Last Friday night we were heading home from visiting some friends in Lanikai. We decided to pull over and walk down to the beach to look for Mars, which is very “close” to earth this month and shining bright in the sky. We were gone no more than 20 minutes, yet in that time the front window of my car was smashed and my purse was stolen. With my iPhone 3GS inside, wallet and credit cards, and a few coupons and lip balm.

Luckily, Shane had his phone on him, so we could call the police and report the incident. I was not freaking out. To many people, the loss of phone and wallet is truly like losing major parts of oneself! To me, it was an opportunity to let technology work for me, and of course, get a new iPhone 4! I could barely wait to get home and start tracking where my phone was IRL (in real life.)

My Tech and Internet Guardian Angels

I had enabled the “Find My Phone” feature that interacts with the GPS on the device. As soon as I got to a computer, (any computer with a web browser would do), I logged in and could see right where my phone was: Kalanianaole Highway near the Circle K/76 Gas Station in Waimanalo. I could then follow it to the back yard of a specific residence. With a Kailua policeman standing over my shoulder, he was calling his counterpart who was knocking on the door of the residence.

At that moment I sent a loud, shrill sound for 2 minutes to my iphone, hoping the officer could hear it, though the phone, as I said, was far in the back yard behind the house. Alas, he could not hear anything, and the person at the door declined any further investigation. So I sent the signal again, only this time it did not go through. So I then issued the command, literally!, to my phone, to “wipe” the entire contents of the phone.

This would preserve all of my personal information and prevent the thief from accessing me. Think for a moment – this is the future we imagined in science fiction, only I am living it now.

My Mobile Me account also lets me sync all of my contacts, calendars, and email via the web, so I could access them from anywhere. This is great if someone steals your computer and your phone! It also restores all of my information to my new phone/computer the instant I plug it in and add my Mobile Me credentials.

American Express Credit Card Registry
I pay $39 a year for this service. In the case of my stolen wallet, all I had to do was call one number at AMEX, and they would cancel all credit cards associated with my social security number (or only a subset if so requested on the phone) “immediately.” The cacth here is that I did have a Visa/debit card from my business checking account in my wallet. They did not find that one, (it “belongs to the business tax id not my personal SSN) and my intuition kicked in after playing on the computer watching my phone roam around Waimanalo. So I called the bank, and sure enough two transactions had just been made at the Circle K/76 Station, one at 11:11 pm and one at 11:16 pm. So now we can connect the “fraudulent use of a credit card” with the time stamp of the phone at the gas station. I am kinda glad now that the card had slipped through the cracks, as it will help the police crack this case more easily! I just know the Kailua cops are going to catch these folks one day soon. No doubt they were frustrated as the other 4 cards they tried to use, failed on them.

My Amex card was delivered by Express Mail and arrived Monday morning (the theft was reported around 10 pm on Friday night.)

iPhone and iTunes: The Secret Sauce
What can I say? These two things are the core of my life, and it is because they work so well that i did not freak out even for a moment over my stolen purse. Once I was able to get a new phone (NOT easy! The island was sold out till I found one at Radio Shack in Kailua – and I did not even know they were sold there!), all I did was plug it into my computer. Instantly, all of my notes, music, text messages, apps, settings, etc. were restored!

Window Replacement
I logged into my Progresive Insurance account to report the incident on Saturday morning. I filled out a simple and smart form. An agent called about 4 hours later and gave me the location of Safelite, where I was able to make an appointment for 3 pm Monday. It took 45 minutes and only cost $168 – about half the retail price courtesy of my Progressive policy. If you read this blog, you know I love being able to do things digitally rather than on the phone.

Drivers License
Tuesday morning at 8 am I was at the WIndward Satellite Office of City Hall for the City and County of Honolulu. This is a gorgeous new-ish facility – especially compared to waiting outside the old one at the police station further down Kamehameha Hwy. Bright, colorful walls with art, and friendly staff. I had my new license in about 5 minutes (and a much better photo if I do say so myself!) Replacement cost: $5.

