Whether you have a busy family with a growing love of idevices or a situation where you have a phone for work and for home, it can tricky managing it all. I know you’ve got questions:

“What happens if I quit my job?”

“What happens when the kids grow up and move out?”

“How many accounts do you need for all of this stuff?”

Let’s sort it out.

One person, one account, one computer

A good rule of thumb to consider when it comes to iTunes is each account should be attached to a person who can support themselves financially. As the family decision maker use your main itunes ID for your family’s account, use your current  account, don’t create a new one. At work, continue to use your personal Apple ID for your work iphone or ipad.

This provides you with the ability to make changes, locate devices and maintain general order without having to remember any additional usernames or passwords.

Dedicate one computer as your iTunes computer. Each device gets synced to it. You’ll know what’s on it in addition to having the purchase history.

As your kids grow up and leave home, it’s time for their own account. Music is DRM free so they can copy what they want to take. Their graduation present can include an iTunes gift card to pay out their app and game investments over the years.

Remember: One person, one computer, one account.

Devices change, Stuff remains

As life changes, so will your electronics. Using one Apple ID will allow you to consolidate your music and apps in one account despite changing phones over the long term. You’ll have access to download content you’ve already purchased onto any device you sign into.

This makes the most financial sense from a family perspective too. Whether you share taste in music or not, there is guaranteed to be some overlap.

As devices change, whether you change jobs or lose phones, you can track and wipe them from one iTunes account.

 Paying for it all

In a family situation, share your password with everyone and remove your credit card information from your account.

Each member of your family can then add money to your account using iTunes gift cards. Predictably, in this scenario, the owner of the redeemed gift card will rush to download purchases before anyone else discovers there is credit in the account. Or they’ll very purposefully pay for only the music they need at the time.

For your work devices, buy a gift card and expense it if there are apps you need that are work related.

Hopefully that helps you keep up with the demands of current technology. Any other tips and tricks that you use, leave them in the comments!

Three thumbs down for dumb ideas!

We’ve all heard the Social Media marketing buzz and it may well be a valuable tool with direct positive impact on your bottom line. It can just as easily become a productivity drain, a mindless noise generator and the biggest distraction to a communications plan you’ve ever endorsed. If you are going to do it right, consider avoiding these common pitfalls:

Don’t Measure your Success in Followers

If your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are based solely on how many people like or follow you, you may need to reconsider your approach. The reason they like you is more to the point. And if you look deeper at the products or services you offer, the reason they like your product is what you should be truly devoted to. Create goals that revolve around the premise of executing business goals using social, not social for the sake of being popular.

Don’t Beg for Social Favours

Asking people to follow you, like your page, re-tweet or check-in is like telling a story to a friend and asking them to tell someone else. You don’t need to encourage your followers to share your information if your content is great, they simply will without questioning it. If they do share your content upon request, their superficial interest on the subject will be easily detected and your reach will be very limited or your reputation negatively affected. Instead, make your content interesting and awesome, craft story around your product and be inventive. If you resort to giveaways, you’ll assemble a loyal following of freeloaders.

Don’t Peddle Corporate Wares on Facebook

Selling office furniture and chloroplast signage or anything people don’t feel a personal connection to on Facebook is a ridiculous idea – it’s like selling insurance over dinner. If you are selling business to business, social media is probably not an avenue you want to pursue with vigor. Instead, redouble your efforts on a powerful, sales focused website, ensure it’s easy to use and use analytics to improve it.

Don’t be Uninformed

If you don’t know what people are saying about your product or brand, how can you make informed decisions on how to engage socially? Powerful monitoring tools exist that can help you capture conversations in the social sphere that matter to your business. Before jumping in with both feet, find out what discussions are happening and then you’ll know how to add value. Without this insight, it’s all noise.

Social media can be an effective tool in your Marketing toolbox but only with careful deliberation on your goals and creative consideration on your execution. Be mindful of ROI, be a good friend, and always bring your strategy back to the context of existing as a business. If you don’t, you’ll look back on these years and marvel at the amount of time you wasted chasing social approval rather than profit.

Protect your blog against bad people.

If you’ve ever fallen victim to a WordPress hacker, you are familiar with the rage pulsating through your veins as you reassemble your digital things. If you haven’t, your future self will thank you for taking the necessary precautions needed to prevent this from happening to you.

Default to Strength

The first thing you need to consider is the way you choose username and passwords. Do not use “admin” for your username or your password. This is default and hackers count on it. Ensure your password is unique and strong. Choose a username that is not your e-mail address. As much as it’s a pain to create new information, this is the weakest point of unauthorized entry and it’s worth the creativity.

Injection Protection

WordPress uses the prefix “wp_” as the naming convention for all the database table prefixes. By leaving this information as default you allow malicious automated scripts to inject your database with gross stuff. When you’re installing WordPress, have a look in your wp-config file for

and change

to something unique.

