The Social Media Success Summit opened last night with a keynote address from Guy Kawasaki. Although I don’t follow him on Twitter or elsewhere, he is well known in the industry, and I was looking forward to learning from him. This was my first time using Twitter while participating in an event, and it was equally interesting to see other people’s reactions to the things Guy was saying.

His presentation was well organized, first going through a list of the different ways people are using Twitter, complete with examples, and then describing several ways to gain new followers.

One strategy that was new to many participants, including myself, was the use of the Advanced Search feature. For example, let’s say you want to connect with blues fans in your community. You can simply search on “the blues” to get a quick list of recent tweets about the blues, but to go through the tweeters to see if any are in your area would be extremely time-consuming and tedious. With Advanced Search you can enter not only your search word or phrase, but the name of a place (or a zip code) and how close to that place you want the tweets in your search results to be. There are many other search options, so be sure to check it out!

Of particular interest were the many tools that Guy recommends for automating his tweets. Some people were excited to realize that they can be on Twitter without investing a lot of time into it, while those at the other end of the spectrum felt that this was inauthentic. I think there’s a place for automation, but I also think it’s essential to log into your account and interact with other people. Automation should be used so that you can spend your time forming quality connections, not so you can just put Twitter on autopilot and forget about it. Sure, people want information, but they also want to build relationships.

Furthermore, I don’t agree that tweets should be repeated every few hours as Guy recommends. His rationale is that CNN repeats their news stories throughout the day, so it makes sense for us to repeat our tweets. I already have a few people in my feed who do that, and I find it quite tedious. If you’re promoting an event or a new product, obviously you don’t want to just send out one tweet and hope it gets noticed, but instead of just repeating the same tweet over and over, you can be creative and present the information in a different way (yes, you can still be creative in under 140 characters!).

You can see the outline of the session at http://holykaw.alltop.com/twitter-as-a-weapon-demo-script, and read the discussions on Twitter by entering #SMSS10.

In one of the side conversations, Scott Schumpert asked, “Is Twitter for Marketing or Social Networking?” which I thought was a great question. After giving it some thought, I came up with this:

Social networking is one aspect of marketing, and vice versa.

What is your answer to this question?

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Kicking off Social Media Success Summit 2010 with Guy Kawasaki.

One topic that seems to be a common interest among WordPress users at all levels is the vast variety of plug-ins available, so I’m going to conclude my coverage of WordCamp Toronto with a look at some of the plug-ins recommended by the speakers, as well as a couple of new ones that were demonstrated.

Not surprisingly, many of the speakers advocated the use of tried-and-true plug-ins such as Contact Form 7, All in One SEO Pack, and Akismet, but with over 9000 plug-ins currently available, there are lots of unique ones which are worth learning more about. Here are just a few which I heard about for the first time at WordCamp and that you might want to check out, depending on the goals of your WordPress site.

• Broken Link Checker – if I need to tell you what this does, you probably shouldn’t bother reading the rest of this post
• Flickr Photo Album – pulls in your Flickr photosets and displays them as albums on your WordPress site
• Google Maps for WordPress – allows you to easily configure Google Maps and insert them into your blog.
• Post-Page-Association Plugin – lets you attach the posts from one or more categories to a page
• SlideShare – allows you to embed SlideShare presentations in your posts
• Socialite – automatically publishes blog posts to Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace
• Su.pr – sends notifications of new blog posts to Twitter, using URLs that are attached to your StumbleUpon account so you can track the number of clicks
• WordPress Exploit Scanner – searches the files on your website and the posts and comments tables of your database for anything suspicious, and examines your list of active plugins for unusual filenames

Pretty interesting stuff, eh?

The two plug-in demos were pretty cool too.

Author Avatars List is a plug-in for multi-author blogs that allows you to display a list of author avatars on your site. You can also insert individual author avatars on appropriate posts or pages. This is going to be really handy for a new project that is on my horizon!

