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  • Tevya 11:21 am on January 25, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: at&t, consumer movements, freedom, mobile, republic wireless, sprint,   

    My Plea to Verizon Wireless to Give Me a Good Reason NOT to Leave Them 

    I sent the following through Verizon Wireless’ “feedback” form today:

    I just tried to change my plan back from 500 txt messages/month to 250, like I had before. When I upgraded, because I was going over, I was specifically told I could go back to the 250/month (and this wasn’t very long ago). Now I’m told I can’t.

    I’m extremely frustrated with Verizon’s policy of raising prices and giving new customers better deals and incentives than us long-time loyal customers. Everyone knows that technology only gets cheaper, yet Verizon insists on raising its prices, rather than follow that trend. More and more I feel that Verizon’s business model encourages us long time customers (I was with Verizon on my parents plan for years before getting the one I have now) to pack up and go to Sprint or an innovative new option like Republic Wireless, for truly unlimited everything, and prices that don’t keep increasing.

    If it were just me who felt this way, or even a handful of customers, it wouldn’t be a big deal to Verizon, but as was recently shown when you tried to start charging us for paying our bill online, there’s a huge portion of your customer base that cares. On top of it Seth Godin, recognized as perhaps the world’s foremost expert in marketing has specifically used Verizon as a bad example the very issues I’m talking about. You can see his articles here: How You Should Treat Your Best Customers and here: Learning From Frustration

    Unhappy customers does not lead to increased profits. Please reconsider and start taking care of us long-time customers. Oh, and please top putting garbage apps on all your Android phones!

    Then I sent this message to Republic Wireless, who’s innovative approach is finally encouraging the well-known technology trend of “always smaller and cheaper” that somehow doesn’t seem to apply to Verizon and AT&T:

    I assume you’ve already thought of this, but just wanted to send a message, in case you hadn’t, or wondered if there were people out there who would love this option:

    If you could create a Republic Wireless app that could be installed on any rooted Android device to provide the hybrid calling, then we could bring any Sprint-compatible device to Republic. I don’t know if this is possible from a technical standpoint. But I would assume that with root access, it should be possible. If I could buy a Galaxy Nexus (even for $600 or whatever they cost) and switch to Republic, then only need to root the phone (very easy with that particular one) and install your app, but still be able to get updates directly from Google, etc, I’d do it in a heartbeat. In fact, I’d start saving money right now to come up with $1200 to get one for my wife and one for myself and we’d switch immediately. Now maybe 4G throws a wrench in things, or maybe what I suggest isn’t that easy, but if you can do it, I’d highly recommend it. There’s a lot of people like myself who have WiFi access most of the time, and HATE the ever increasing costs (what ever happened to technology always getting smaller and cheaper?) of regular mobile service. We appreciate what you’re doing, but aren’t quite ready to flock to you because of the limited phone offerings. But open that up, and flock we will!

    Sometimes you just have to voice your opinion to make your self feel better. But if lots of others do the same, Verizon will start listening, in the same way the US Congress listened regarding SOPA & PIPA, BofA & Wells Fargo heard us regarding debit card fees, Netflix didn’t split their DVD & streaming options into separate services because the cries were so loud, and even Verizon dug the wax out of their ears for a moment when we told them how upset we were about their new fees to pay online. If that happens, then it won’t be just to make yourself feel better.

     

  • Tevya 4:27 pm on December 28, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    Get People to Promote Your Product Via Twitter 

    Pay with a Tweet is a cool new(ish) tool that allows you to setup a giveaway of some sort (could even be early access to a webapp), but instead of having them pay, they merely tweet on Twitter about it, then are given access. It’s quite easy to use and can be used to give away digital downloads, access to stuff, coupon codes and more. I just wish they’d build a Facebook and Google+ variant/option.

     

  • Tevya 4:21 pm on December 20, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: css, design   

    Easy CSS3 Drop Shadows 

    CSS3 (and some early browser-specific variants) support drop shadows. I found this awesome article that tells you how to create CSS drop shadows, and even gives the CSS code, so you can just copy/paste and adjust the numbers as needed. It works great. Scroll down a ways for the pre-written CSS to copy/paste.

