Are you a Blackberry? I used to be until last year when I switched over to the iPhone 3g. I switched because of asthetics mostly, the web browsing is the nicest of any mobile device, and the application selection is, of course, by far the largest.

However, as I get deeper and deeper into my time with the iPhone, I continue missing things that I thought I could live without. For instance, as soon as I switched, I missed the ability to send emails from several different email accounts. Like many people, I manage all of my emails through a single Gmail account (so I only have one email account setup on my iPhone), but I need to be able to reply from a different email address. On the iPhone, this is next to impossible without major complication. And even if you get it to work – it sometimes doesn’t work, and worse yet, I’ve had to go back and reset it up because the settings were lost. I’m at the point now where I’ve just left it to the one email address, even though it’s not ideal.

I want my multiple addresses back.

Also, as great as all the applications are, the vast majority of them are games. I think I have 3 games on my iPhone – mainly time killers like solitaire and a couple basketball shoot-around games. I don’t want games on my iPhone and I don’t need them. Now, I understand why people do – and the iPhone provides a great game experience for a handheld device – but I just want to GET THINGS DONE.

I can’t do this without email that works how I want it to.

I love seeing the beautiful display of HTML email on my iPhone, I love knowing that no matter what I need to accomplish, that “there’s an app for that.” I love the smooth swipes and scrolls and the beauty that is the iPhone’s software. I just don’t love it enough to keep it.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the upcoming Blackberry 9700 (Onyx) and 9900 (Pluto) – and I have to say that I’m excited to switch back to Blackberry this winter. It’s recently been discovered that the 9700 Onyx will most likely keep the Bold name (Onyx was just it’s development title). It’s essentially an upgraded Bold in a little bit smaller package than the original Bold 9000 model.

Then there’s the 9900 – thought to be a full-size Bold, but with a touch screen. No, not a Storm-type touch – think a normal Bold (keyboard and all) but the screen is also touch-sensitive. Slick. There hasn’t been any hands-on reports of the 9900 yet, though it’s thought to be coming to AT&T this year.

The 9700, however, has been seen and reviewed quite a bit lately. It’s thought that it will ship later this year with Blackberry’s new 5.0 operating system – which I’m sure will still be light-years behind the iPhone in elegance, but you know what? I bet I’ll be able to send emails efficiently again.

As a home business owner, web-worker and blogger… there are a handful of apps on my iPhone that I count on everyday. MOST of those are also available for the Blackberry. I don’t think I’m going to miss anything except the iPhone’s beautiful design. It’s possible that Apple might address the iPhone’s shortcomings for business in the next version of it’s software, but I’m not interested in waiting around to find out. I need to get stuff done, and to do that, I need my Blackberry back.

I was recently searching out a plugin for WordPress plugin that just allowed me to shorten or cloak URLs. I knew I could use this to manage all of my affiliate links in one place. I found a few plugins, which worked okay – but there was one major drawback… NONE of them listed the saved links in my blog post editor so I could easily input them into posts. As much of a blunder as that is – I new there had to be something out there that would work. And I finally found it!

Not only can I shorten affiliate links and easily insert them into posts, but I can easily manage all my links, track clicks and even create link campaigns. I can even have any keyword appearance in my entire blog automatically linked using one of my affiliate links.

Think about that for a minute.

This plugin goes through your entire blog, finds a keyword you tell it, and links that text to any URL you want! For instance, if you have an affiliate product related to Google AdSense – you could theoretically tell this plugin to link every instance of “Google AdSense” to your affiliate product.

This is the one WordPress plugin that actually makes your blog a passive income generator almost instantly after you set it up!

You can probably tell I’m excited about this, but it doesn’t even end there… below is a quick overview of the power this affiliate link management plugin gives you:

Create professional-looking short links.

Now you can easily create professional and short link like:
http://www.yourblog.com/go/CoolProduct or http://www.yourblog.com/recommends/CoolProduct or whatever you like, the choice is yours. It’s completely flexible and you can redirect them to any affiliate link you want.

Manage all your affiliate links in one central place.

You can group and manage all your affiliate links in one central place. That means you’ll have a clear overview of which affiliate program is doing good and which is not.

Also, if one affiliate program shuts their doors then you can easily change the link with another affiliate program anytime you like.

Track how many people are visiting your link and from where.

From the plugin’s management screen you can see exactly how many people have visited your link and also from where they’re coming. No guesswork trying to figure out which marketing effort is actually creating results.

Cloak your link so nobody steals your commission.