The bonus here is that since Shane had to drive me, he was able to get his renewed at the same time – and it was due to expire in a few months. It is one of those errands we tend to put off until the last minute, then stress over! Stress: no need.

Oh, and remember I got that new iPhone 4! Thanks to Mike and Pat at the Kailua Radio Shack. When the Apple Stores and the ATT&T stores have no phones, check your local Radio Shack! Five days later, I am back to normal, though I still am looking for a new “wallet” to keep my cards in. Your suggestions welcome!

At this point most writers would lecture you about your back up plans, your due diligence, your responsibility quotient, etc. But I’d rather just inspire you to embrace technology and let it be your slave too!

Aloha,

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Someone recently asked me how to record video wth multiple camera inputs. Since we are trying to use all available free time to get KnowHowCafe.com launched (please join our email list in the sidebar!) I thought I would answer him here on the blog and share it with all of you too! The photo here is my friend Todd Cochrane who is a pro.

In true Bare Feet Studios form, my partner Shane Robinson has experimented with several of the options available and pushed each of them. Here is a quick rundown of what he has learned for you.

Requirements and Overview of Multiple Camera Video Shoots:

• There are two requirements: Software to merge the multiple feeds; hardware to accept the multiple feeds.
• In some cases, your computer can serve as the hardware; in other cases you will buy an external box. That option obviously is going to give you more power and functionality.
• All are intended to allow you to film live and edit on the fly.
• Prices range from Free to $10,000 and up.
• There is a lot of variation in terms of what types of inputs (cameras and their connections) that can be accepted. Plan to spend further time researching based on your gear and your budget.

Free Option: CamTwist

Boinx TV: $199 – $499

BoinxTV turns your Mac into a TV studio for creating Live to Disk, Live to Internet and Live to Stage video.
Record stunning studio shows, podcasts, sports events, concerts, interviews, sermons, seminars and more using your Mac and multiple cameras.

Wirecast by Telestream: $449

Wirecast lets you stream multiple live cameras while dynamically mixing in other media such as movies, images, sounds, etc. Features including Chroma Key (blue/green screen), transitions and built-in titles allow you to create beautiful, professional broadcast productions for live or on-demand distribution on the web.

Tricaster by Newtek: $4,995 and up

Now, please be sure to send me your links if you use any of these tools! I want to see your work.

Aloha,

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Applying the logic of web site structure and internet information architecture to make better savers and investors out of us!

I am fascinated by the intersection of ideas and technology, much like how the Freakonomics guys merge economic data with crime stats and car seat fatalities to shine a brighter light on how we actually behave. Today I learned about some research being done in financial services with the goal of creating incentives for us to be more self-reliant in retirement. Researchers such as John Padgett have demonstrated “increasing autonomy” as a fundamental market behavior going back to the Renaissance in the 1500’s, and I see this as one more step in the development of human consciousness.

In the NYTimes article, Some Novel Ideas for Improving Retirement Income
By Jennifer Saranow Schultz , I really like the third suggestion, Tangible Mental Accounts:

Researchers have also shown that people tend to divide their money into separate mental accounts for various purposes (think travel or dining out) and that earmarking savings to specific goals (college savings, for instance) tends to increase saving rates.

Best of all worlds for me is to have one umbrella account with the “sub-accounts” to be arranged by me and adjusted over time. That way I have the convenience of seeing the bottom line yet the incentive to target savings based on my preferences. Very much like having a blog, where I can see the total number of articles in the admin, and can create my own categories and update them in real time as my interests develop.

The article also suggested being able to have different investment strategies for different goals – much like you could put more risk into a less important goals in hopes of getting lucky but not devastated if you don’t reach it. And use a secure, safe strategy to cover those “must-haves” for the imagined future.

