I got a grade of 40/100 on Facebook Grader. <- But I’m working on it. : ) Amber’s Facebook Profile
How powerful are you on Facebook? Visit Facebook.Grader.com to find out.
@FindingAnswers got a grade of 98.0/100 on @grader. Check it out: http://twitter.grader.com/findinganswers
See yours at http://twitter.grader.com
I found these because I love to use www.websitegrader.com to measure some site’s SEO grade.
So, what’s your score?
Before the holidays creep up on you, your challenge is to FIND ONE TASK (or more if you’d like) that you are responsible for completing and find a way to AUTOMATE that task. Whether it be activating that free automated bill pay service that your bank provides with your checking account, or taking advantage of that appointment application that has always been on your cell phone to keep track of your dentist and hair appointments. Just find something that will make your life easier and do it. Working smart is all about forming good habits.
Researching Voice Recognition Software: Get voice recordings transcribed into text versions.
What is so cool about this exactly? My thoughts are: brainstorming. When I have a great idea for a blog post or even hear about something that I want to research, I either have to write it down on a piece of scrap paper (and then probably lose it), call myself and leave myself a voicemail or text myself and my cellphone is kinda past it’s prime and txting isn’t exactly easy. So inevitably I have to type it out later anyways right? Not if I have a good service that will do the typing and the saving for me! – So, that was my answer to the worksmart challenge. 
Misc Work Smart Side Note: Learn Keyboard Shortcuts:
Microsoft Windows
Mac OS X
Linux
A post in response to: Why Are We Obsessed With Personality Tests? – by Julien Smith
I am an ESFJ Extroverted Sensing Feeling Judging – according to a facebook test I had taken a little while back. It’s based on the Jungian Typology. This means something like I want to like everybody, I strive to see others point of views and like to make people feel good about themselves. I’m warmly interested in others. I use my Sensing and Judging characteristics to gather specific, detailed information about others, and turn this information into supportive judgments. I want to like people, and tend to be skilled at bringing out the best in others. I strive to understand other points of view. – As cheesy as this sounds, it’s kinda true.
It’s interesting that you mention personality tests and how they can help you “find your place in the world”. On ecademy (a business focused social networking site) they came up with a color profiling system that is supposed to help you find compatible business associates. I was measured as a “High Blue”. If you think about it, the success of team building depends upon a balance and cooperation of each personality type involved.
I haven’t really found my place in the world yet, I’ve been a little busy helping other people find theirs.
A post in response to: You’re not on Twitter’s suggested user list but you are in good company: by Robert Scoble
First, I have to say, I LOVE his statement:
“If @facebook (Twitter’s top competitor, according to @ev Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter) got on Twitter’s SUL that would be funny! But imagine a world where Twitter gets that confident!”
I laughed out loud when I read that one.
And secondly, I might agree with Scoble as far as getting rid of the list, but I don’t know if I can back up his idea of removing the follower count. Too many people (even me, I’ll be honest) like to see how many people they have in their network.
However, I do get irritated at the nobodies who mass follow people and then mass unfollow people to try and make it look like they are someone special or something. It’s kinda lame.
And finally, he shouldn’t take it too personally that he isn’t on the list. In fact, he is with the majority on this one. But he is a fabulous writer and the fact that his post received 113 comments before I ever even got here, I bet I’m not the only one who thinks that with as much research and thought he poured into his post, @scobleizer probably should be.
This just in! Facebook changed their fanpage url requirement of 100 fans down to 25 fans to get a vanity url! http://www.facebook.com/WorkAtHomeParents – Check it out! Even though mine’s kinda new, I still have the benefit of a nice fanpage URL. Fanpages are great as long as you take advantage of all the tricks to making is as SEO friendly as possible. And we all know that starts with the simplest path to your site/page possible. Go get yours!
After you have your page setup, and get 25 fans:
Go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ See “Set a username for your Pages”.
☆
If you don’t have a facebook fan page yet check out this simple facebook fan page setup, or contact the facebook fan page pros.
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From Rerun of Dr. Phil’s “How To” Series- 2002
“You wouldn’t worry so much about what people think about you, if you knew how little they did.” – Dr. Phil’s Dad
- moved here from TalkShowWisdom.blogger.com
I have joined forces with a great team of professional graphic designers, web developers, and other skilled virtual assistants!
We all know that no one person has the ability to be everything to all people. I have widened my network by carefully selecting a group of innovative and creative talent to enhance the services for all of my clients’ businesses. My goal for internet marketing and web design is to guarantee that our customers are provided with the newest and hottest technology services out there!
Visit Virtual IT Assistants for more information.
As a consultant for another VA firm, I had the opportunity to work with an international Career Coach icon:
” Working with Amber was fabulous! She’s extremely creative, customer focused, fun to work with, and a whiz at internet design. She helped me create a polished and professional on-line image, and took my website from ordinary to extraordinary! Thanks Amber “
” I met Amber through a mutual client. I was immediately impressed by her work ethic, ability to multi-task but stay focused, and her amazing attention to detail. Being in the customer service field, I always look for those types of traits in people, and Amber brought it all to the table and served it up with a smile! ”
- Susie Matthews, Online Operations, PrintsMadeEasy.com
The best way to describe it is to use an example.
