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BradTrupp.com -- Pages -- Page 3 - 2007/09/03 - 2007/09/21
Page 3 - 2007/09/03 - 2007/09/21 Optimization for High Speed Connections (Firefox) (2007/09/21) Firefox, when first installed, is optimized for dial-up connections. This makes sense since dial-up is still fairly common. There are a few configuration settings you can change to take advantage of if you have a higher speed connection like DSL or cable. Chances are that you have already seen these changes on a multitude of other sites, but here they are anyway... Back up your Firefox Settings First Firefox keeps all of it settings in a folder under Application Data which hides under your Documents and Settings folder. The fastest way to find it is Click on the Start button and select Run. Enter %appdata%\mozilla\firefox\profiles and press enter or click on OK. A file explorer window will open up with a folder with a somewhat unique name such as dww8c7ie.default. On my computer the full path displayed was:
It is best if you back up the entire folder on a regular basis. For these changes, you only need to make a backup copy of prefs.js. Firefox should not be active when you are doing the backup so the settings will be complete. Now if bad things happen, just close Firefox, and copy the backup of prefs.js back to its original location. Entering the New Settings Start Firefox. Click on the address bar or press Ctrl-l to place the cursor on the address bar. Enter about:config and press enter. The configuration settings page displays. Find network.http.pipelining and double-click on it to set it to true. Note that the status field also changes from default to user set. Find network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and double-click on it to bring up the 'Enter integer value' dialog box. Change the value from the default of 4 to a larger number like 15. Find network.http.proxy.pipelining and double-click on it to set it to true also. Add a new parameter for nglayout.initialpaint.delay. Do this by do a right-click anywhere on the preferences list and select New / Integer. Enter nglayout.initialpaint.delay as the Preference Name and press enter or click on OK. Set its value to 0 (zero) and then press enter or click on OK to save. Finally Now restart Firefox and see how much faster screens paint, What Businesses may Vanish in the next Decade (Business Tips) (2007/09/17) What Businesses may Vanish in the next Decade
There have been a number of articles lately on what businesses may vanish in the next decade. Some of the commonly suggested one are:
Most of these are due to changes or perceived changes in technology but some are not so obvious. Piggy Banks Take, for example, Piggy banks. We are moving to a cashless society where most anything can be paid for with your credit card, debit card, instant funds transfer, et el. There is exciting technology becoming popular where you use your phone to send and receive payments. Another reason is the cost of making and distributing coins. It now costs more to make a 1 cent penny than the penny is worth and this may become true for larger coins too. People have stolen copper and aluminum wires to resell for the copper and aluminum content and how long before the same becomes true for the metal in some of our coins? Newspapers Newspapers have been on the death watch for a long time now. There cannot compete with the 24 x 7 constantly updating news on the internet but for now newspapers are still the best option out there for local news and advertisements. With the move to large screen monitors with easier to read layouts and the localization of news and ads, newspapers will likely end up electronic only. Used Book Stores Used book stores may take a little longer to die. Libraries are good but I like to pick up a dozen books for a dollar any time I go on holidays since at that price you do not feel bad about leaving the books behind as you finish reading them. Technology still needs to create a really good display format that mimics the look and feel and portability of a book and content needs to become free or nearly free. There are some good advances already in that direction like the Sony Reader so it will happen. Wander by a e-book kiosk, load up a dozen books and away you go. What the Future Holds? What do you think are some other businesses that will vanish and why? Speed up your Use of Tabs (Firefox) (2007/09/16) There are a number of keyboard shortcuts that will speed-up your use of Firefox and tabs Keyboard Shortcuts Rather than using the drop-down menus and selecting File / New Tab, you can just use the keyboard shortcut <crtl>t to open a new tab. To navigate between tabs, the keyboard shortcuts <crtl><tab> and <crtl><shift><tab> jump to the next or previous open tabs. To close the current tab, press <ctrl>w. To re-open the last tab you just closed, press <ctrl><shift>t. While not a keyboard shortcut, to close all your tabs, except the one you have on, just right-click on the tab and select "Close other Tabs".
Option Settings Under the drop-down menu, select Tools / Options... to open the Options dialog. Choose the Tabs tab. I recommend choosing the options to "New pages should be opened in: a new tab" and "When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately". Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! *** These options in combination with the keyboard shortcuts above should make browsing a little faster experience. Best of all, your hands never leave the keyboard unnecessarily. Sharing Folders between Ubuntu and Windows XP (Ubuntu) (2007/09/12) Sharing Folders between Ubuntu and Windows XP
How to set up a Shared Folder Open up file browser and navigate to the folder you want to share. In my case, it is the /nas2 folder, I set up earlier when I added another hard drive to my Ubuntu machine. Right click on a folder and select Share folder. It is an administrative task so you will have enter your password to continue.
Choose Windows networks (SMB) as your Share through option, unselect the Read only check box, and optionally enter a comment in the Comment field. Click OK and you are (nearly...) good to go. Now if you look under Shared Folders, which found using the Systems and then Administration menu choices, you will see /nas2 as a shared folder. Click over to the General Properties tab and change the Domain/Workgroup (and save) if necessary. Accessing the Shared Folder on Windows XP Now try to access the folder on your XP machine. Easiest way is to do select Start then Run and enter the share name -- for example -- "\\ubuntu1\nas2" -- if your machine name was "ubuntu1" and you set up the "nas2" share as shown above. XP should find it and ask for your User Name and Password -- try entering your Ubuntu user name and password -- and you will find that it will not accept it. There is still one more thing that needs doing. One more Step Wander on back to the Ubuntu box and start a terminal session. The SMB protocol for Windows workgroups has its own password, separate from the one Ubuntu uses so you need to set it up too. Assume in this example that my userid is "freddie".
