banned ain't so bad if it pushes you to learn more.

While searching for another advertiser to fill the void that was AdSense, I came across AdBrite. AdBrite has a very interesting offering, basically allowing you to sell ads on your site, but they manage it.

It breaks down like this:

You create an ad zone, for example a 468x60 wide banner.
You paste a few lines of code on your site where you want the zone to show up.
Then immediately people will see something like "Advertise Here!" on your site.
When they click the Advertise Here link, they will be taken to a page where they can make the purchase.
You approve the ad, and boom, it's live and running.
Then as time goes on, AdBrite's auto pricing feature will automatically adjust prices based on demand for the zone!

Very cool stuff. I liked the look, I did some background reading on them to see if they were legit, and I liked what they had to offer. I was sold. They also offer mouseover text ads like Vibrant Media's IntelliTXT and Kontera's ContentLink. I was doubly sold. And a little known fact about them is that they have a sister site call AVNAds.com, which is made for edgier content (same login as AdBrite) which covers the edgier search terms. I was triply sold.

I've been running AdBrite since April 7th and although it appears to have some pretty major bugs in the system, I'm somewhat happy with it. The revenue per day trickles up a bit every day which is a good sign and it allows me to easily post my own affiliate ads which is something I just started playing with. I'll keep you posted on my AdBrite Adventures as time goes on.

Affiliate Programs

And finally, I've started to try out some affiliate programs, but since this post is getting long and I don't have much data on the affiliate results, I'm going to call it a day. I'll post about it soon, so check back or subscribe to the blog.

What would you do if you had 1 million pageviews per month?

2007-04-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I would try to make some money off of it. So I am starting a series of blog posts that are going to be all about how I get from making almost nil (nada, zero, null, $0.00), to making over $10,000 per month from this 1 million pageview site.

So listen and learn. I will take the hard knocks, get back up and try again and you can reap all the rewards from the comfort of your home.

My Current Productivy Tools Arsenal

2007-03-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of online applications for many reasons such as having easy access on any computer and never having to worry about backing up my data. So every single day, I use the following applications to get things done.

Gmail (any webmail would work, gmail is just the best and most productive)
Google Calendar (again, the best and most productive)
Google Docs for all my document writing and even for taking notes during a meeting so everyone can read and write things in real-time
Skype for calling people, working in pairs (pairing), conference calls, voicemail, taking voice notes, etc. (seriously don't know what I would do without it)
GoPlan for Project Management
MindMeister for brainstorming and taking down ideas Google style. This is a new addition that I am really enjoying, especially when brainstorming remotely with multiple people on the same mindmap.

And by productive in the brackets above, I mean they are very quick to work with lots of great keyboard shortcuts and time saving features.

With all of these tools, you can run your life pretty good. You don't need an Office Suite anymore and to tell you the truth, Word and the installed offline programs seem really old school after you get a chance to work on a document at the exact same time as your co-worker while you are talking with her on Skype from the comfort of your home. There are obviously some job specific tools that you'll need in addition to these, but this is my core set of day-to-day tools that are best of breed.

What do you use?

Work Asynchronously

2006-11-20T18:57:00.000-08:00

In the software world, asynchronous processing is the best thing since sliced bread, giving users fast response times and allowing the actual operation (task) to be performed in the background when the computer has the chance to process it. The same concept can be applied to real life.

Email instead of calling on the phone
- Email is asynchronous communication at it’s core
- 30 seconds to write an email, compared to 5 minutes on the phone.
- Not only that, but you can fire off an email so quickly that you can stay in the context of what your working on even if it is totally unrelated to the topic of the email.
Order products online
- This is semi-asynchronous because you make your order, then you forget about it and wait for it to show up at your door.
- Compare that to driving to the store, deciding what you want, then going through the checkout, packing your bags, putting them in your car, driving home, and finally unpacking your bags.
- 30 minutes compared to 2-3 hours?
Plan events online

This is similar to the email vs phone thing except it’s even more beneficial because instead of calling contacting a single person, we are talking about many people!

