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The Intuitive Life Business Blog
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Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since 1980 and
is recognized globally as an expert on both technical and business
issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related
startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed.
He's a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and
Linux Journal and frequently appears
in other publications both online and in print.
Additionally, Dave maintains four weblogs:
The Business Blog at Intuitive.com,
Ask Dave Taylor,
Dave On Film,
and
GoFahterhood.
Based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and
frequent guest on radio and podcast programs, as well as active member of
his community and busy single father to three children.
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Excellent tip for maximizing your search engine friendliness
This tip is from Don Crowther of 101 Public Relations, a man who I think is one of the very best in the world of search engine optimization, and it's worth thinking about whether you have a fancy and complex Web site or just a simple home page:"I'd never link into one of my pages using 'Check this out!' unless it was a page about checks, thises or outs. Use the keywords for that page as your link..."
Continue Reading "Excellent tip for maximizing your search engine friendliness"
Breaking "The Da Vinci Code"
Rarely has a book of fiction garnered as much critical attention and discussion as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. I read it, it was an interesting and engaging book but not one that I purchased to have a bookshelf copy. However, I'm apparently in the minority because not only has it been on the best seller list forever (it's ranked #1 at Amazon.com, for example), there are now other books coming out talking about the credibility of the storyline. But there's a problem with that, according to the publisher...Continue Reading "Breaking "The Da Vinci Code""
Instant business cards!
I was at a Colorado Internet Keiretsu event this morning and realized that in all the time I've been here in Colorado, I haven't printed up new management consulting business cards for my job as head of Growing Ventures. So I came home, downloaded the Mac OS X application Business Card Composer and got to work. Fortunately I'd already purchased some Avery business card blanks and 30 minutes later my color printer had produced two-dozen clean, professional business cards I can comfortably distribute to potential clients and partners. My kudos to Be Light Software for an application well worth the $39 shareware fee.Random thoughts: When Intuitive Systems shuts down
It's going to be a while yet, but whenever it's World Cup time, I quit working and adjust my schedule to watch the best of the games. That's why it was fun to see that my friend Dan now has a site selling soccer replica jerseys from teams around the world, including my favorite, the Tottenham Hotspurs. But, and here's where this is a weird pairing, Dan also has sites on shed plans and plantar warts. How they all fit together, I don't know, but I imagine it's no weirder than my 404 error page site, my real life debt site and my casino bookstore site, right?Slashdotted! Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther
A very nice review showed up today at slashdot of my book Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther, wherein the reviewer states:"For a book of just 168 pages, the authors pack quite a bit on making a Mac OS X system work from its Terminal roots. New Mac OS X system administrators will find this book most useful, particularly if their UNIX experience is lacking or radically different from what Mac OS X presents. Experienced *NIX users who bought a new Mac may find the book a good intermediary to demonstrate how Mac OS X Panther differs from the *NIX boxen they've used in the past."I couldn't agree more. :-)
When Amazon doesn't work: the tale of one book
I recently checked on my book Wicked Cool Shell Scripts at Amazon.com and was surprised to find its sales rank at 1.1 million, which basically indicates that it hasn't sold a single copy. Yet I knew that my publisher was paying to promote the book through Amazon itself and that I've begun to receive rave reviews for the book from readers. So what gives? Here's what I found out...Continue Reading "When Amazon doesn't work: the tale of one book"
The "Friends of Friends" experiment on Orkut
I admit it, I sent out an email message to about 1500 people on Orkut to see what would happen. To explain why, let me start by saying that the more I think about social networks, the more I find that the concept hasn't been thought out by anyone yet, whether it's the Ryze network event in Denver next week or whether it's the Orkut "friends of friends" communication capability.
But on to my experiment...
Continue Reading
"The "Friends of Friends" experiment on Orkut"
Splendid news: "Wicked Cool Shell Scripts" will be translated into Japanese
Just go the word from my publisher, NoStarch Press, that my newest book, Wicked Cool Shell Scripts is going to be translated into Japanese for that market. Should be a fun translation process and if you're reading this from Japan, you might consider having both the English and Japanese editions on your shelf. Just in case... (just kidding!)Another Weblog worth checking out: "From the Swamps of Joisey"
My friend and colleague Daniel Gray has been running an interesting experimental Weblog he amusingly calls from the swamps of joisey and I've just added it to my list of favorite weblogs on the left side of this very page. If you have a few minutes, you should check it out, including his pages on life insurance, debt consolidation and DirecTV.Playing with JavaScript and Hyperlinks
This is kinda geeky, but here's something to try on your own Web page:<a href="http://www.ask-leo.com/"Kinda geeky, I admit, but what it does is open different Web pages based on whether you click or shift-click/right-click/option-click (depending on browser). And older browsers will link to a different place than newer browsers too. Fun, eh? Even better, the window status line shows the href value, even though they're actually going to be taken somewhere else when they click.
onclick="self.location.href='http://www.answersquad.com/';">Ask For Help</a>
Hmmm... now that I think about it, I wonder if this isn't a phish hook?