We could also experiment with a type of tagging – one of the many useful tools that the internet has given us. Instead of filing a piece of information in one folder, it can now be in one main folder, tagged with descriptive keywords so that we can easily find it later. Tagging money in selected accounts might also help us feel more connected to our savings and therefore be more active in the process. What I am getting at is there is a logic already in place that could be applied to investing with great results and without having to completely re-invent something.

Hat tip to George Lowenstein, professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, for thinking along these lines. I so appreciate all the great minds and programmers who are working on our behalf all day every day. While there is plenty of so-called bad news, I tend to see enormous positive trends and the ones that rely on self-reliance are some of the most interesting. What about you?

Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon, on Flickr; she looks to me like a very self-reliant, autonomous woman!

Aloha,

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Here is the next installment in my web cam conversations with you. I am experimenting with the new uStream Producer “desktop application.” It allows me to record and live stream at the same time, while mixing in graphics, etc. You’ll see a small attempt at that at the end. Over time you will see many different forms and iterations of these web cam chats as I am using them to explore both my interactions with you, the visitor, but also the technology available to us. I am not seeing my voice in sync with my lips – do you see that glitch too?

More links and questions…
The big question for you: How much lead time does it take for you to be comfortable planning a business trip to Hawaii? Please leave me a comment. We’d love to host more conferences here and it’s vital we know what it takes on your side of the pond to get here!

Links Mentioned:
Aliza Sherman – “Social Media Talent Exchange” (I love that idea!)
Connie Reece
Hawai Convention Center
Kelly Mitchell
NextLevel Hawaii
Facebook Chat not so private – It’s ugly but these problems are not going away any time soon. (IMO)

Aloha,

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You know that social media has gone mainstream when CNN has cover articles about it and when the NY Times features tools and tips like this, pretty much on a weekly basis: Keeping a Closer Eye on Employees’ Social Networking

New software allows companies to automatically monitor how much time employees are spending on social networking sites and what they’re posting when they’re logged in.

I invite you to go there for the details if you are interested – the reader comments are especially enlightening for a glimpse into the “real world” of employee attitudes. I would like to add a few observations though as this – like most things – is not a “one size fits all” situation. In short, how do you know if you and your company should be considering this type of software (Social Sentry) purchase?

UPDATE 21 April 2010: Local Hawaii company Altres (HR management firm) has prepared this free white paper on Social Media & the Workplace. Get yours!

Mahalo to them for mentioning this blog post and our company in their report.

I Am Not a Lawyer

I’ve created a simple matrix that can serve as your first (and possibly last) pass at the question: Do we need to be installing software to monitor our employees’ use of social networks, aka “socnets”?

The four key factors are:

• the number of employees you have;
• the type of internal culture you have;
• the relative degree of secure information your company manages;
• the relative percent of youthful employees.

Company Size and Internal Culture

Company Size and Data Security

Company Size and Age of Staff

Your Decision is Yours to Make

If you do decide to implement socnet monitoring software, be sure to create the time for someone to actually do something with the data. Just like all the other aspects of interacting on the social web, there is often more time-cost involved than cash-cost, and that’s a resource that deserves to be scheduled accordingly if you want to see a return on your investment.

I hope this article has helped you manage the decision more effectively, so you feel good about your choices. Remember, you can always change your mind when you acquire more data. If you still fully block sites like Facebook and YouTube at work, you may want to rethink that for certain departments. You are definitely imposing outsider status on your company, and there is potential vulnerability in that stake too.

Aloha,

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Although my friend Lorelle snickers a little when people are drawn to blogging exclusively for the amazing SEO (“search engine optimization” benefits), there is no doubt that running your web site on a blog software platform can do wonders for your business’s ability to be found on Google searches.

I often get asked which blogging platform I recommend, combined with “what about Blogger, Squarespace, Movable Type, etc?” I am a “WordPress hands-down, no question, no doubts” kind of person. The admin interface is a dream, the range of design themes and plug-ins that extend its functionality are best in class and far exceed what is available for all of the other blogging platformscombined, and now, there is word straight from Matt Cutts himself that WordPress plays best with Google.

