2 The Next Level

Happy New Year Everyone,

I started out 2010 with something I have been wanting to do for some years now. I attended my first WordCamp. What made this WordCamp so much better is that it was in my own town of Atlanta, GA. I wanted to get there early and get a chance to soak in all that this 1 1/2 day conference had to offer. What made this such a challenge is that on this day our host city was on the verge of a snow storm with temperatures in the 20’s. There was even talk of the event being canceled or at least rescheduled. I took a chance and pressed on anyway and got to my destination without any mishaps. To my enjoyment and surprise there were many Wordpress followers who braved the cold and ice as well.

Day 1

The first Wordcamp Atlanta was held at the  Savannah College of Art and Design or SCAD for short. The evening was kicked off with a brief welcome to Atlanta from the two organizers of the event Brandon Sheats and Tessa Horehled. We then broke up into the three session provided for us that evening. I attended a session presented by Amani Channel of Visual Eye Media. Amani talked about “The Secrets of Mobile Vlogging”. You may know Amani by his blog My Urban Report. Amani shared some great stuff on using video for your blog. The one thing I learned was that lighting and sound were just as important as shooting the video. Amani also recommend the Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera over the Flip MinoHD because of its external microphone jack. Take a look at the video and the blog post he did for WordCamp Atlanta.

My next session was with Topher Kohan of CNN.com. Topher’s session was on SEO and Wordpress. Topher really broke down some of the great SEO solutions you can get with Wordpress plugins. I learned how you can optimize your Wordpress template by just simply adding breadcrumbs to boost your search engine love. Topher suggested many Wordpress plugins for SEO but listed All in one SEO pack, WP Super Cache and Breadcrumbs as his top 3. I had already been using the All in one SEO pack but added both WP Super Cache and Breadcrumbs right after his session.

I then ended my evening with Chad Parizman’s session. Chad is currently the Director of Community Management for Scripps Networks’ shelter sites. These sites include my wife’s favorite cable channel  HGTV. Chad’s topic was “5 Situations Where WordPres Can Save the Day.  He gave some great real life scenarios on how using Wordpress could literally save yourself a whole lot of headache. His best example by far was his “Oh Sh-t Moment, where he told us the story when his team has to construct multiple Wordpress sites in order to be ready for a 12 am deadline where they didn’t know if one of their cable show channels contracts would be renewed. This meant that many of their viewers who were Cablevision customers lost two of their favorite channels, HGTV and Food Network. Wordpress saved the day by allowing them to construct both www.ilovehgtv.com and www.ilovefoodnetwork.com in a matter of hours before both channels went black on their Cablevision provider.

Day 2

Day two was even better so I hope you come back tomorrow to find out how excited I was with the news of Wordpress 3.0 future release for 2010.
Click here for Day 2

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It has been 4 long years since I had the ability to call my cell phone anything but smart. Today I was fortunate enough to be given a brand new smart phone. Why does it seem such a surprise it has taken me this long to finally get with the program and get one of these remarkable devices.  Well, without going into detail I guess I was waiting for just the right one to come along and give me everything I ever wanted in a smart phone.  Believe me it was a long and drawn out quest to find this phone.

I like most of you toyed with the idea of going First Fruit Phone but I have been a PC man for so long I just new there was something out there for folks like myself.  Then came HTC and the Android operating system by Google and I was hooked. HTC came out with so many great looking phones to rival the First Fruit of Phones and the Android operating made me take notice even more. The HTC G1 was a  huge draw to me and I was 2 minutes from jumping into the deep end of the smart water pool when that first G-phone just looked so darn bulky and down right ugly compared to Mom’s Pie Phone.

It finally took an oldie but goodie cell phone manufacture to get me back. Motorola, king of the cell  phones back in the 80’s. Did you know that In 1969, Neil Armstrong spoke the famous words “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” from the Moon on a Motorola Radio? And who could forget the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, AKA the “Brick Phone”.