Trailmeme for WordPress is a really amazing plug-in that provides your readers with a navigation aid over and above the standard categories and tags. It is ideal if you create a series of related posts, especially if they’re not published one right after the other. The best way for me to explain it is to let you see it in action at http://trailmeme.com/trails/WordCamp_Toronto_2010, which is a “trail” of posts about WordCamp Toronto 2010, including links to the presentations and related websites. While you’re checking it out, you can also find out what else you missed by not attending!

By the way, I haven’t tried any of the above plug-ins yet, so if you have, I’d sincerely appreciate your feedback.

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on 10 WordPress Plug-Ins I Discovered at WordCamp.

If you’re over 40, the title of today’s post might bring back memories of a very popular TV show. That’s not what this post is about, but I will come back to it, for those who are interested in nostalgia and/or trivia.

Today I’m actually going to talk about choosing colours for your logo, your blog, your website, or just about anything. Unless you’ve had training in art or graphic design, it can be pretty tricky to come up with colours that go well together and portray the type of image you’re looking for. I don’t have that type of training myself, but I’ve found a few helpful websites that I’d like to share with you.

216 Web Safe Colors

According to Wikipedia, this palette was devised when most computers were only capable of displaying 256 colours. By sticking to the 216 designated “web safe” colours, you were supposedly assured that the shades would appear exactly the same, regardless of the computer they were viewed upon. When I learned about this, I attempted to stick to these shades, only to discover that #FFFFCC looks nice and beige on my system, but a sickly shade of yellow on my husband’s. Similarly, #CCCCFF is a lovely pale blue on my computer, but distinctly mauve on Scott’s. After coming to that realization, I no longer worry about sticking to supposedly web safe colours, but the page is still a quick and easy way to find the hexadecimal and or RGB code for a particular colour.

RGB to Hexadecimal Color Conversion

Sometimes you’re working from a Word document you or your client has created, and you want to use the same colour online. Since Word only uses RGB or HSL colour codes, this website is very useful for calculating the equivalent hexadecimal code. It even tells you how to convert it to a web safe colour, should you wish to do so.

ColorBlender

Maybe you’ve got a colour that you like and you want to find some others that will go well with it. That’s where this site comes in handy. You simply enter the RGB or HSL code for your starting colour, then click on Match blend from active colour. You can then tweak or edit the shades if they’re not quite to your liking, and when you’re done, you can save your blend or send it by email if you want feedback from someone else. You can even click on Load a random blend if you’re really stuck for ideas!

COLOURLovers

If the above links didn’t excite you, please don’t go away just yet, because this one is really special. And if the above links DID excite you, get ready to be blown away!

In addition to a vast selection of colours and palettes, COLOURLovers lets you choose or even create patterns based on your favourite shades. It is actually a community where you can vote on palettes and patterns and even share your own. Their latest development is Themeleon, which lets you create a background for your Twitter profile. Of course, when I found out about it, I just had to try it out. Check out my new Twitter background!

I’m warning you: Don’t go to this site unless you have a specific goal in mind and the self-discipline to stick to it, or lots of time to kill, because it truly is addictive!

Well, that’s enough fun with colours for today!

If you were wondering, Disney’s Sunday night show was called “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” from 1961 to 1969. I won’t ask you to admit that you knew that.

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on The Wonderful World of Colour.

The Province of Ontario has just passed a law prohibiting the use of handheld cell phones or other electronic devices while driving. A radio announcer discussing this news story asked, “Will you buy a hands-free kit, or will you just hide your phone if you see a cop?”

How about just not using the phone while you’re driving? To me, that’s just common sense and it amazes me that such legislation is even necessary.

However, I know that many people consider their calls to be the most important thing in the world, even more important than their own safety and that of others. I used to ride with a woman who thought nothing of talking on her cell phone while merging lanes in heavy traffic. Scary stuff! I also met a salesperson who admitted to regularly talking to customers on her cell phone while looking up prices on her laptop, all while driving. According to her, that was the only way she could do her job. Yikes!