Matt Cutts has worked at Google since 2000, and knows as well as anyone how Google ranks web sites and how web sites can better interact with Google to get positive search results. Here’s the money quote from his talk at WordCamp in San Francisco this past May, 2009:

WordPress takes care of 80-90% of (the mechanics of) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Check out his entire slide presentation here. The money quote is on slide 12.

So really, you can stop wondering now and go get yourself a WordPress blog! By the way, it’s not that Lorelle is against SEO, she is just a very pro-active proponent of the conversational and connecting strengths of blogging first. The SEO comes second or third in her priorities.

Aloha,

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Twitter and Facebook were down some today due to “Denial of Service” (DoS) attacks. Here’s some information on what they are, how they occur, and what you can do as a netizen to help prevent them!

A DoS occurs when a malicious programmer or programmers unleash commands across thousands computers that have been infected with viruses (those computers are referred to as “zombies”) telling them to “hit” or visit a specific web site on a specific date and time. Large popular sites are typically the victim. These large sites (Google, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft) have complex back end programming that make the site run as expected as well as front end programming to control the incoming traffic and direct it to available servers, known as load balancing.

A DoS attack is like thousands of people converging on Wal-mart for a giant sale and the crowd overwhelms itself thereby preventing anyone from getting in.

Say Wal-mart has 6 big front doors. As you approach the entrance a family of 5 shows up and heads for the first door. You naturally head for one of the other doors. You’ve “load balanced” yourself by picking an entrance that is less crowded. The routers that sit in front of the server farm that houses the Twitter WEB and DATABASE servers does that load balancing for the requests that come into Twitter. They notice that servers 1,5,8, and 10 are busy so they send your request for your Twitter page to server 2.

When hundreds of thousands of people (requests) rush the doors (front line routers) the doors just can’t organize (load balance) fast enough. And even if they could, the WEB and DATABASE servers sitting behind them can’t answer the requests for pages fast enough. Even if 100,000 people managed to get into the store, there wouldn’t be enough employees, shopping carts, or space to handle the crowd, and everything would screech to a halt.

Hacking is when a malicious entity actually gains direct access and control of the WEB and DATABASE servers. That DID NOT happen today. Today was the DOS attack – the swarm of hundreds of thousands of simultaneous requests that overwhelmed the ability of the Twitter servers to respond. There is very little that can be done about that, because the attack is actually carried out by “zombie machines” – perhaps even the one on your desk via which you are reading this article!

I am not kidding.

If you have a PC, and you run a Windows OS, and you are not incredibly vigilant about your anti-spyware software, there is a decent chance that you have inadvertently been infected with viruses and your machine could be used to unknowingly join the other “zombie” PCs and assist in these DoS attacks.

System Administrators (Sys Admins) see malicious efforts to hack into their sites frequently. You rarely see a well-managed site actually get hacked, as there is a lot a Sys Admin can do to protect from the inside. Much less can be done to protect from zombies converging on the outside. By looking at the unique IP address of the attempted hacker, a Sys Admin can block incoming traffic from that IP or group of related IP addresses. With a DoS attack, the requests are literally coming from all over the world, via unsuspecting zombie computers that are infected with a virus.

Now please go out and get a Mac or go clean up your PC!

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The music industry has suffered one of the biggest disruptions caused by the internet. To be fair, they were among the first and hardest hit businesses whose revenues and revenue model were undercut by the profound and historical human desire to share the things they love. In this case, music.

So I like pointing out how the new rules are working, you know, to shed some good vibes on the topic, to start whistling a new tune you might say.