Gotta long URL?
Here’s one: http://www.virtualitassistants.com/inbound-marketing-university/
Now if I wanted to tweet and share this URL in twitter, the address would take up 64 of the 140 characters allowed for my message! That doesn’t leave much room to tell you what the link is about.
What if you could type in: http://bit.ly/IMUinfo and get to the same place? Well that is why so many people use url shorteners. (Beware though, as you could imagine, this can also be a bad thing because someone mischievous could hide unsafe links. Be careful of what you click on!)
All I have to do is go to bit.ly to shorten and share, type in the address I needed shortening. I also chose “show options” and gave it a custom name. Hit “shorten” and voilà! A shorter, and easier to remember URL.
Thanks to bit.ly, the URL is now: http://bit.ly/IMUinfo.
Note: The thing to remember when choosing a custom name for a website is that it is case sensitive. So, if you go to http://bit.ly/imuinfo it won’t work. But this is a good thing! if someone already had: http://bit.ly/IMUinfo , then I could use http://bit.ly/IMUINFO.
Now, the reason why bit.ly wins my vote: I can log in and see the traffic for each my shortened links. I use twitterfeed to automatically change my blog post URLs to bit.ly addresses for twitter updates (because of the 140 character rule). When I log into bit.ly I can see how much traffic my blog posts are getting from twitter!
Make sure you sign in to bit.ly before you shorten any links you want to actually track.
Update on this story: December 2009, we think we have found this man, but if it is him, then it turns out that he passed away in 2007. I’ll leave his story up, just because it’s still an interesting story.
This is probably going to be a strange read, because it feels so strange to actually write it. And here is the real kicker: it’s a story about a man that I never knew. And it’s a story that is over 57 years old. You see, I am looking for the man in this photograph.
A picture of my grandfather?
Supposedly, he is my grandfather. My dad didn’t find out that his real last name was Edwards until he was a senior in high school. He needed his birth certificate to apply for a driver’s license. Can you imagine what that would be like? Little explanation was given before my Grandmother, Mary Ellen, passed away. Dad never really even mentioned it as I was growing up. I remember being about twelve the first time I heard about it. He sounded sad, when he told the story as he knew it. I made an effort one day to look up my family ancestry on ancestry.com.
I knew his name: Ralph Edwards. Am I afraid to actually include his last name in this post? Yes, for two reasons. Number one, there are some weird crazy people out there on the internet, you know. And Number two, I have no idea of any concrete details of the story, except for the one’s in the preceding paragraph. So, there’s your disclaimer: I have no idea really what happened. The saddest part is, I probably will never know. Unless, I’ll get to ask him about it in the afterlife. It can be quite the flaw to be the optimist, and the truth probably is more bleak than I want to believe. But, I’d still like to know what the story is. Wouldn’t you? So here goes, the third hand fragments of the details that may be true, may not be true, or even remembered correctly:
My grandparents, “Ralph” and Mary Ellen , married too quickly and too young (I mean look at the picture! They look like kids right?) The divorce followed just as quickly. In fact, this was the first of three marriages that ended in divorce for my Grandma Mary. I guess she never found her true love. Anyways, this Ralph fellow was in the service (Army, I think? Maybe you can tell by military uniform in picture?), and one day he just went home to Scranton Pennsylvania. – This was the only thing my Grandma Mary would tell my dad about it. The story told by my great grandmother, Dorothy, was that he left because his mother (who would have been my other great grandmother, right?) had a job for him driving a brand new “rig”? My dad’s grandad (my great grandfather who lived in Greenville, PA until he passed away before I was born) would only say that he had liked the boy (meaning Ralph). And great granddad loved his daughter (my Grandma Mary) to pieces. I don’t see how he could have said he liked the boy when he supposedly left my grandma, without some real explanation.
And that’s it, that’s all I know. See what I mean? There has to be more to this story! I can’t imagine that this Ralph would have been a bad, neglectful man. There is nothing uncaring about my dad, he’d give anyone anything if he they needed it. I can’t believe it to be possible for my dad to have come from a man who just didn’t care. Did this Ralph Edwards on my dad’s birth record ever even know of him at all? What happened to him? What does he look like now? Does he have anything of genetic importance we (or his great grandkids) should know that runs in our family? Is he even alive? I wish I knew. And if it turns out to be a to be a terrible story, then maybe my dad wasn’t ever meant to know. I really think he deserves to know though. This a glimmer of curiosity has appeared in his eyes the few times he has spoken of his real father. My aunt (dad’s half sister) dug up the photograph of Ralph and Mary Ellen above. It does look like a wedding photograph. But who knows anything? Maybe it will always be a mystery.
So in conclusion, I must thank you for reading my long, awkward story. Even though once again I admit being painfully optimistic, I do realize it could be a terrible idea to even pursue the truth. He may not want to be found. He may have a family somewhere else. It’s possible that he doesn’t know about my dad. It’s possible he does. But seriously, ask yourself, if you were me. . . would you at least try? For your dad? If you think you know anything about this man at all, could you find it in your heart to just consider sending me a message? Who is he? Who was he?
moved from: hindsightblind.wordpress.com
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