Block Access

Put up another roadblock by password protecting your admin folder. You may consider this overkill but believe me, you are better safe than sorry, especially if you are being counted on to protect client sites. In your hosting panel or htaccess file, set-up folder protection and use a different username and password than your WordPress login info. You now have two locks on the door.

Plug-in Power

In addition to keeping all your plug-ins up to date, there is a trusty plug-in called WP Security Scan that will scan your install and recommend ways to tighten things up. It will help you hide your version of WordPress and take away any clues from your sites Metadata so that nosy people won’t be even be able to pick up a CMS scent.

Keep your back up

Alas, if it can be built, it can be hacked. Always ensure you have a back-up and a plan for dealing with emergencies so you can get back up and running as quickly as possible.

Here’s a quick tutorial on checking out and downloading an audio book. Reading this will save you several hours!

Step 1

Download the Overdrive media Console app on your phone
This application is free on the app store and connects to your library account. It’s used to download, manage and play any media you choose to check-out. Once you download the app, add the Calgary Public Library to your list of libraries. It should be noted that you cannot use media from the library in any other way – just through Overdrive.

During use of this application you will find that it often displays chapter information erroneously, for example, you’ll often encounter books with multiple chapters 2s or 3s. It can also not be counted on to properly display the length of a chapter you are listening to. You may never learn to truly love Overdrive. I’m sorry in advance.

Step 2

Login to the Library website on your phone and open the website on your computer
Despite the fact that you will be checking out the media on your mobile device, finding the book you want to listen to is best done on a larger screen with a keyboard and mouse. But, before you do anything, make sure you are logged in on your phone. This will save time later in this process.

Step 3

Search Wisely
The Library website has some misleading navigation options. Don’t click on “e-library” this takes you to a list of some online resources that do not include downloadable items. Also, don’t use the regular catalogue to search for audio books – it returns results that are too varied. Instead, click here. This takes you to the advanced search tool for the good stuff. This section of the website is more difficult to find and doesn’t share the same navigational menu as the other parts of the website. Bookmark it.

I often find that the books I am interested in are not available because they are checked out. With this being the case, you have to decide whether you want to listen to a book now or later. If you want a book now, check the box “Only show titles with copies available”. If you want a book later or are just browsing for something to put on hold, leave this box un-checked.

Step 4

Find the Right Type of Audio
Overdrive Media Console for the iphone will only allow you to play MP3 audio books for sure. WMV files – maybe, maybe not*. These are the two types of audio books the library offers. As of February 2012, the library has a selection of 3,072 MP3 audio books. You can browse all compatible books by selecting “Overdrive MP3 audiobook” from the format dropdown menu and press “search”. Alternatively, you can add the title or author of the book you are looking for into the corresponding search fields and search for MP3 books this way too. You will know you have found a compatible book by the icons that are displayed in the search results. If the MP3 icon is bright, you can use it on your iphone.

* Confusion surrounds the topic of compatible audio files. It seems like if you have a windows formatted iphone you may be able to play MWV files. If you have a mac formatted iphone you cannot. You may want to experiment with this.

Step 5

Send the Link to Yourself
When you have finished your book research, copy the URL of the book you want to listen to and send it to an e-mail account you have access to on your iphone. Open the message on your phone, click the link and this will take you to the item in Safari. Because you are already logged in just click on “add to cart” and complete the check-out procedure. Done!

Enjoy your audio book! Any other tips or tricks about using the Library website or Overdrive, add ‘em in the comments.

So how do I design a nice business card you ask? Excellent question, let’s get started.

Make the Logo… Better

Resist the common urge to make the logo as big you as can. Keep it as the main visual element but don’t over do it. You will never improve your brand through physical size alone. It should be the only graphic element on your card and people won’t have problems seeing it at reasonable size. By denying this urge, you’ll be preserving your professional dignity and subtly displaying your marketing prowess.

In addition to paying close attention to sizing, ensure your logo displays clearly without any sign of stretching, pixelation, blurriness, or other factors that detract from a pristine appearance. Don’t substitute your logo with clip art, especially if it’s a real photo.

To get off on the right foot, use the right file format. If your logo was professionally designed and you are using a layout software program like InDesign or Publisher, always use an EPS file for your logo. If you are working in a Microsoft Word template, try asking your graphic designer to create your logo in a file format called WMF.

Moo.com is a great option too. They have tons of great looking templates and easy to use tools, but to get a good result, you’ll need to use an EPS file.

If you’ve exhausted your options and your logo remains blurry. It’s time to throw in the towel and hire a graphic designer.

Text Sells

Please choose your fonts wisely. Instead of getting creative with Comic Sans or Papyrus, keep your wits about you and a font from respectable family. If you are worried about choosing wisely, first try matching with a font that might be in your logo. If that font seems professional to you, and it should be if your logo uses it, stick to what you know.