     

  • Tevya 11:26 am on December 3, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , lookup   

    Find out if an email address exists, without sending an email 

    I recently was trying to contact somebody. I believed I had their correct email address, but was unable to be sure, without actually sending the email. So after some searching I found this great web tool called verify-email, that lets you check if an email address exists without sending a message.

    All you do is put in the email address and click the “Verify” button. If the email address exists, you’ll get “Result: OK.” If it doesn’t, you’ll get “Result: Bad.”

    Another Method

    If you think you know the email address, try Googling it. I found the address I was looking for, right next to the person’s name, in a PDF that was the top result on Google for that email address. That makes things much easier and more sure that its going to the correct person.

     

  • Tevya 6:16 pm on October 31, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: evernote, , family-websites, rootstech   

    I’m presenting at RootsTech 2012 on Family Websites & Evernote! 

    I was invited (after submitting the applications) to present at RootsTech 2012. I co-presented in 2011 with Penney Devey. It was an exciting and wonderful experience, so I thought I’d try it again.

    Thankfully, 2 of my proposals were accepted and I’ll be presenting. I don’t have all the details as far as scheduling, etc. yet, but you can find me on the “Schedule” of the official RootsTech website. Here’s the info on my presentations as it appears there:

    Awesome Family Websites: Record Your Living Family History
    Connect with living family while sharing memories of those who have passed on. This presentation will briefly cover how to build or buy your own, easy-to-use, private family website. Then it will explore the experiences of several extended families to show just how effective these websites can be in connecting your family. Throughout, you’ll be shown how to effectively use and manage a powerful family website, as well as how to use it to privately share family history stories, data, and more.

    The Powers of Evernote: photos, URL’s, censuses, geo-location, and stories
    Evernote is an excellent central location for all genealogy research. Store photos of gravestones, record a page with a picture, save web content with a click, record audio, outline blog posts, and geo-tag locations. We’ll cover the basics of using Evernote Desktop, Android/iOS mobile apps, Web, and Web Clipper.

    If you register through the end of Nov. you get discounted pricing. So head over to RootsTech.org and sign up now!

    Also you can check out more info on the family websites I provide to people on my company’s website. Or by watching this video:

     

  • Tevya 5:26 pm on October 28, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    Get rid of the “via” or “on behalf of” when sending email with Google Apps nickname accounts 

    This is a great guide to sending via SMTP on your nicknames accounts in Google Apps. Though you’re just using Google’s servers, it means you’re actually sending with those accounts, and gets rid of the “via” or “on behalf of.” The article also tells how to make sure you respond with the nickname accounts as well.

     

  • Tevya 5:12 pm on September 5, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , ,   

    How to Move Email From Gmail to A Google Apps Account 

    I recently switched my business email to the free Google Apps. This means I get most of the same advantages as a Gmail account, but the emails are at FiddlerStudios.com. This is awesome because I love Gmail, but want the professionalism of an email at my domain.

    I also wanted one other thing that made the final difference: separation between personal and business. Email takes up way to much of my day and is often a distraction. But unfortunately, I can’t just close my email for most of the day like many experts such as Tim Ferriss recommend, because too much of my work is done inside my inbox or pulling information from client emails to put on their website, into designs, etc. So what I needed was a separate Gmail account for business. Getting personal and business email in the same inbox was very ineffective and distracting.

    So here’s how to do it:

    The trick is a little program called Gmail Backup. It’s fairly easy to use: you just go to your Gmail settings and turn on IMAP under “Forwarding and POP/IMAP.” Then install this little program and run it. Input your Gmail login info, followed by selecting the folder where you’d like all your email saved. Then select dates (I looked up the oldest email in my account and put that as the “Since date”). Finally, click “Backup.” It may take several hours (mine did) to download all the emails, attachments, etc. from your account, but once it does, you just repeat the process: enable IMAP, input login credentials, etc, but this time for your new Google Apps account. And click the “Restore” button at the end instead. Now all that data you downloaded, will be backed-up to your new Google Apps account.