It will ask once for your administrative password since you are using sudo and then ask for your new smb password. The -e option enables your account just in case it was disabled. Now try again on the Windows XP machine to open the shared folder. Life should be good now. One Footnote In my case, I used the Synaptic Package Manager under System / Administration to install the extra packages for Samba I thought might be necessary -- in this case, samba, samba-doc, and swat -- prior to doing the approach shown above. Unfortunately, when I uninstalled them, the shared folders stopped working so I had to re-install the packages anyway. I am not sure if it was necessary to install these packages at all but there is no easy way for me to re-test my theory without doing a fresh install of Ubuntu -- and that is not going to happen. If XP does not see your machine and things are not working, then do this step as well, and try again.
Nine Random Thoughts on Off-line Promotion (Business Tips) (2007/09/11) Nine Random Thoughts on Off-line Promotion
Here are 9 random thoughts on off-line promotion of your on-line business:
Most of these will seem obvious, but these basics are often missed... I hope you find this short list helpful. Keeping Email Reply Chains simplier with Gmail (Productivity Tips) (2007/09/08) Keeping Email Reply Chains simplier with Gmail
One of the great things with Gmail is the way it arranges your emails and replies by thread. Now this is good most of the time -- but what happens when the chain of emails and replies is 10 or 20 deep and the topic has changed a few times. It gets to be a little unmanageable when you try to read back through the chain to find out something from earlier. Sure, you can search your emails for specific words or phrases but even this can be clumsy with long email trails. A Good Habit A better idea, and a good habit to get into, is to change the subject line when you are replying to an email and you are taking the conversation in a new direction. For example -- the work problems are solved and you want to make plans for the weekend -- change the subject line! By replying without changing your subject line just adds to the current thread and makes it longer -- plus the person you are sending to may not realize that the conversation has changed when seeing the old subject line and might choose not to read the email until after the weekend. Change the subject Once you click on reply, there is an easily missed action Edit Subject. It is found after recipient To: box, beside the Add Cc, Add Bcc , and Attach a file action links.
Your new response will vanish into Gmail's Sent Mail box rather than attach to the current thread. It reappears in your Inbox once you get your reply -- having started a new thread. Choices Choices Choices After all, which email would you rather read at 4 p.m. on Friday? -- "Further to our discussions on..." or "Any plans for the weekend..." Key points to Successful and Consistent Revenue Generation (Business Tips) (2007/09/06) Key points to Successful and Consistent Revenue Generation
1. Multiple Streams of Income Is it better to have one large business or 100 small businesses? Think about risk and opportunity - one business generating 10,000 per month or 100 mini-businesses each generating $100 per month. The total is the same -- $10,000 per month -- but the risks are different. Imagine if something new and exciting comes along and supercedes your single large business and earnings drop 90%. Suddenly, you are making $1,000 and not $10,000. Now if 5 of your 100 mini-businesses take the same drop but 5 more of your 100 mini-businesses double in revenue, you are still making $10,000 per month. Spreading out the risk and opportunities is a good thing. Of course, if one of those mini-business turns into a $10,000 per month monster on its own then all the better yet.
2. Set a Goal A difficult but achievable goal is 100 streams -- just create a new stream every second week and after 2 years, you will have 100 streams. Some will make consistent revenue, some will have peaked, and some will have failed. Let the old streams pass on and create new ones.
3. Passive and Active Income Passive is always good. Set it up. Turn it loose. Deposit the profits. Active is good too but remember that you only have so much time each week to work on things. One example is a business topic forum that I decided to start. It started and grew slowly. I then hired some paid posters and the pace picked up. Eventually I found I was spending an hour a day on moderator tasks. Now forums are one of the harder things to monetize. Some people will occasionally click on a banner ad but the regular members ignore the ads -- a "been there, done it" mentality. So is one hour a day a good way to make one dollar a day? I think not! That forum is now closed.
4. Regular Promotion. While your businesses may be passive, promotion is not. Get into a regular routine of promoting yourself and your businesses. There are thousands of ways to promote your web sites and businesses but that is another topic for another day.
5. Not just the Internet... There are more ways to create revenue than selling things on the Internet. You have a business -- likely a home-based business -- and have services you can offer -- for example: web site design, home office organization, or personal shopper. Place an occasion ad in the newspaper. Get an ad in your telephone yellow pages. Advertise for free in locally targeted web sites like Craigslist or kijiji.
Conclusion Hopefully, this will give you some focus to start you along the path to successful and consistent revenue generation. Familia Sagrada, Barcelona, Spain, 2007 - Page 1 (2007/09/03) La Sagrada Fam¡lia (Catalan, 'The Holy Family') is a large Roman Catholic basilica under construction in Barcelona, Spain. Construction began in 1882 and its formal title is Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Fam¡lia. Antoni Gaud¡ worked on the project for over 40 years, devoting the last 15 years of his life entirely to this endeavour.... Continue Reading » Familia Sagrada, Barcelona, Spain, 2007 - Page 2 (2007/09/03) Familia Sagrada, Barcelona, Spain, 2007 - Page 2... Continue Reading » Familia Sagrada, Barcelona, Spain, 2007 - Page 3 (2007/09/03) Familia Sagrada, Barcelona, Spain, 2007 - Page 3... Continue Reading »
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