Rants & Ravings, From Me to You.

Lifehacker is one of my favorite RSS feeds, I pick up at least a few hacks every week. Since 2010 is starting, I thought I would share Lifehacker’s “The Great Best of 2010 Recap” Just click on the link below.

Remember when things don’t go the way you anticipated, simply smile knowing that the magic is somewhere out there.

http://lifehacker.com/5435500/the-great-best-of-2009-recap

Do yourself a favor and subscribe to lifehacker’s RSS feed. You will not regret it, and if you haven’t picked it up yet. Go grab Gina Trapani’s “Upgrade your life” book. It pays for itself, just click the amazon link below.

One of my pet peeves is scrolling on a web page. I guess someone over at Google felt the same way. It’s kind of strange how Google always seems to be reading my mind! Please, no conspiracy theory comments. Anyway, this tool enables you to analysis your website. I think it would be very useful for anyone dealing with e-commerce sites.

The team at Google can explain it better than I, so here is what it will do.

Special code collects data on the height and width of the browser for a sample of users. For a given point in the browser, the tool will tell you what percentage of users can see it. For example, if an important button is in the 80% region it means that 20% of users have to scroll in order to see it. If you’re a web designer, you can use Browser Size to redesign your page to minimize scrolling and make sure that the important parts of the page are always prominent to your audience. We hope people will use this tool to make their websites better, in turn making the web better for everyone.

If you want more information, just go to http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

If you envision being able to conduct business for yourself via the Internet. It is imperative that you develop your personal brand. This blog helps me to develop my personal brand, my e-mail address, twitter, Linked in, and all the other social media websites help as well. The Internet is an integral part of every one’s life today and in order to be recognized, you need to develop your brand online.

It starts with owning your name online. Sure there are millions of John Smith’s of the world, so if your parents named you that. Good luck trying to get your birth name as a domain name. Even my name John Van Wyk although relatively uncommon was taken by someone located in Canada. I did the next best thing, jvanwyk.com! Everyday I get e-mails from people regarding business and potential opportunities. How can I take them serious when the e-mail address is something like: Hotlips@, Chickenlady@, Masterblaster@, 2cute@ – get the idea?

One of the first domains I purchased online was www.jvanwyk.com I didn’t use it for a year. Wondering what I was going to do with it. Then I decided to begin building my personal brand and this blog helped me. It has enabled me to make business contacts and friends whom I would have never met before. James King from http://www.atmmultimedia.com/ has been a tremendous help to me. He like the others I have met are like minded people whom believe and strive for the same things I do each day.

Developing a personal brand online takes work to create and even more to maintain. This isn’t  something that you can just setup and forget about. You need to work at it daily, maybe five minutes or five hours. You will reap what you sow! However, with all of these social networking sites I mention above, the basic fact is that you need to have passion and drive to see the projects through. Without it, you might as well not even start.

I am passionate about this blog, internet marketing and learning. I have a plan in place for leveraging my passion into something that can support the lifestyle I want to live. I make it a point to reivew my plan each day. Repetion breeds habit, and we all know that habits are hard to break. Life has a funny way of throwing you a curveball every now and again. The measure of your passion is tested each time that occurs.

So, go out and purchase your name as a domain name. Don’t only purchase your name, purchase your father’s, mother’s, wife, kids or boyfriend/girlfriends name (just think of all the satisfaction you would have if you owned your boyfriend or girlfriends name as a domain!) I highly recommend Go Daddy when purchasing your domain name. To help you, I created a seperate web page that can walk you through it. http://whohasmynameonline.com/ just click on any of the ads located on my webpages. When you do that, your helping me keep this blog going as well!

Let me know some of your personal branding ideas by leaving me a comment below. It will not only help me, but everyone else that visit’s my blog as well. I strongly believe in sharing my knowledge with any and all whom ask, I hope you do as well.

I find that it is hard to keep track of all my tasks on a daily basis. Unless you commit to writing something that you want to accomplish, it will take you longer than anticipated. With that in mind, I created a simple one page form to keep me going towards my short and long term goals. Feel free to use if for yourself. Please note that you may need to download the latest Adobe reader to view this file.

Goal-Task-Worksheet

As I sat there reviewing my goals, it occurred to me how far I had actually come over the last few years. When I started my first business, I scoured the web for resources that could help me plan out my future. This post is going to be dedicated towards helping you, get the things that you want in your life.

The websites and products that I mention below have helped me build confidence, start businesses, improve relationships and become a better person and entrepreneur. I hope that you find as much value in these items as I did.

SBA (Small Business Administration) – http://www.sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/index.html Great place to get started. This website has directions on writing a business plan, financing your business, finding a mentor, choosing a structure, and many more. The step by step tutorials are priceless. Best of all, it is all FREE!

Google Apps – http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html I run my entire business using Google Apps. I feel that G-mail is the best e-mail system ever created. I have multiple e-mail accounts linked into my one g-mail account that enables me to go to one place to check all my e-mails. It almost seems that Google rolls out new features for G-mail daily. When starting any business, cash flow is always an issue. You need to spend each dollar wisely, and with Google Apps. I didn’t spend a dime! I have e-mail, documents (spread sheets, word processing, and power point), calendars, video, etc. the list goes on and on. Best of all, this was FREE as well!

Entrepreneur magazine & website - http://www.entrepreneur.com/ I read this magazine from cover to cover each time it comes. I can’t tell you the amount of valuable content that I receive from each and every magazine. Leverage that information with the website and you have a one/two punch that is hard to beat. If you really want to save yourself some money, go on E-bay and search for magazine subscriptions, you can get Entrepreneur for pennies on the dollar.

Elance.com – I have mentioned the value I gained by utilizing www.elance.com a few times since I started this blog. Utilizing virtual assistants has enabled me to leverage my time and expand my reach beyond what I thought would have been possible. For more information, check out one of my previous blog posts: http://tinyurl.com/l27cho

Internet Business Mastery – I began listening to Jason and Sterling’s podcast early on in my Entrepreneurial aspirations. I can honestly say that this podcast gave the initial tools to start my businesses. Along with the business mastery academy, the free and purchased content you receive from these two is top notch. http://tinyurl.com/nvyvtw

Replace Myself.com – I was turned onto this website from Jason and Sterling on internet business mastery. Although at the time I was already using Elance.com for my virtual assistant needs, this program opened up an entire new avenue of thought for me and really enabled me to take things to another level. http://tinyurl.com/lc3465

Lifehacker.com – Life hacker is one of the most popular blogs on the internet. The content that you receive via RSS feeds is unbelievable. However, that’s not all, when I first started reading this blog, Gina Trapani had just released the life hacker book – “Upgrade your life”. Rather than explain it myself, I will quote from the Amazon website –

“A productivity manual-slash-computer book, this book is packed full of tips…Buy this book. Immediately.” Photo Pro June 2008

“Easy to dip in and out of, you won’t fail find something here that will speed up your work.”.net August 2008

Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better

I hope these books, websites and magazines help you make the move that you have always dreamed about. If you have any items that you would love to share that has helped you, please leave a comment below.