    On the Gmail Backup site, it says that there is an issue and that it will not retrieve nested or sub-labels from Gmail properly. I didn’t find this to be an issue. I think that upgrades to Gmail on Google’s end have eliminated this issue because sub labels are treated with a “-” instead of a “/” nowadays. So the label “business” with a sub-label (or nested label) of “invoices” used to look like “business/invoices”, but now is “business-invoices.” Thus eliminating Gmail Backup’s issue.

    Here’s the tricky part: eliminating biz email from your personal Gmail, and personal email from your business Google Apps email. I had been having all email that came to my business email, labeled under a “business” label using a filter in Gmail. So in my personal, it was fairly easy: just select the label, and click “Delete.” Another route is to run a filter based on the business email. I used that tactic in the biz account: filtering all email sent or received by my personal email address(es). I quickly ran though some of that to ensure nothing I wanted in my biz account would be deleted, then gave it all a label like “delete.” Then I simply checked the checkbox button to select everything in that label, followed by clicking the link that said something like “Select all 3,356 conversations in ‘Delete’” and clicked the Delete button.

    That was it: no business in my personal, and no personal in my business. In the intervening weeks I can say it’s been far more effective and many times less distracting. Plus with Google’s easy “account switching” feature I can still switch easily enough if needed, I’m just not distracted by personal emails all day when I’m trying to work.

     

  • Tevya 11:24 am on July 13, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: customer satisfaction, , netflix,   

    Netflix Increasing Their Prices – Need to Learn from Verizon! 

    So Netflix just sent me this email. They try to make it sound like somehow it’s all a great thing. And it would be if only their streaming service offered a whole lot more movies and other content that I’m currently forced to get in the mail, via DVD. As it is, all this means is now instead of paying $15/month, I’ve got to pay $20/month! That sucks. That’s roughly an extra $60/year.

    Now I’m not always pleased with Verizon Wireless, and they really need realize that a data plan is a data plan. If someone pays $30/month for 2GB of data, they shouldn’t have to pay another $20/month to get tethering & another 2GB. 2GB is 2GB, you should be able to use it however you wish! However, in this case Netflix should take a page from Verizon’s book. When Verizon switched to these new limited data plans, they let all those of us who had unlimited data for $30/month, keep our unlimited at the same price. And we can continue to keep it, for the forseable future, in spite of upgrades, etc.

    That’s what Netflix should have done: “going forward any new clients will need to choose from these new plans, but all you faithful customers who’ve made Netflix one of the great consumer media providers and a hugely successful company, you can just keep the great prices we’ve been giving you.”

    The lesson: as Seth Godin pointed, out show your best customers you appreciate them. They’re 1) much cheaper to keep as customers by doing something like this, than spending tons of marketing dollars to get new customers, and 2) do a lot of marketing for you by telling everyone how much they love you, if you treat them right.

     

  • Tevya 10:11 am on July 9, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Google+, social media, ,   

    My Thoughts on Google+ 

    First, I just have to say, I’ve never liked Facebook. I learned to use it for business purposes (social networking is a huge buzz item in the world of marketing), and am grateful for some of the connections it allows/helps me to keep. But it’s interface is crappy at best, its useability is among the worst of any large site on the ‘net, and well, I’m not sure I trust Mark Zuckerberg. So most people who are friends of mine, know that I don’t post detailed info on where I’m at, pictures of my family, etc. on there very often. I just don’t feel like I’m in control of who sees it.

    So I gotta say, I love Google+ (aka Google Plus)! It’s got a clean, simple interface, with several “modules” or modes you can go into. Between these you have essentially all the features of Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, & Skype. It’s easy to use, is similar enough to Facebook and others that anyone can start using it quickly, and it doesn’t have all the stupid games, apps, etc. that plague Facebook. Plus, the Android App is awesome, and backs up my photos and videos to the cloud, for FREE, permanently, and automatically. Apple’s new iCloud (or MobleMe 2.0) service doesn’t do that. It will back stuff up to the cloud, but only temporarily, etc. Google has essentially made photo and video backup to the cloud, FREE and automatic.