With the advent of podcasting in late 2004, coincided the “need” for music to accompany those podcasts. Music even more so than GE, brings good things to life, and adding music to the soundtrack of one’s audio and video podcasts adds a powerful third dimension. People really want to use the music that is already in their heads, but that is illegal, assuming it is a mainstream song – which is how it got inside someone’s head. Independent artists are creating kick ass songs, but have a hard time finding fans.

So the Podsafe Music Network was born. Here’s how it works: musicians upload the songs they want to share. When a podcaster finds a song s/he uses, she provides a link on the podcast page and reports it back on the site, which automatically notifies the artist.

The Result?
Podcast quality goes up. Artists get free exposure to whole new markets. Some podcasters and listeners even buy the music. No laws are broken. As the saying goes, “How cool is that?” In fact, some podcasters have built a career for themselves simply by featuring podsafe artists, who in turn have built successful careers for themselves too. Check out Dave’s Lounge and Matthew Ebel.

I recently used a song for my Dad’s funeral video. Here is what I heard back from the musician, Ken Kurland:

I am very touched that you used my song “Goodbye” in the beautiful video of your father’s funeral service. When I saw the picture of your father at the end of the video, I felt very moved. I named the song “Goodbye” because it reminded me of my feelings towards my own father when he passed away. I’m honored that my music, in its small way, has became a part of your own family history. Thank you. – Ken Kurland

And here’s what I heard back from the Shanghai Restoration Project after I used one of their songs in a Beach Walks with Rox episode:

Hi Rox, Dave Liang, producer of the Shanghai Restoration Project here. Just wanted to say thanks so much for featuring the song “Preface” in Beach Walk #598. It was really neat seeing the song set to your video (your dog is an incredible swimmer). Anyway, both Di and I are glad that you were touched by the music and are now hooked on your video blog (congrats on the three Vloggies). Thanks so much for the kind words and support, and keep up the great work. All the best, Dave

This is the way the internet works now. You share what you have with others. They tell their friends about you. Eventually, people do buy things, and, they form relationships that have all kinds of lasting value. You can also check these other sites for podsafe or Creative Commons-licensed music:
Ioda Promonet
Ariel Publicity
Jamendo

Do follow the funeral link to listen to Ken’s beautiful music. Then watch this unplanned, unscripted, accidental video from our Beach Walks program that has become one of my favorites.

Beach Walk 598 – Come Join with Me

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While watching the streaming video of the TechCrunch50 conference yesterday, I just caught the last couple minutes of the demo for Yammer. Basically, as most people have pointed out in the TechCrunch comments, Yammer is Twitter for companies. But what really caught my eye was the way they use “hash tags” to allow you to automatically “follow” a specific subject. I’m not going to into what a “hash tag” is right now. Suffice it to say, anything you yammer about can instantly become something you can “subscribe to” or “follow” just by adding a ”#” in front of the word. Very slick and very useful.

David Sacks, the founder of genealogy site Geni, actually launched Yammer at the very end of his presentation. Of course I immediately signed up!

Now certainly Roxanne and I don’t really need Yammer for our little two-person company. But we have a couple projects in the works where I could imagine how having a hosted, private, Twitter-for-business application would be useful.

Yammer has a video of their presentation right on their home page. Their Control Panel is very slick and well designed. Kudos to their design team. Lots of AJAX makes using it a breeze. And they even have a desktop Adobe AIR client, a Blackberry App, and an iPhone App currently in review and that should be available any day.

Check it out and leave a comment with any ideas or questions you have on how your company or organization could use Yammer.

Technorati Tags: yammer, techcrunch50, twitter, geni, david sacks, microblogging

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Recently, after creating the “Badges” page for the PodCamp Hawaii site, we were contacted by several other Podcamp Organizers around the world. They wanted to know how we created the page and how to create the source code.

It’s easy enough if you’re a programmer or web developer. But it can be confusing and difficult if you don’t wade around in HTML all day long.

So let’s get to it.