I’m not going to lie and say I’ve never used my cell phone while driving, but I like to think I’m sensible about it. I don’t think I’ve ever initiated or answered a call when driving on a busy road. Most calls can wait to be placed or returned when I arrive at my destination; if not (for example, I get lost on the way there), it’s worth taking a couple of minutes to pull off the road to place my call in safely. I can’t even imagine trying to text message while driving!

If your situation is different and you must handle your calls while driving, please invest in a hands-free kit, whether it’s the law where you live or not. The movie Seven Pounds may be fiction, but the dangers of multitasking while behind the wheel of a car are far too real.

Photo Credit: Alanna Stewart

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Safety First.

For several weeks, I’ve been seeing warnings about WordPress sites being hacked, but I didn’t worry about them too much, since all my sites were already at 2.7 or higher. Admittedly, I was a little reluctant to upgrade to 2.84, having run into some problems the first time I tried upgrading a site to 2.7. I’m happy to say that I finally bit the bullet and was able to perform the upgrade without a hitch. (Well, I did run into a problem, but it had nothing to do with the upgrade process. Continue reading to find out what happened.)

If you’re already running WordPress 2.7 or higher, it’s really not difficult at all to upgrade. Just a few steps:

Step 1: Run a full back-up

If you don’t have a back-up system in place, there’s no time like the present to implement one! I recommend using two plug-ins: WordPress Database Backup to back up your database, and Wordpress Backup for your themes, plug-ins, and uploaded images. Once you’ve installed the plug-ins and downloaded your back-ups, you can set them up to automatically run back-ups at regular intervals, and either save them to your server or send them to you via email.

Step 2: Deactivate all plug-ins

Step 3: Update WordPress

Simply click on “Please update now” which appears at the top of your screen.

Step 4: Reactivate all plug-ins

It really only takes a few minutes, so don’t put it off. I really mean that. Much to my dismay, after successfully upgrading four sites, when I got to the last one, the screen went blank when I started running the back-up.

This bore no resemblance to the problem currently being reported by thousands of users, so I didn’t think I’d been hacked. Since I’d completely lost access to my dashboard, I logged into my hosting site and downloaded a copy of the database, and when I looked at the file, I could see tons of stuff in there that clearly did not belong. Fortunately, that particular site had very little content and I’d found the theme very cumbersome to work with, so I decided to start with a fresh install and recreate the site. If this had happened with a larger site such as this blog, it would have been a far more serious problem, and I would probably still be off crying in a corner somewhere.

I learned a very important lesson, and believe me, I won’t make that mistake again!

Upgrading from a version of WordPress older than 2.7 is trickier, as it must be done manually, but it’s not too bad if you closely follow these step-by-step instructions.

Upgrading to WordPress 2.84 will make your site more secure, but you might also want to install the WP Security Scan plug-in to check for any outstanding vulnerabilities.

I owe a big thanks to Neil Matthews, AKA WP Dude, for teaching me about all of the above plug-ins (although I foolishly neglected to install them until now). If you need any technical help with your WordPress site, I highly recommend his services. He offers one-on-one coaching to individuals wanting to learn more about WordPress, as well as technical services for those who just want something done.

Whether you do it yourself or get someone else to do it for you, make sure your sites are as secure as possible.

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on How Secure is Your WordPress Site?.

Don’t you just love WordPress? It’s so easy to use! Just log into your account, type in your blog post, press Publish, and voilà!

In most cases, you probably like to prepare your drafts in Word or another program first, but if you’ve ever copied and pasted your post into WordPress, you might have discovered that your fonts aren’t consistent from one post to another. Some posts may display larger, some smaller, and some in a different type face altogether. As a result, your blog may look untidy or even unprofessional. This problem can be avoided by following one simple step which is not obvious when you first begin using WordPress.

When you press Ctrl-V or right-click on Paste, in addition to your content, you paste the unseen code that controls the font. In other words, if you copy from a Word document which was typed using Arial 12, your blog post will appear in Arial 12, even though your style sheet calls for something else. To maintain any special formatting you’ve used, such as links, bolding, centering, and so on, without bringing over the font style, you should use the Paste from Word button. If you want to scrap all formatting and copy only the text, use the Paste as Text button. Click on the graphic if you need help locating these buttons.