If you can’t rely on your logo for guidance, Quicksand, Open Sans, and Museo, are all great free sans-serif choices. Or, if you need something more serious, why not try Afta, Calluna, or EB Garamond.

Remember, just use one font. Two fonts makes the quiet suggestion that you are trying too hard, more than two fonts screams un-professionalism. Keep your text small but not too small. 8 point type is usually perfect. Any larger and you are asking for a cluttered look that may cause people to be see right through your DIY handiwork.

Example of a bad business card

Example of a nice business card

Stack, Space, and Spare the details

Organization is key to a nice business card. Balanced information that lives in harmony with your logo and a good amount of white space, especially around the edges of the card, is the perfect recipe for success. Keep the details simple. Phone, e-mail, website, name and title are common components. Long URLs to your many social media profiles are not necessary. Unless you can make a printed Facebook icon clickable, leave it off.

Your marketing efforts should flow smoothly from your card to your website to a transaction. Leave people a trail to follow and provide pertinent information along the way. Your business card is a simple welcome mat to your business.

The less information you include, the more room for valuable white space that will help attract attention to your logo, make your information easier to read, and make the jump from home-made and visual excellence.

Proper Printing

The finishing touch is the paper you choose to print on. Avoid at home printing kits – nothing says cheap junk like perforated edges. Instead, drop by your neighbourhood print shop (this one’s in Texas) or an online printing service with your finished design and choose or a nice, thick stock. Don’t settle for something flimsy. The money you spend on quality printing will come back to you in profits once you start impressing people with your nice business cards.

Follow these simple guidelines and you’ll be in business in no time! If I’ve missed anything, let me know in the comments.

I’m too young to remember the telegram but from what I’ve read, it’s a short concise message to someone far away. Telegram style is a way of writing that attempts to abbreviate words and pack as much information into the shortest possible number of words and or characters as possible.

Sound familiar?

Incidentally, you can still send telegrams if you have distant relatives that don’t respond to telephone calls, emails, fax or smoke signal.

Way back in 1886, some people were using the telephone and other people were trying to find a fair way to make those people pay for it. Angry diatribes printed in the newspapers were common, subscribers were up in arms over ridiculous fees and nobody could agree on whether usage based billing was justified.

Sound familiar?

Remember calling cards? You may have used them in college to keep long distance relationships intact or to call home from a European phone booth. Well, they’re back! And they are not only a solution for 25 cent a minute mobile long distance charges, they are a way to make a statement about your statement. In Canada, fair competition regulated by the CRTC, is an effort by the government to encourage competition and fair pricing in technology. However, Canadians are still paying some of the world’s highest cell phone bills.

Calling cards are a backwards way of saying yes to savings and no to outrageous fees.

Here’s how:

• Invest $20 in a 900 minute calling card.
• Download a free iphone app that remembers and auto-dials the access number and PIN. It even allows you to customize a timed response based on the voice prompts you receive when you dial in.
• Never pay carrier fees for long distance again!

Whether you’re in Canada or the U.S. this is an easy way to take advantage of history repeating itself.

The official logo of the London 2012 Olympic games is turning five next year. Like most growing children, this logo’s naturally developed affinity for trouble-making is the defining characteristic that we’ve come to love as proud global guardians of the Olympic identity.

The initial reports, post unveiling ceremony, were scathing and unkind. Blogs and their readers were quick to pan the logo and spew hate at Wolf Ollins, the agency involved in it’s creation. Elbowruminations was also on the scene back in 2007 covering the hype. Kevan defined the logo nicely with a simple equation: Inukshuk + 1989 = the logo.

With the Games quickly approach, has this $840,000 investment appreciated in value since it’s rocky introduction as an epileptic trigger and most recently, a zionist symbol and a sure sign of a pending alien invasion.

I am tempted to say yes.

Not because it’s nice but because it’s still horrible and horrible is what we want.

Remember 2007? It was boring and so were we. Entertainment was defined by the ipod clickwheel! The design inspiration for the year – 2007 was at the height full of swooshy istock swirls. Ack! Just look at us now. We don’t even press buttons anymore. Fashion has no rules. In fact, dressing up in old clothes with huge out-dated glasses is the height of hipster fashion.

If you ask me, as gaudy as the logo appeared five years ago, I think we’ll be ready for it. With Arab Spring in full swing and the “no reason riots” in Vancouver and England complete, people are tired of behaving properly and following boring rules.

As we have learned, violence causes unwanted destruction and pain – which is inconvenient. We need something less violent to break us out of this deep rut of political and economical dissatisfaction. What better way to express our discontent than through awful design. This logo does not conform to any laws. It remains physically unwilling to bend to any social norms. It’s belligerent, unashamed, narcissistic and itching for a screaming match with a person of authority.