Gnomedex 4.0: Chris Pirillo, geeks, and too much alcohol?
Is this marketing pitch really what you need nowadays to make your tech/geek event stand out from the masses? My pal Chris Pirillo has announced the fourth annual "Gnomedex" event for Sept/Oct of this year, but this time instead of being in scintillating Des Moines, Iowa, it's in Lake Tahoe, California. And the first draft slogan for the event? martinis + laptops = BIG FUN!"
Chris, do we really need the alcohol as a marketing hook? Ah well, check it out yourself at Gnomedex 4.0.
As for me? I'll probably be there. These events are definitely fun and a chance to meet some great 'net folk. Who knows, maybe this year Chris'll invite me to speak at Gnomedex. :-)
Really Simple Syndication: there's got to be a better name
My friend Amy Gahran has been running a very interesting competition on her Contentious site seeking a new name for RSS, which is typically defined as "Really Simple Syndication". The problem is that the name doesn't describe very well what RSS has become, but if you have a news aggregator like NetNewsWire or NewsGator you know the power behind the syndication model, the value of the RDF and XML buttons on weblogs...Continue Reading "Really Simple Syndication: there's got to be a better name"
Finally! The Starbucksese Decoder Ring!
You know that Starbucks has its own language already if you've been into one recently, with people ordering half-tall, extra hot, half-caf, who-knows-what, but last time I was there I found a little book they had on Starbucksese called Make It Your Drink. This is a pretty amusing little publication that starts with: "I'll have a grande, quad, ristretto, nonfat, dry cappuccino" and then challenges you to figure out what it all means.Fortunately, it's mostly a glossary, so I can decode that sentence: a grande is what I'd call a "medium" size, quad is four shots of espresso, ristretto is a short pull of espresso, nonfat specifies the type of milk, dry means more foam, less milk, and a cappuccino is a drink made with espresso and foamed milk. Got it?
So a challenge for you: what's a short, skinny, flat breve con panna with room and legs?
Oh, and a tip too: there's a coupon in the back for a free "modifier", so if you always get soy milk like I do, for once your soy can be free. Or a favorite syrup flavor, or ... well, read the book!
How connected am I? Thoughts on Orkut, Ryze and LinkedIn
So I'm now a member of three major online networking sites, Ryze, LinkedIn and Orkut. So far, I haven't seen any of my friends on all three networks (they probably have better things to do with their time!) but it's interesting to compare the different models of online networking and ask the question of whether they really work...Continue Reading "How connected am I? Thoughts on Orkut, Ryze and LinkedIn"
Domain for sale: HOSTNAME.COM
I have had this domain for years and it's just about time for yet another annual renewal. I don't use it for anything but if you have a good use for it and can offer me something interesting, fun or lucrative, I'd be more than happy to part with it for the right party... :-)Is it just me, or is there a reality distortion field in Washington DC?
I'm reading the Wall Street Journal this morning and come across this lead story: "BUSH SENT CONGRESS a $2.4 trillion election-year budget featuring big increases for defense and homeland security, as he faces a record $521 billion deficit." Now, maybe it's just me, but everyone I talk to is telling me what a hard time they're having with their finances, some of my best buddies have been laid off or had their companies close down, and in the writing community it's hard to find someone who isn't sharing tales of woe.And the response to this is to have a government budget that works out to about $8,000 per person. My family, five of us, therefore have a government tab of $40,000. $6,660 of this goes directly to the Department of Defense, and another $666 goes to the Department of Homeland Security. However, it's not all tax-and-spend (or, in the spirit of modern Republican budget management, tax-refund-and-spend-anyway), because the Bush Administration is significantly cutting funding for the Environmental Protection Agency. In fact, the EPA is getting a larger budget cut than any other agency in the government. Surprised? I'm not.
The Whitehouse spin on this? According to the information on the Whitehouse Site, the purpose of this budget is to "help make America a more secure, more prosperous, and more hopeful country." I just don't see how we're going to be more prosperous and more hopeful with this kind of crippling debt, personally.
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