Use online collaboration tools

Using Google Docs, I can edit when I want, someone else can edit when they want, or both can edit at the same time.
I don’t have to wait to receive someone’s edits and send the document back and forth.

Use an instant messengers that supports offline messages

Skype, Yahoo, and Windows Live Messenger support this
You don’t have to wait for someone to be online

Email instead of IM

You won’t get caught up in a synchronous conversation in email

Asynchronous working cannot be used in every situation, for instance, urgent deadlines may need immediate responses so a phone call can work better.

Get into the Zone

2006-10-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

I was reading this post on Web Worker Daily about “flow” (aka productivity) and I thought I would share how I get into the “flow” or “zone” as I like to call it.

I think the best way to get into the “zone” is to just decide exactly what you are going to do. Choose some small deliverable task that you can finish in your “flow” session. For example, “I will write a blog post about X”, or “I will finish chapter 5 of this report”. Once you’ve made that decision and it’s in your head, then it’s easy to stay focused until the task is done. It helps to write it down on a piece of paper in big print and put in front of your or sticky note it to your monitor so it’s always glaring at you. Close your email program, close your browser windows that are unrelated to the task at hand, and turn off your IM’s (or at least set yourself to away) so you don’t get distracted. And if you do get distracted for some reason, you can easily get back into the flow because you already decided what your current task is and it’s still glaring at you.

And in the end, when you can crumple up that paper and toss it in the recycle bin, you’ll feel pretty good about it. Try doing this daily and see if you start getting more things done.

Get a 3G Broadband Wireless Card

2006-10-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

There is nothing worse than not having an Internet connection when you need it. And there is nothing better than having it when you don’t need it.

Don’t need it:

Disclaimer: Not me. ;)

Shouldn’t need it, but have it anyway:

Disclaimer: Not me.

They are expensive, currently around $80 per month or $60 with a voice plan from the same company, so see if you’re employer will pay for it or cancel your home Internet subscription and then it won’t seem so bad. Cingular, Sprint and Verizon currently have 3G networks in many major cities (I use Cingular and love it).

Do you currently have one? Post a comment and let us know what service you use and what you like/dislike about it.

Taking Notes on the Road… Literally

2006-09-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been driving along, listening to the radio, when all of a sudden, an idea hits you? Then you realize you can’t exactly find a notepad and write out your great idea because… well, you’re driving!

Problem solved, get SkypeIn and simply call your computer to leave yourself a note. Then when you get back to your computer (or any computer for that matter), and you fire up Skype, you will see your messages waiting for you.

When you’re ready to listen, you just click the messages to play them and you can transfer these to your calendar, todo list, or where ever it should go. It’s just like another inbox for yourself and it’s nice because you can listen to them when you have the time to actually process them.

Quick Start

Get a SkypeIn number
Put your SkypeIn number on speed dial (or if you use it enough, it will just always be on your recent calls list for quick access)
Call your SkypeIn number whenever you think of something, but can’t write it down
When you are ready to listen to them in the comfort of your home/office, just click the Play button in Skype.

Voila, no idea lost, no extra equipment required.

Keep Your Instant Messengers Minimized

2006-09-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

The mere site of an open contact list and seeing who’s online always diverts your attention from what you are doing. You can just hear it saying “Click me! Click me!” Then before you know it, you’re in three conversations at the same time and you’re not even sure what you were doing before. And if you’re like me, you have all 18 instant messenger (IM) programs running at the same (well not quite 18). I actually run 4 IM programs, all day, every day because different contacts are on different systems. My system tray looks like this:

That’s 4 different contact lists to distract me. So the trick is to keep them minimized so they are just running in the background and don’t open them unless you need to talk to someone!

Continuous Work Flow and Pointers

2006-09-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever stopped working on something one day, then the next morning when you sit down at your desk, you are not sure what you should be doing? Well here’s a tip that should prove helpful.

When you are about to stop working on your current task, make a note of what you did, what you would do if you didn’t have to stop, and the name of the document/file/anything you were working with. This has many benefits; first it gives you a refresher on what you were doing, an easy next action, and lastly, since you noted the actual resource you were working with, it also provides a pointer directly into your work which allows you to continue exactly where you left off! I urge you to try this and see if it can work for you.