It seems like that’s how we feel these days.

Which is why we have the perfect logo for London 2012.

Thank you, Wolf Ollins. You know us so well.

The commonly accepted practice remains asking yourself a series of technical questions about the app’s functionality and then grouping them according to purpose. I have been following this procedure since being introduced to folders and it has been fraught with difficulty.

Is the calculator a utility or a productivity tool? Does the address book belong in the reference or social folder? After finally making an educated decision on how best to file an application, I was then faced with the problem of relocating it for use. This wasted valuable time. Time I could be using to abuse bandwidth based billing limits with.

I am happy to report that this issue no longer plagues me! I have a achieved iphone freedom and I have done so using the power of colour.

I found that even when utilizing the correctly named function-based folder structure, I was still reliant most of the time on locating the application by it’s prominent colour scheme. This often proved itself when someone else was using my phone and I would be helping them locate something. I would tell them what it looked like rather than where it lived. I probably couldn’t even tell you the names of my folders for that matter.

The dynamics of this new system is easy. Each folder has a colour. Similarly coloured apps are placed together. Most apps are brand driven which lends itself well to recognition by colour.

If you want to try it, please feel free. All I ask is that you put the seconds you save toward something more meaningful than I do – like talking to someone face to face about something other than this.

There are other services similar to it, LivingSocial and TeamBuy are two others. It seems to fit snuggly into a social buying niche that may start to give consumers more of a say into the prices of products they want or need.

This month’s issue of the Harvard Business Review featured an article on an aspect of Groupon that could be interest to many of the businesses who are considering delving into Groupon as a marketing strategy. Before diving in, it may be of benefit to call a team meeting and explain how the business may benefit from these extreme cost cutting measures. As it turns out, the euphoria that the Groupon-holders experience may be equivalent to the disappointment that employees feel while servicing these bargain-hunters.

Most employees feel a certain level of pride associated with the brand they represent or the level of expertise required to carry out their on-the-job responsibilities and can be easily offended when this offering is sold for next to nothing. It can easily be taken personally – when one is not mindful of the bigger picture.

In addition to the unhappiness employees feel with giving away their product or service, the typically bargain-minded Groupon user can add to the displeasure by showing a lack of etiquette by tipping poorly or being generally un-knowledgeable. This type of behaviour can further enrage the employee – resulting in a less than pleasant experience for all in involved. In fact, research has shown that the level of an Employee’s self reported happiness can directly influence the success or failure of a Groupon promotion.

Seeking your team’s approval for a Groupon promotion may be something to easily overlook. However, training on dealing with difficult customers and buy-in to the bigger picture may be the most important thing you can do to ensure the tidal wave of Grouponers don’t impact the morale of your employees and tarnish the great first impression you are hoping to exhibit.

Today I am raving. Sorry in advance.

The Problem

I’ve recently started using 1Password to store all my information. As a freelancer as well as a full-time employee, I have a similar set-up in my home office and at work. I use the same hardware and software, and access the same servers and require the same information from both locations. This information is now available to me anywhere and it’s changed the way I work.

1password Welcome Screen

Previous to using 1Password, I stored hosting information and CMS logins for all my clients, third-party web application passwords, and anything of historical importance in a secret binder locked away in the filing cabinet. To access it was painful, to access it remotely was impossible. I needed a solution.

The solution I was looking for needed to be digital so I could access and copy/paste usernames and passwords quickly. The solution needed to be secure and it needed to be accessible online.

The Solution

1password is a traditional software application for Mac or Windows with browser extensions (and mobile apps). The software is a repository for everything you use online and off. It stores website logins, FTP servers, secure notes, payment information and even software licenses. You can add this information manually or let it capture the information the first time you login to a website. When you need a password, either auto-fill your information in your browser or copy and paste the hidden information from the application itself.

This is not only a solution for daily access issues but it’s also a long term storage application for information you never want to lose. 1password information is encrypted and stored locally. For remote access to your data, you can easily sync with Dropbox which opens up an HTML based interface that is very similar to the look and feel of the application – which is super nice.

At first I was wary about security, but as I considered the digital alternatives to printed information, there were no better options than what I’ve found using this solution. Agile offers another application called Knox – a military grade vault creator which can go the extra mile to alleviate security concerns if you are looking for extra peace of mind. Using the secure password generator that comes with the application to create passwords, is one of the best things you can do to prevent thievery.

Stored Passwords

Browser Extensions/Auto-fill options

The End

1Password has a retail price of $39.95 and gives the option of a free 30 day trial. This is the best investment in software I’ve made in a long time. Knowing I can access the keys to my digital life any time I need them is something I can’t put a price on.

If you have any questions, comment away! Sorry for raving. Goodbye.