When you use a full affiliate link (you know, the long one with all the tracking code), there’s always a possibility that others can replace your affiliate information with their own and earn commissions instead of you. By using this plugin, you can stop the commission thieves right away so no one can ever steal your hard-earned commissions.

Turn keywords into links.

And, I’ve saved the best part for the last. The “Keyword to Link” feature – that means by using this plugin you can convert any keyword in your WordPress blog to an affiliate link which will passively earn you commission forever.

My Summary

I’m not sure what took me so long, but I’m glad I finally came across this. You’re probably wondering how you can get it for yourself. Follow the link below to read even more information, testimonals, and videos of the plugin doing it’s magic.

Click Here to Learn More about the “Ninja Affiliate” WordPress Plugin.

Good luck with your new and improved marketing!

Backtype, a web site that allows you to find and follow comments from across the web has recently released their first crack at a WordPress plugin. Installing the plugin to your WordPress blog allows you to show conversation and comments from Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg and more related to your content. Users can then post replies right on your blog.

As for your existing comments, they just seem to mesh right in with comments pulled from around the web. It looks, well, brilliant to be honest with you.

Disqus has an early release that it seems only Mashable has access to right now, but it doesn’t seem as blended as this Backtype version. I’ll be disabling Disqus in the next few days to try this Backtype plugin out on Good Plum.

Features (from Backtype’s site)

• Display comments from other blogs, Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Reddit, and more
• You can configure exactly what sources you want to display related conversations from
• Summarize, display comments inline, or append them to the end of your comments section
• Your readers can even respond to the comments BackType Connect displays

What do you think of this implementation? It seems that anyone with a WordPress blog may want to try this out. If you’re not adventurous, you may want to wait until the bugs are worked out in version 0.2 :).

You’re confused and I know it. The increase in questions I’ve been getting lately from small or home business owners confused about how to tackle the Twitter service is astounding.

I’m sensing that the crossover from Twitter being a “geek-only” tool and then partially spread into the mainstream has started to hit full-throttle into individuals and businesses who have heard of Twitter, but have finally bit the bullet to try and figure out how they should be using it too.

They sign up, post their first Tweet (something like “Figuring out this Twitter thing,” and that’s where they hit the wall.

Some questions that first cross their minds:

- Isn’t this the same as Facebook updates (if they indeed are using Facebook already)?
- Am I supposed to be just Tweeting everything I do all day?
- If so, how is that helpful?
- I’m worried about spamming people asking them to buy stuff from me!
- Who do I follow?
- How in the world do I get people to follow me?
- Wait a minute, why would someone want to follow me?

These are all good questions. Let’s take a look at where Twitter came from and what it is, how some people use it, how you can use it, and why you would even want to use it. We’ll even throw in some etiquette lessons.

My hope is that some part of my opinion about this strikes a chord with you, the light will go on upstairs, and you’ll be able to have a great new tool for online networking.

What Is Twitter?

At the most simple level, Twitter is what people see it as initially – a simple status update service. This was how it was initially used by all members at launch. I was member number two-thousand-something and remember stopping using it almost right away because it seemed like such a waste of time.

On a deeper level, Twitter is a learning tool, a sharing platform, and a networking system beyond any other online tool I’ve used – and I’ve used them all… it’s what I do! I’ve “met” more amazing people on Twitter than on any other web site combined!

So, on the deepest of levels, I would describe Twitter as a customizable personal network. Customizable because you have so much control over people you reach out to and who reaches out to you. The power of immediate interaction with like-minded individuals is life-altering when used and developed correctly.

How You Should Use Twitter

Because we’re addressing small and home businesses here, we’ll focus on great ways you can use Twitter for your business. Here’s an excerpt of one of the many emails I received last week asking about Twitter for business:

“I want to figure out how to use twitter to my favor – business wise. I saw [your article] on the huge amount of choices one had and another list that was even longer. I need someone to walk me through getting it all together before I make a mess.

I asked another site for help and the gal told me NO business stuff on Twitter, but I know that isn’t so. I’m not after spamming for sure.” – Myra

Myra obviously isn’t alone. You want to be able to take advantage of new web tools like Twitter, but don’t know how to start using it, and don’t want to come off as someone who just pukes “buy my stuff” all over the place.

As a business owner, you should be looking at Twitter simply as a networking tool. There ARE ways you can use it for promotion, such as for a live coupon feed, sale-of-the-day, etc. However, you should only be using it this way if you already have a customer base you can direct to it – places like Amazon do this very effectively. You should NEVER use your feed to simply have a running promotion of all your products and services.