    Another great feature is “circles” which allows you to select which “circles” your friends, co-workers, family, acquaintances, etc. fall into. Then when you share status updates, links, and even photos or photo albums, it’s easy to share with only the circles you want to be able to see that info. It’s much easier, and more safe than Facebook. Plus there’s a “following” circle where you can follow famous people and such that you don’t know (and are unlikely to “Friend” you on Facebook), just like on Twitter.

    The “hangout” feature allows you to chat, audio call, video conference, and watch YouTube videos together in a dedicated space. It’s great for remotely talking to friends, business meetings and more.

    If you’re not on Google+, you need to try it out, and follow/friend me!

     

    • nate 11:02 am on July 9, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      i wouldn’t be surprised if the games start to come about the time it’s officially launched.

      just read an article that says they (likely) have well over a million users already. (but facebook has 750 million.)

      it’s a pretty awesome site though. +1

    • Kenny 10:02 am on July 13, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Cool post, Tevya. So when do we get an invite? ;)

    • Kenny 11:17 am on July 13, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      No worries. I did go there once already, though, and had to fill out a “Keep me posted” form. Oh well.

  • Tevya 12:31 pm on June 16, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: android, audio, , car, mp3   

    How to Put a New Stereo in Your Car for Under $45 

    I knew I’d be doing a lot of driving. Audiobooks pass the time more quickly, and allow me to be entertained and learn a lot while the miles fly by. In my mind, the only good way to store and listen to audiobooks is via an mp3 player, iPod, or smartphone, because you don’t have to shuffle CD’s, or bring a bunch along (or burn them beforehand if you purchase online).

    The only problem was the stock stereo in our 2000 Camry doesn’t have and auxiliary input, nor does the tape player work correctly for using a tape adapter. Since it was just going to be me and the boy the whole trip, I decided I had to have a stereo with aux-in. Here’s how I did it for less than $45:

    1. Find someone selling a stereo like this deal I found on KSL, on a site like craigslist.org or KSL classifieds. Make sure to use the search options to find an older listing that’s been on there a while. This gives you more bargaining power.
    2. Make an offer, or ask what they’ll take. In this case just asked if he’d sell just the stereo (because I didn’t need new speakers), and if so, how much? He responded $20. Done!
    3. Meet, get the new stereo and see what comes with it. Hopefully it includes some kind of adapter for the wiring, with a bunch of loose ends. This seller ended up throwing in the speakers too, since he didn’t want them (now I’ve got to get rid of some brand-new speakers, let me know if you’re interested).
    4. Go to Target, and buy an install kit for your vehicle ($19-pre tax). Yes! I said Target, not Best Buy. I bought one at best buy first and it a) did not have wiring adapters, etc, b) cost more. I returned it when I found the awesome one at Target. It included install parts and wiring for many foreign-made cars of the years surrounding our vehicle. They had the same kits for US-made vehicles, too.
    5. Install the stereo. You can find instructions online of how to take out existing stereos. Then from there you’ll just want to take the 2 sets of wire adapters (one that connects to the back of the stereo, and one that connects to the vehicle’s wiring) and join all the wires, which are color coded. Finally, follow the instructions included in the install kit for how to mount the new stereo (with probably a little pocket beneath it to fill the extra space) into your vehicle, plugging the now, joined wire adapters into the back of the new stereo and the vehicle.

    It took me about 2 hours to install, but that’s because about half the time my 15-month-old boy was in the backseat crawling around, grabbing parts and tools from me, and trying to climb over the console into the front seat to “help.” I’ve already spent over 12 hours driving in the past week, and the new setup hooked up to my Droid X Android phone just great. I’ve listened to a couple audiobooks: Outliers by Malcom Gladwell (excellent) and Tree of Sacrament by Nick Galieti (also excellent) as well as a lot of music via Google Music Beta.