If the second row of buttons doesn’t appear on your screen, you need to click on the Kitchen Sink button which appears at the end of the top row. You’ll see that in addition to Paste from Word and Paste as Text, this feature brings up a number of formatting tools you may find useful, including underlining and indenting.

Even if you don’t use WordPress, you may have a Paste from Word option, so be sure to use it when appropriate.

Having a consistent look throughout your blog gives it a more professional look and makes it easier to read, increasing the likelihood that visitors will want to return and recommend it to others.

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on A Tidy Blog is a Readable Blog.

Although I’m a huge fan of technology, I’m not exactly an early adopter. I usually have to be convinced that something’s worthwhile before I’ll give it a try.

Twitter’s a good example of that. I was aware of it for several months before I signed up for an account, and I only did it then because Julie Bestry convinced me it would be a good way to promote my blog. It was several months after that before I incorporated it in my regular routine.

Another example is Skype,a service that lets you have voice or text conversations across the Internet. I’d heard of it, but didn’t really see a need for it myself. My long distance plan includes 300 minutes per month, anywhere in North America, and it’s very rare that I exceed that. And I already have several instant messaging accounts, most of which I don’t use, so why would I want another?

Last year, as you may remember, I did a teleseminar with Marcia Francois on Everything You EVER Wanted to Know about Organizing Your Computer. We needed to connect to plan the session, and since Marcia is in South Africa, a regular long distance call just wasn’t practical, so I downloaded Skype. I have to admit, it was pretty amazing to be talking to someone on the other side of the world, and knowing it wasn’t costing me a cent!

Since that time, I’ve had occasion to use Skype to talk to people in the Caribbean, in Britain, and in Germany, so needless to say, I now appreciate its value. I’ve even used it to speak to a client in a nearby city who has decided that between Skype and her cell phone, she really doesn’t need a landline!

What’s really great is that there’s no cost to use Skype, as long as you’re communicating with other Skype users. Other than your computer and Internet connection (which I assume you already have), you only need a computer headsetwhich is relatively inexpensive. If you want to, you can even do video conferencing, as long as you have a webcam.I haven’t given in to that yet (seems too much like The Jetsons!), but I can imagine that the day will come when I use that too.

For a fee, additional services are available, including the ability to call people on their landline or mobile phone, send and receive voicemail, and more. Depending on your requirements, you can choose to buy credits, which are good for up to 180 days, or an unlimited monthly plan. I see that their unlimited plan is an even better deal than I get from my cable company… time for another change?

Photo Credit: Andreas Hagerman

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Have You Tried Skype?.

In the final post in last month’s series, Twitter Basics: Odds and Ends, I explained how I use TweetDeck as an organizing tool by sorting the people I follow into groups so I can easily keep track of those that interest me the most, and clear tweets I’ve already read or don’t wish to read. (Click on the image for a full-size view of TweetDeck.)

When I first got into Twitter, I worried that it might become another flood of information that I didn’t have time to read, along with my ezine subscriptions (before I pared them down) and my RSS reader, but I’m finding the exact opposite to be true!

Other than a handful of blogs written by people I know, I’m no longer using an RSS reader to monitor blogs of interest. Instead, when someone announces on Twitter that they’ve updated their blog, or recommends someone else’s blog post, I’ll read those that catch my interest at that time. Otherwise, I simply mark them as seen, then click on “clear seen tweets.”

It’s true that there are often way more tweets than I can realistically look at, but I can start with a clear slate at any time simply by clicking on “mark all as seen” and “clear seen tweets.” Do I ever miss something interesting? Most likely! Will I or my business suffer as a result? Probably not. Besides, the information hasn’t been deleted from Twitter, just from my TweetDeck.

Although I always had the option of deleting ezines without reading them, or marking all the blog posts in my RSS reader as read, it always felt so drastic to me, and I was afraid I might miss something. Ironically, now that I’m receiving MORE information, I no longer feel compelled to keep all of it. Instead, I’m breaking away from the “this information might be useful someday” mentality, and generally choose to read blog posts and other links only if they relate to a current project or interest.