Networking on Twitter

So if the small and home business owner should be treating Twitter as a networking tool – how do you go about that? The quick and fast answer is A) by helping people and B) by having patience.

Your Purpose

First of all, you need a purpose. This purpose should relate to a skill or knowledge that you have that other people can benefit from. For instance, if you’re a Realtor, you could present yourself as someone who can answer home-buying questions. If you’re an accountant, you could offer simple tax advice, etc.

By creating your purpose, you can then enter your 160-character self-description in a way that shows that you’re there to support the community – not sell to them. Your Tweets will now also reflect your purpose – the links and quotes you share, the help you provide – will all come back to your purpose.

The website you list on Twitter should be your own web page or blog. A MySpace or Facebook page does not build trust with someone. Having your web site listed there should be a way for people to find out more about what you do once they’re interested in your description.

Remember, selling never happens before trust is built!

Search for People

There are a lot of services out there to find like-minded people on Twitter, but in my experience, the fastest way is by using Twitter Search. Simple type in a keyword of someone you’d have similar interests in. If you don’t know who that is, then you might be in trouble…

Who is your customer? Do you have a description of your customer written down? There are probably many different molds, but having those personas clearly defined will tell you what you’re customers are interested in. Try searching for those things and start following people who look interesting to you.

Note: Do NOT follow everyone who follows you! Only follow people who fit the criteria you define as a someone you could learn from or find interesting.

Join the Conversation

Once you’ve found people you find interesting (start with 20-30), you can start joining-in. Reply to people who ask questions when you know the answer. If someone says something interesting, forward (or Re-Tweet) their Tweet.

Another great way to build rapport with your future audience, is to promote others. If you see someone interesting, Tweet why you think so – they’ll appreciate and remember you for it!

Your Followers Will Come

It may not happen overnight, but if you use Twitter on a regular basis, people will start to find you. If you’ve defined a helpful purpose and displayed that properly in your description, when people click-through to your page it will be clear to them if you’re a fit.

Remember to mention your Twitter name whenever you comment on blogs or forums. It’s also nice to add it into your email signature since so many people are now familiar with, or at least have heard of, Twitter.

Patience

Patience is key, as none of this happens over night. Even though my followers grow by about 10-20 per day now, it only started taking off quickly after I started writing regularly for Mashable. People saw what I was knowledgeable about, and they were interested too – so they followed me. It takes time though.

I know there will be a ton of questions, so if you think it can’t be answered in one sentence – try contacting me here instead. Otherwise, let me know your thoughts or feelings on using Twitter!

“The Twitter Effect” – also known as The Mashable Effect or The Digg Effect – as become a topic of conversation lately due to a handful of blogs being taken offline from the amount of traffic instantaneously sent to them from Twitter.

The basics of the effect are this:  a link is posted by someone on Twitter, that link is “retweeted” (forwarded, in email-speak) again and again and again.  If it’s a popular or timely topic, this can cause a surge of traffic to that one page on your site almost instantly.

At Good Plum, we’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of these situations in the past week – both started by @Mashable’s Pete Cashmore linking to a couple of the posts here, as well as guest posts I’ve written for Mashable.  The flood of visitors added up quickly and at one point, there was many hundreds of simultaneous readers on 1 or 2 pages of the site.  Server logs show a spike, but no where near peaking our processing power.  How did we survive this?

This amount of simultaneous visitors trying to access the same content on a blog can take many servers down temporarily.  We have a couple basic tools in place that help prevent this from happening and we’d like to share:

Tip 1 – Grow Up
Get OFF your shared (or grid) server.  I really don’t care much what technical people tell me about how their shared system grows with my site, etc. — I’ve had too many experiences where the accessibility is way too unpredictable.

We use a virtual private server (VPS) from ServInt here at Good Plum.  A virtual private server gives you dedicated resources (drive space, processor power) to keep your site and database running smooth.  It’s essentially giving you a full dedicated server for a fraction of the cost.

A good VPS from ServInt is only going to cost you about $49 a month to start – probably about double what you might pay for a decent shared server – but the long-term benefits are clear.  Flexibility, reliability, and performanace.  Who wants to lose out on hundreds and thousands of potential readers/visitors just because we have a cheap web host?

Tip 2 – Cache It
On your WordPress blog (which MANY people reading this are using), do you know the amount of stress a lot of visitors at once has on your database?  It’s amazing if you monitor database activity during a high-traffic rush.  WordPress performs so many queries that it’s difficult for it to perform those queries hundreds of time, all at the same time.  The effect is that it shuts down and you lose your traffic until you get the server reset (or, much worse, you actually go over some of your host’s imposed limits and they shut you down).

