Aside

Why I Will Never, Ever Hire A “Social Media Expert”

Peter Shankman wrote an epic post on Business Insider called Why I Will Never, Ever Hire A “Social Media Expert“. The 1st sentence tells you that you’re in for a good rant:

I was going to call this article “All ‘Social Media Experts’ Need To Go Die In A Fire,” but I figured I should be nicer than that.

The author’s ultimate point is that social media is not a magic pill that will make your company successful. To achieve success, the formula is “solid marketing and stellar customer service, just like it’s been since the beginning of time”. He goes on to explain how companies should be using social media – by being transparent, relevant, brief and by knowing your customer.

I realized this some time ago too. This is why I’m not all out to get more followers and fans and have been much more personal and quieter on Twitter and my blog. I don’t want to be blogging and tweeting for traffic and followers because I want to be blogging and tweeting for me. Social media is a means to an end, not the end itself. Social media is also not a popularity contest.

Then again, it is a social environment and in every one you’ll have those who try to be Mr and Ms Popularity. I guess it means there’s no escaping these guys. Luckily, my Twitter client of choice has a mute button.

Aside

Thoughts on Yes Life for iOS

Model demonstrating making with an iPad + retro handset + Yes Life for iOS

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending the blogger preview of Yes Life for iOS. What is that, you ask? Here’s a Twitter summary:

Yes Life for iOS is like Skype but with a phone number. Friends can call your 018 number and you can take the call with the app.

During the event, Yes demonstrated the service by installing these iPad booths with retro style handsets. You could make calls to any number from the iPad with the Yes Life app. Pretty cool.

For a more detailed explanation, here’s a video that explains the features and benefits of the app.

While I’m not a Yes customer and am not using the service, here are some of my thoughts on Yes Life.

Image

My new favorite @echofon feature: Mute

Mute annoying clients and hashtags in Echofon

You can mute users, clients and hashtags. Just right click on the client name like above, or hashtag and click mute from the contextual menu. If you want to mute users, view their profile and click the options (gear) icon. Great for still following people and allowing them to DM you, but avoid all the noise in your timeline. Download Echofon for your Mac, iPad, iPhone and Firefox.

Aside

WTOTW: Edit PDFs online with FillAnyPDF.com

I share a web tip on my podcast every week. For #LOLshow Episode 28, the featured tip is FillAnyPDF.com.

As I mentioned on the show, I bought PDFpen Pro (worth USD99) to go paperless in my office. A day later, I discovered FillAnyPDF.com, a website that does much what PDFpen does for free.

The website allows you to upload and edit PDFs with an easy-to-use form editor (Flash app). This is great for filling in forms because the entire process is digital – no need to print out the form, fill it up by hand, scan the form again and finally emailing out the form. If you register for an account, you can even upload and embed images into your PDF – perfect for signatures – and share your forms with others. The sharing feature is pretty cool, it allows you to collect the responses of others who fill in your form.

If you merely need basic PDF editing functionality, FillAnyPDF.com is a great alternative to more full-featured software like PDFpen or *cringe* Adobe Acrobat.

Try it out – FillAnyPDF.com

Aside

How to make WordPress bulletproof for clients

This is my talk at WordCon / WordCamp Asia 2011. Here are the notes from my presentation – for my reference and yours. If you enjoyed my ideas here, please Like or tweet this post. Thanks!

Link

Good advice

Image

Osama is Dead

I have no love for this maniacal terrorist, so I just wanted to join in everyone in declaring OSAMA IS DEAD!

Video

Crazy Russians with Military Weapons

Timestamp 3:10:

There is no more deadly weapon system in the world than a Russian with two AA-12. And keep in mind, don’t try this at home, I am a professional Russian.

LOL!

Check out the FPSRussion YouTube channel for more gratuitous destruction by high-powered military weapons by guys in funny Russian accents.

Aside

More robust footer widget areas for Headway

I recently got an email from a reader who wanted to know how I implemented my footer widget areas, and seen some similar requests in the Headway forums. With Headway, you can flip your widget areas horizontally to make a widgetized footer but it works best when you only have 3-4 widgets in them. I wanted to have more flexibility and so I injected 3 widget areas into my footer.

Screenshot for posterity, if I ever re-design this blog. Click for full-size image.

I didn’t have time for a full tutorial but hopefully you’ll find these code snippets useful:

blogjunkie.net custom_functions.php for Headway theme

blogjunkie.net custom.css for fat footer widget areas

Link

[INFOGRAPHIC] Behind Today’s Top Website Datacenters

Some interesting stats on Facebook and Google’s datacenters, and how the electricity requirements of the internet are going up up up..

Stuff I Love

This website has been brought to you by the letters A, B and these fine products. Clicking and buying the stuff below will earn me a commission, thanks very much!

No Need For WordPress Developers — Drag & Drop With Headway Digging into WordPress Hosted on Site5