If something sounds compelling but I really don’t have the time to read it, I’ll make it as a Favorite before I click on “mark all as seen” and “clear seen tweets.” That way I can come back to it when I have more time. Once I’m finished with it, I click on “Favorite” again to remove it from the list. That’s probably not what the developers had in mind for that column, but it works for me!

How do you avoid being overwhelmed on Twitter?

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on How TweetDeck saved me from Infomania.

There’s probably nothing more frustrating than sitting down to a busy day of work and having to wait for your computer to keep up with you. I’ve had days where I felt like chucking mine out the window because it was running so slowly. (Don’t worry; I’ve never given in to that urge!)

Most of us are pretty diligent (I hope) about keeping our anti-virus and anti-spyware programs up-to-date, but there are other steps that are also important to keeping your operating system running smoothly, and they don’t get nearly as much publicity.

Do you realize that every time you surf the Internet, open and close files, and install or uninstall software, small files and file fragments are often left behind, using up space on your hard drive and causing your system to be inefficient? Windows includes a Disk Defragmenter which reorganizes your files so the pieces that work together are closer to each other, so they can be accessed more quickly. By default, you can find this program by clicking on Start – All Programs – Accessories – System Tools.

Running the Disk Defragmenter on a regular basis (I suggest once a week) will make a big difference, but for optimum efficiency, you also need a registry cleaner. Unfortunately, Windows does not include a registry cleaner, but fortunately, you can download one free of charge by clicking on this graphic:

Be sure to pay close attention to the instructions, particularly the part about backing up your registry before running the program. The first time you run it, it will probably take quite a while, but after that, it will only take a couple of seconds, and you will definitely notice a difference!

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on How to Maximize Your Computer's Efficiency.

Professional organizer Monica Ricci was recently on Facebook when one of her friends supposedly initiated a chat session with her. Being a smart woman, she immediately suspected that it wasn’t really her friend, and her suspicions were confirmed when her “friend” said she was stuck in London and needed her to wire her some money. She telephoned her real friend, who then logged into her Facebook account and began using the chat feature herself. As soon as the hacker realized he or she had been caught, the conversation ended abruptly.

Apparently, this is not an isolated incident, as blogger Alfred Esa reported having a similar experience. He subsequently posted some excellent tips for Protecting Your Privacy in Facebook, and I’d like to mention one in particular: Use a Password That’s Unique to Facebook. I know lots of people who use the same password for all or most of their accounts, because it’s easy to remember. Very often it’s a word that could be guessed by anyone who knows a little bit about them, such as the name of a pet or child. If you do this, you are putting your accounts at risk!

I understand that it can be difficult to remember and type a password like #X6ByGC$%uwu. And when you consider the number of accounts most of us have, you probably think it’s impossible to come up with a different, strong, password for each site, and to remember them, unless you have some kind of superpowers!

Other than guessing passwords, one way that hackers steal them is by using spyware that records your keystrokes when you log into a website. (That’s a good reason to use anti-spyware software, but that’s a topic for another day.)

If you’re thinking it’s time to cancel your Internet service, relax; there are other options. Last year I bought an amazing piece of software called Roboform that allows me to generate random passwords for each website I use, and store them securely in a bookmark-style toolbar. Now, when I want to log into a particular site, I simply click on it in my Roboform toolbar, and it takes my browser to the log-in page and enters my user name and password for me. I don’t have to think of passwords, remember which password goes with which site, or worry about keystroke loggers! For an added measure of security, I can password protect my Roboform toolbar, so if someone else uses my computer, I don’t have to worry about them accessing my accounts. In terms of keeping my passwords organized, saving time looking them up and typing them in, and general peace of mind, it’s one of the best investments I’ve ever made! There’s even a free version that’s fully functional for 30 days, which you can continue using after the trial period if you don’t have a large number of passwords. Maybe you should give Roboform a try!

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on How Secure Are Your Passwords?.