The ultimate tool to prevent WordPress overload is…..

WP Super Cache.  Super Cache is a WordPress plugin that actually caches (stores) copies of a dynamically generated page.  It then allows subsequent visitors to view that stored copy, instead of having to generate the page all over again for the next visitor, and the next, etc.

Once you activate the plugin and someone visits a page, the page pulls what it needs from the database just like it normally would.  But then it stores that page to a folder on your server.  Next time someone visits that page (or hundreds of people at once), it has the cached version of that page to display instead of having to pull it from the database again!  I can’t stress enough how much this saves your server.

Of course, if you update the page or someone comments on an article, the cache is cleared so the new version is available to the next person.

–
Are YOU prepared for the Twitter Effect?  You never know when someone with some social juice will start a retweeting avalanche that could either shut you down, or bring you a thousand new fans!

I love paper.  There’s something about the silky-smooth pages of a Moleskine notebook and a high-quality pen that give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.  The Moleskine Volant mini is a relatively new (re)addition to the popular family of notebooks, and well-worth a look.

If you find yourself out and about and needing to make a quick note – maybe you should try turning the pages of a notebook instead of typing something into your phone.  The Moleskine Volant mini is 2.5″ by 4″ and has 56 pages – the last 16 which are perforatted for easy removal.  It’s a perfect pocket-companion for any of the Fisher bullet space pens.

Personally, there are many advantages to having paper available at a moment’s notice.  Whether it’s jotting a quick note-to-self, leaving a note to someone, or making an impromtu list — paper just works however you need it to.  With so many digital companions available (I use my iPhone for almost everything mobile), using paper regularly is a much needed break from the out-of-touch internet world.

Yes, it’s nice to use Evernote to keep all my notes in one location.  Yes, it’s great I can access my Toodledo lists from anywhere.  However, it’s a small notebook and pocket-pen that are the quickest to get an idea out of my head.  It’s a hand-written note to someone that they might remember you by.

I typically export all of my handwritten items to their correct digital place each day.  If I was digital-only, I would pass-up on writing down a lot of list items and ideas – I never have that problem with paper.

I think there’s a place for a physical notebook in everyone’s workflow, and with the Moleskine Volant mini – you really don’t have an excuse!

Do you use paper in your life?  Let me know how you manage it in the comments!

This is something I’ve been putting off until now.  It may even be something you don’t know about yet!  Feedburner, a tool many of us use to keep track of our RSS feeds, was purchased by Google in May of 2007.  It is now being rolled-up on the Google brand, forcing all users of it’s service to move their account by the end of February, 2009.

They make the process relatively easy – it only took me a few minutes – and, it’s required.  So you better get to it!

Pro Blog Design posted a really good write-up on everything you need to do in order to make the transfer. Take a look at their article here.

In just a few minutes, you’ll have your new feed links and can make any adjustments you may need on your website(s).  If you have any questions about the process, feel free to ask me in the comments!

While designing blogs and other web sites, I’ve often had the need for free icons that I either don’t have the skill to design myself, or don’t have the time (usually both!).

The free icon sets available for download out there are abundant, but good ones seem to be few and far between.  There are a few icon sets that I tend to rely on for many projects I work on and I wanted to share those with you.

Below are a few of my favorite icon sets you can download for free.  Make sure you add your favorites to the comments!

Famfamfam Silk Icons

From the site:

“Silk” is a smooth, free icon set, containing over 700 16-by-16 pixel icons in strokably-soft PNG format. Containing a large variety of icons, you’re sure to find something that tickles your fancy. And all for a low low price of $0.00. You can’t say fairer than that.

Silk is, by far, the most-used icon set on the web today.  So many popular web sites use one or some of these free icons, a list of them would be a post all it’s own.  Virtually any type of icon you could possibly need for web site or software development is in this package.  All he asks for is a link back to his site.

“Social Me” Icon Set

From the site:

Social.me is an icon set consisting of 30 individual icons of the popular social networks/Web 2.0 sites out there.

I use the Social Me icons on Good Plum (see the top bar) and have recommended them to many others.  They’re simple, clean icons that can represent links to your many social profiles across the web.  The Social Me free icons are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Function

From the site:

We’ve tried to keep a consistent style with quite a glossy look to the icons, admittedly some are better than others, but our first attempt at a set of icons I’m happy how they turned out. We’ve Included some of the main Social Media Icons such as: Design Float, Digg, Delicious, Furl, Technorati, Flickr, Stumble Upon, Twitter & Many more…

As they mention on the site, they include some of the main social media icons, but the depth of free icons is deep here – providing 128 really great web icons.  All they ask in return for using their free icons is a link back to the page.