Well Motorola is back with a vengeance and it has taken their new Android powered phone the CLIQ with MotoBlur to bring me back into the smart phone fold for good. Please see my blog post “Social Media Meets Motorola MOTOBLUR” for additional information on this spectacular smart phone.

This Christmas Santa brought me a smart phone that can connect me to my social media network without missing a beat. I watched my first Youtube video, downloaded my first smart phone application, updated my status on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin all while I chatted via Google Talk with two of my best friends.

Motorola I solute you for bringing me back to life when it comes to mobile technology.

All the best and Happy Holidays

JB

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I saw this video and thought, any of us including myself could have been guilty of committing this crime. Lets all join the Zero Fatalities organization to help stop such senseless acts of carelessness that can cause bodily injury or even death on our nations roads.

Zero Fatalities is a mutual effort from various states addressing the top behaviors that are killing people on America’s roads. The focus varies by state, but include behaviors such as drowsy driving, distracted driving, aggressive driving, impaired driving, and not buckling up.

Technology is great when used to save us time and help us be more productive.  Our cell phones are getting smarter by the minute. But it only takes a second to get distracted while using our smart phones and make a dumb mistake that could end someones life.

Believe me Soloprenuers, I do understand that we are all busy and many of us have to drive and talk on our cell phones to do everyday business.  But we really need to find a way to not talk as much and definitely don’t text while driving.  My heart goes out to all the families involved in this unfortunate incident.  So I ask you all to take a pledge with me today.  I, Jeffrey Alexander Brathwaite will not drive and text from this day forward.

Please take this pledge with me and help spread the word.

All the best and may God Bless the families who lost their loved ones.

JB

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I saw this new way of typing first hand at the TechCrunch 50 held last year. Most Impressive Demos At TechCrunch50 Day2: Swype and Postbox, Swype is now launching the first phone with its Swyping touch screen technology on a Samsung phone called the Omnia II. Check out the amazing video below that puts the Swype technology to work verses an iPhone.

OK Solos, so how could we use this type of technology in our business. My thoughts are if we can type faster with one hand on our cell phones we can get more things done, hence we can be more productive. My good friend Peggy Duncan did a blog post  7 Must-Have Gadgets I Use to Make Work Easier where she list all the gadgets that make her work life easier. This Swyping technology would be on my list to do the same thing.

Here is one way I could see this technology working is with mothers with infant children.  I was in total amazement on how my wife was able to type on a computer keyboard with one hand while nursing our young daughter. Think of how more productive she could  have been if Swype would develop a desktop keyboard that would allow her to type much faster and with more accuracy.

Can you think of other ways this technology could help or hurt Solopreneurs in being more productive? Please share them in commenting below.

All the best

JB

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Who has the ultimate Operating System? Windows 7 is making a lot of noise right now. Mac OS X (Snow Leopard) is on the rise.  But what about Google’s Chrome OS where does it sit in this hierarchy of operating systems.  Well if you are looking for a fast booting completely web based application, that needs no explanation to operate because if you know how to use a browser you will know how to use Chrome OS.  If you biggest question is “How fast can I get on the Internet?” then this OS is for you. Especially if you are thinking of purchasing a new Netbook like I am one day.  See the Gadget Lab blog post to find out more  Five Things Google’s Chrome OS Will Do for Your Netbook.

Cost, Speed, Compatibility, Portability and New Applications are the main reasons you would choose Chrome OS over Windows 7 or Mac OS X for  your Netbook. The only drawback to this operating system is that if you are not connected to the Internet you will have problems. This OS is almost entirely dependent on the the Internet so if you have to store anything locally or you have to work offline 95 percent of the time, I would not suggest getting or installing Chrome OS.

So if you want go from 0 to Internet in less than 10 seconds, I totally recommend Google’s Chrome OS. I look forward to purchasing my first Netbook with Chrome OS already installed.

Here is a link to one of the first demos of Chrome OS

Here is a link to Tech Crunch where you read how to download and install Chrome OS

All the best

JB

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