Lynn Terry has published a few articles recently that teach about podcasting. She's teamed up with one of the best in the industry, Paul Colligan, and they've come up with some really stellar material.You can read more about it on her blog: How to create a podcast
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Running Shoe == Running Success
If one decade of running has taught me anything, it's that running shoes can make or break the habit. I've posted a bunch on my blog at Maintain Fit about the importance of running shoes over the years, but I think that people still don't understand that running shoes should not be a budget purchase!
A former partner and I built a website dedicated to just this about a year ago. When we split he kept the site and I was thrilled to hear that it's been super successful for him. In fact he's been putting a lot of time in recently to not only review more shoes, but to make tools that would help people find the best price among a bunch of vendors when they were ready to buy.
If you're a runner (or want to be), do yourself a favor and make sure that you have running shoes that will help you succeed.
If you think this post is just a blatant commercial plug for my friend who still runs the site, you might be right. I don't actually stand to benefit from it, but I have a permanently built in passion to help people succeed at fitness from the years that I worked on Maintain Fit.
Honestly, do yourself a favor and make a real habit of running. You'll look good and feel good.
Where is your tribe?
Early this year Ed Dale suggested I read a couple of books, The War of Art and Tribes.
I just finished reading Tribes last week and I have a mixed review. Closer to the end of the book there were some really great insights and overall I formed some new opinions about leadership. So I guess he did his job.
If you want to read my thoughts on the book, I've published the here: Where's your tribe?
I'd love to hear your comments on it. By the way, I love Seth Godin's blog and put a link to it from that article too. There's a lot of clarity to be had in his writing. Make sure you check it out (and subscribe to get updates from him).
Friday, June 11, 2010
Frank Kern's magic powers
So Frank Kern just posted on his blog about two super powers. I won't give away the punch line, but if you've heard him speak in just about any venue in the last year then they won't surprise you one bit.
What might surprise you is that he uses a story about a Black orphan girl, daughter of slaves and widow at age 20 to convey his point.
It's spooky how well he gets his point across. You can read it here.
Cloud hosting comparison
So many companies are moving into the cloud today, but there's still debate about exactly what that means. The big questions are
- Is it fast?
- Does it scale?
- How much does it cost?
There are some easy answers and some not so easy answers. It turns out that most people don't need to host in the cloud. All you really need to know are a few of the secrets to choosing the right vendor and options.
I wrote this cloud hosting comparison to answer these questions. Leave a comment if you still have questions.
The Illustrious WooThemes
Have a look at these themes to make your blog beautiful. 
via Daniel Watrous by Daniel on 6/11/10
This post has been a long time coming. I guess I keep trying to think of some way to be clever about it. Well, all cleverness aside, WooThemes strengths are:
- Beautiful and elegant design
- Easy to use platform
- Fast rendering
- SEO friendly
That’s a lot when it comes right down to it. In fact, of all the themes I’ve used and recommended, more of my clients prefer WooThemes. They love the look and once they start using it they RAVE about how easy it is to use.
The biggest bummer about WooThemes is that in order to really experience their themes requires FOUR CLICKS once you get to their site. I put this short video together to cut some time off of the process for you.
Remember that the job of a theme is to appeal to the eye and help the user do more of whatever it is you want them to do when they get to your site. For that reason I love their categories. The magazine style themes have been great for my clients that want their visitors to click as many pages as possible.
Whatever your needs, I suspect that you’ll find a wootheme that will do the job handsomely.
Finally, on a rather geeky note, WooThemes is so innovative that the WordPress core software has recently adopted part of their platform which enables customizations to site navigation. It’s really a significant nod to the WooThemes developers and should indicate to you the level of quality and sophistication you get with WooThemes.
What are you waiting for, go and buy a wootheme for your blog now.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Bliki: iPad
Worthwhile non-cult member review of the iPad. 
via Martin Fowler on 6/4/10
I've not seen myself as an iFanboy. I didn't get an iPhone for ages after it came out, and only got one because it was the only way to upgrade my data plan to 3G. I use a mac, but I also have an Ubuntu desktop. But I have got an iPad, and I think it's a significant product.
I knew I wanted one right from the announcement. A while ago I used my desktop for work and kept my laptop floating about the house. I liked that arrangement as it allowed me to get away from my desk for reading the web and doing email. But now that I use Keynote, Aperture, and Omnigraffle I need to use my Mac with a big screen. So my laptop is stuck on my desktop while I'm at home. To compensate I bought a cheap laptop. But using a laptop like this was always kludgy. The clam shell is awkward when I'm reading rather than typing. The low battery life means I try to keep plugged in as much as I can. So a few weeks ago I splashed out.
The Good
- The form factor and low weight makes it comfortable to use on a sofa.
- There's enough battery life that I can forget about it as long as I charge it overnight.
- The screen is gorgeous: bright, clear and sharp.
- The touch UI is familiar (due to the iPhone) and works really well on a tablet device.
- Reading books using the Kindle app works really well. I don't miss having a paper book and I appreciate the lighter weight.
- Web surfing is mostly very good. I find myself using the news apps from BBC, New York Times and NPR a lot.
- It's good for watching a movie. (The Netflix app could be really big here, although I haven't used it yet.) I appreciated the mix of reading and movie watching while flying back and forth to San Francisco in a middle seat; not to mention the fact that I used less than half my battery in the process.
The Bad
- I worry about the lock-in when buying an electronic book. So far I'm thinking Amazon is less likely to lock me into a specific platform than iBooks. But I do worry that I'll have lots of books that I can't read any more some day.
- Web-app sites, such as Google's, often don't work too well. For regular use they make good use of the difference between hover and click - and this doesn't work with the iPad. This pushed me to get an app for reading my news feeds, even though I like Google Reader.
- Like with my Android phone and the iPhone, it's awkward to sync some text or html files from my other computers to my iPad. This is annoying as I like sharing information this way. Dropbox may be the answer, we'll see.
- Hotels with restrictive wifi are a real pain. I want to work on my laptop with wifi and use that nice Netflix app on my iPad. Paying for wifi is bad enough, being unable to use it on multiple devices is awful.
- While it's ok to look at my inbox, the mail app doesn't work well for threaded discussions on mailing lists.
- I would really like to be able to change the font size in the web browser.
The Puzzling
- Apple gets a lot of heat for being a curated software system, rather than the traditional open one. Given how much of my life I've lost to sorting out software incompatibilities I'm not sure whether to like curation of not. In any case the competition with Android and the like will prove interesting.
The Bottom Line
After a few hours with the iPad, I realized that I was feeling a sensation I'd only remembered once before: back in 1995 when someone showed me the World Wide Web. There's no dramatic new technology, we've seen tablets before just as we'd seen hypertext before. But the overall package was game-changer. I don't know if the iPad will be The Device, but I do think that this kind of device will make huge difference to how we read and watch things in the future. I certainly need to work at making sure what I produce in the future is built with these kinds of devices in mind.
How to move up in the world
A short while ago I found myself disappointed in a partnership of sorts. I think it's impossible to ever have perfectly aligned expectations in any relationship, but there might be some things you can do to keep expectations realistic. As one example just look at publishing on the internet. Everyone wants leverage (bigger list, more influence, etc.), but not everyone knows how to do it.
I wrote this article to address just that: How to move up in your market or niche.
Leave a comment and tell me what you think.
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