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of free icon sites (legal!) for you to download.  Which ones are you using?  Let us know in the comments.

A good (free) way to take screen shots, record on-screen video of your movements (screencasting), and get those pictures and videos to the masses has always been a pain.  There is some great paid software, but for free… a lot was left to be desired.

Then a couple months ago, I found Jing.

The free screen capture and screencast software is a development from TechSmith, the creators of the popular Camtastia Studio.  Although the application has a Pro (paid) version, the free software has become such a integral part of my work flow, I don’t think most of you will have a reason to upgrade from the free version.

Easy

This is what it’s all about for me.  As a web developer by day, I always have the need to share bits of my screen with others – so they can see exactly what I’m talking about.  With Jing, I just swipe across my screen to select the area I want to capture, and then save or copy the clipped image into an email.

You can also create short videos within the swiped boundry.  This allows me to show an action I’m doing without the person needing to be right behind me.  Though the Pro version has higher quality and longer time allowed, the free sofware, for me, is perfect.

I encourage you to take a look at their great features.  For a free screen capture program, I’ve yet to see anything that beats it.

Until digital products can completely recreate (and improve) the process of capturing information on paper – paper products are going to be with us.

I day-dream daily about what my future digital Moleskine notebook will look and feel like.  I kind of envision it as a Kindle, but with input/sync ability, less bulky, and a bigger screen.  But it’s just a dream… for now.

A friend and author, William Aicher, recently wrote about how he doesn’t like reading books anymore – the paper versions of them at least.  From a reader’s perspective I can see how this might be true.  He mentions font-adjusting and the waste of one-and-done books that essentially turn into shelf-decor once you’re done reading.  The Kindle, for readers, has changed people’s lives by leaps-and-bounds.

When will writers, sketchers, and thinkers have the same ability?

I’m not going to argue that there are products that exist already.  A couple popular ones are:
- LiveScribe SmartPen (use only with their paper)
- SolidTek DigiMemo (clipboard-like device that uses normal paper)

The problem, in my eyes, with these devices is that none of them gives a user the notebook-like ability we’re looking for.   I don’t carry legal-sized notebooks, and I don’t want to buy special paper. Here’s what I want to replace:

- Moleskine planner
- Moleskine journal
- Moleskine notebook/sketchbook/project book
- Screen with a look and feel of paper
- Sell pen-inserts instead of whole pens.  That way I can  use my own pen modified for a digital screen.

This needs to be about the same size as a large Moleskine (8″x5″), have selectable backgrounds for each page (blank, ruled, squared), separate internal notebooks/sections/tabs, separate planner, and most of all – super easy syncing with whatever I want.

Of course, the digital notebooks and planner need to completely and efficiently recognize my handwriting for syncing to my web calendar, Evernote, To Do list, etc.

Mike Rohde posted a little digital Moleskine concept that got me thinking about this (credit to him for the image used in this post).  The only thing I’m against from his post is the over-use of ports on the digital Moleskine.  I’d prefer to see this product be 100% wireless/Bluetooth – as close to the look and feel of a Moleskine as possible.

Honestly, I’m not sure why this item doesn’t exist.  I can see it being an easy sell at up to $300-400.  The fact is, the hardware is out there for this piece – but it’s the software for handwriting and syncing that hasn’t caught up yet.

But it will.  And when it does, I’ll be in line at Best Buy (or, more likely, virtually in line on Amazon).

I have to admit here that my use of digital products such as Evernote and Remember The Milk has made me use my Moleskines less and less.  The ONLY reason for this is that they’re accessible anywhere, searchable, and very easy to manage.  To accomplish the same feats in a paper-book would drive me nuts having to keep it updated and organized.

So now I primarily use Moleskines for ideas and planning, to do lists for the immediate future (today at work, for example), and some journaling.

The goal here is efficiency.  My belief is that this digital Moleskine would be able to replace many physical and digital products I currently use to record, list, or plan my days.

Until my ultimate device is available, I’ll be enjoying the feel of Moleskine pages between my fingers, paging through them to find what it was I was writing about last week, and stacking them on my shelves at home when I’m done with them.

What do you think?  Is this even something you’re interested in or am I in a fantasy land, hopeless and dreamy?