    NOTE: If you get static in the audio when the device is connected to the aux-in and charging via the cigarette lighter plug, it’s called a “looping ground” issue. I have yet to fix this on mine, but will post an update when I do. I’m fairly certain from my research that merely connecting the ground (usually the black wire) from the stereo to the ground on the cigarette lighter, will fix it.

     

  • Tevya 5:46 pm on May 23, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , entertainment, google music,   

    My Google Music Beta invite arrived today! 

    Not sure how many people are getting these at this point, so maybe it’s not that cool, but I’m pretty stoked to have received a Google Music beta invite.

    So far the process has been fairly simple. There was a button in the invite email that took me to the webpage. From there it asked me if I’d like to select various genre’s of music that I like, and it would allow me to play many new songs, etc. for free. I assume this is some kind of sampler/marketing opportunity and they’ll encourage me to buy songs to continue listening to songs I like.

    From there it had me download and install the Music Manager software to my computer. That process included telling it where all my music is stored (iTunes in my case) and putting in my Google Account username and password. It also asked if I would like to automatically add new songs to my Google Music library, when I added them to my iTunes library. I selected yes. Then it scanned iTunes to find all my music.

    Once that was complete, it took me to the Google Music webplayer (the main player), where I could listen to the few songs uploaded from my library (it’s uploading more as I write this), as well as the free music based on my selection early in the process.

    I’d already installed the Android app just to see if it was an improvement on the default Android music player, and it is! I played with it a week ago, and really liked it, just pulling songs I’d already loaded on my phone. Now we’ll see how well it works streaming my music off the new service.

     

    • Jason Seegmiller 2:27 pm on May 26, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Do they give you the ability to give out invites? :) Still waiting for mine…

      • Tevya 5:17 pm on May 26, 2011 Permalink | Reply

        No man, unfortunately they didn’t. If they do, I’ll make sure and send one your way.

  • Tevya 10:25 am on May 17, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: boomerang-gmail, , , , minimalism, xobni   

    Chasing Bugs in Other People’s Software: Xobni for Gmail and Boomerang for Gmail Conflicts 

    I spent a little over an hour this morning chasing down bugs in some great Chrome extensions I really like to use. The first was that I discovered that if I have the Xobni (very helpful contacts manager for Gmail) OR the Boomerang (excellent Gmail plugin that lets you schedule messages to be sent later, or return messages to your inbox at a later date) extensions enabled along with one called Measure It, then Shift+click in Gmail to open something in a new window stopped working. The solution is simple, uninstall Measure It. But finding out that it was the problem was much more difficult. I had to disable all my extensions in Chrome and then turn on a few at a time until I figured out which combination was causing the issue.

    I really like Boomerang a lot and am learning to like Xobni more and more (but wish they’d implement some of Rapportive’s features or just let it work alongside Rapportive), but opening stuff in a new window is critical to be able to see the original email and respond to it at the same time, etc. So it’s good to have all that functionality back.

    In doing this, I checked some settings in another cool plugin I use: Minimalist for Gmail, and found that I had a few settings turned on (like rounded corners) that weren’t doing anything useful, and were making Gmail continue to “load in background” (where you have your mouse cursor and the “working” indicator next to it) for a long time. But better yet, I discovered it has some cool new settings. My favorite is that it can make the toolbar and the navigation links “hoover” meaning that when you scroll down they stop scrolling at the top of the browser window, and hover there, so they’re always accessible! Super helpful tool. I used to have to scroll back up to get to it, or scroll the rest of the way to the bottom to get to the other one down there.

    Note: the same guy makes several other “Minimalist for….” extensions. So if you use Chrome, you may want to try out Minimalist for Facebook, which lets you do a lot of things to make Facebook cooler, to the point and distraction free (like eliminating all updates from Fb apps! [hallelujah!!!]). This is how mine looks now:

     

    • Patrick 10:22 pm on August 24, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Tevya. In addition to having a unique name you are a good man. Rest assured the hour you spent sorting this out as saved me an hour trying to do the same thing. Uninstall measure it and my brang gmail bugs are gone. Thank you sir.

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