Real World Example 1: Working on a Document

You are writing a business strategy document that you present to upper management. It is approaching five o-clock and you are tired and weary from working hard all day. So you make a note in your document exactly where you were working:

TODO: THIS NEEDS SOME MORE FINANCIAL NUMBERS

You also note this at the top of your scratchpad, or whatever you look at first thing in the morning, so when you get to work and open your scratchpad, it’s the first thing you see. Then you open the document, find your TODO note and continue working.

Real World Example 2: Working on Software

This one is for the software developers out there and it’s basically the same as example 1, except you put a note in your code where you were working without marking it as a comment:

TODO: NEED TO IMPLEMENT THIS

You note this in your scratchpad too, but the best part about this scenario is that when you go to compile your code, it will split out an error and take you directly to where you left off.

Read "Getting Things Done" by David Allen

2006-09-12T15:46:00.000-07:00

Everyone should have a basic understanding of the ideas and concepts David Allen presents. The following is an extremely simplified version of the basic principles and workflow of GTD:

Capture everything that is on your mind. Write it down, email it to yourself, leave yourself a voicemail, just get it out of your head and onto something that you can deal with later.
Process your inboxes. Clean out your inbox, going through each item you made in step 1 and applying some simple rules:
1. If an item requires action, do it if it takes less than two minutes, delegate it to someone else, or defer it for later action by putting it into a task list, calendar, or ‘waiting for’ list.
2. If not, file it or toss it.
Do and Review. Review the things you made in step 2, define next actions, and do them. Allen suggests weekly reviews of all your tasks and projects too, so you can make sure nothing is slipping through the cracks and you are always aware of your overall plan.

Dave Pollard’s got a nice simple diagram of the GTD workflow on his blog, somewhat modified for his particular system, but good nonetheless.

This ideas behind Getting Things Done are great, but actually putting them to work is another story. At the least, read the book, soak up the ideas, try to implement some of it, just don’t go crazy if you can’t find the perfect system (I’ve been searching for a looong time). Even if you don’t read it, do step 1 and your version of step 2 in the workflow above. The theory of getting your ideas down so you don’t have that nagging feeling of forgetting something makes this book worth the read.

Here’s the book on Amazon

Use a Scratchpad

2006-09-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

A scratchpad is a must have in everyone’s productivity arsenal. It’s simple and effective. It’s like having a notepad in your pocket to jot down your thoughts, except it’s on your computer. The idea is to capture anything and everything into a simple text file. Think of it as your inbox for everything other than email. Keep it open all day and put ideas, thoughts, to-do’s, phone call notes, or anything else into it.

Then when you get a moment or you are starting a task that is related to something on your scratchpad, cut and paste from your scratchpad to move the information into a more appropriate place.

I started using a scratchpad after I started using Google Desktop, because they have a nice Scratchpad widget (shown to the right). The scratchpad is actually the most useful thing out of all the desktop widgets. The rest are really just fluff and a waste of time and computer resources, but more on that in a future post. It is tremendously helpful to get ideas down quick so you can continue on with what you are doing. Also, you don’t have to think about where to write things until a later time. The GTDers out there should really love this.

Scratchpad Tools

As mentioned above, the Google Desktop widget works great for this, just be sure to drag it off of the sidebar and onto your desktop so it’s always there and you can make it big enough to use. There are some bonuses to the Google scratchpad like auto saving (so you never have to press ctrl-s) and it can sync between your computers.

If you don’t have or don’t use Google Desktop Widgets then notepad or any other text editor works just as good. Create a single file called SCRATCHPAD.txt and save it in My Documents. Then just keep that file open for editing throughout the day.

About

2006-09-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

Mission Impossible: Maximum Productivity

This site is dedicated to helping people be more productive with their time. We realize that you are never done working, but we think we can at least make sure you accomplish more with the little time you have. Until someone figures out a way to allow us to never sleep, we have to make do with the tools and knowledge we have.
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