Step 1. Create Your Graphics

Check the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Ad Unit Guidelines page for standard ad banner sizes. Obviously you can make any size banners you like but it’s generally best to stick to Unit Guidelines so your banners fit into ad spaces most sites are designed for.

If you don’t have the time or talent to create your own banners, you can use services like 99designs or Banners Mall. We recently used 99designs for our logo for Know How Cafe and were thrilled with the quality and number of designs submitted. We haven’t used Banners Mall but know people that have and have been very happy with the price and results.

Step 2. Upload Your Graphics to a Server

The logical place to stash your banners is the same server that serves your conference or event website although you can also place them on a Flickr account or other photo-sharing site. You can use FTP to create a custom directory for your badges or you can also use the image up-loader that comes with your blog site. Either way, you’ll want to get the exact file path to the graphic.

You’ll probably have an “images” directory at the root directory of your website. We like to keep directories clean and create another directory in your “images” directory with the name of your event. Then put your banners in that directory.

Let’s say your event URL is http://www.YourEvent.com. And let’s assume you created a “yourevent” directory in your images directory. And finally let’s say one of your banners is called “yourevent-125×125.jpg” which signifies this particular banner is 125 pixels wide by 125 pixels high. Based on this info, the URL to your banner would be: http://www.yourevent.com/images/yourevent/yourevent-125×125.jpg. (If you are using the uploader or Flickr, just insert the link code generated for you.)

Step 3. Create the Code for Your Banners

Now that you have your banners created, and you know the exact file path to each banner, it’s time to create the source code for your users to copy and paste into their websites.

Using the example graphic, the source would look like this:

Let’s quickly break that down into understandable bites:

• This is the anchor tag that creates a link to your www.YourEvent.com site. Change “YourEvent.com” to be the URL of your website. The “title” parameter helps search engines know what this link is for and you should place a short description between the double quotes. NOTE: It’s very important to make sure you don’t forget the opening “<" and closing ">” or the double quotes. If you do the link will break and you’ll probably see weird code displayed on your web page. <img src="http://www.YourEvent.com/images/yourevent/yourevent-125x125.jpg" alt="Click Here to learn about our Great Event" border="0" />
• This is the code that displays your image. You should recognize the value of the “src” parameter as the URL to your image created in Step 2. The “alt” parameter helps search engines know what this graphic is referring to, just like the “title” parameter in the anchor tag. And the “border” parameter of value “0” says not to put a border around this image since it is also a clickable link. </a>
• This closes the first “anchor” tag that creates the link. If you forget this, all your text on the page following this code will be underlined as a link.

  Step 4. Add the FORM code to make it easy to Copy the source code in Step 3

  If you wrap your banner source code in an HTML TextArea Form tag, you can make it very easy for your users to copy the source code to paste it into their sites.

  The following code will create a TextArea form element that is Readable Only. That means your site visitor won’t be able to edit the source code but will be able to select and copy the code easily:

  <textarea rows="5" cols="70" readonly="readonly" onfocus="this.select();">Your Source Code Here</textarea>

  You can adjust the Rows and Cols (columns) to create a TextArea size that displays all your source code. If we combine Steps 3 and 4, our finished source code looks like this. This is what you would place in your Event’s Badges page (assuming you replace the appropriate URLs and file names as outlined above:

  <form><textarea rows="5" cols="70" readonly="readonly" onfocus="this.select();"><a href="http://www.YourEvent.com" title="Please attend our Great Event"><img src="http://www.yourevent.com/images/yourevent/yourevent-125x125.jpg" alt="Click Here to learn about our Great Event" border="0" /></a></textarea></form>

  Step 5. Add Your Graphic

  It’s nice if your users can see the graphic they are going to be adding to their site. Since you already have the code for your image, it’s a snap to add your graphic(s) to your badges page right above your TextArea source code. See the PodCamp Hawaii Badges page for examples. To display your banner above, use the following code:

  <img src="http://www.yourevent.com/images/yourevent/yourevent-125x125.jpg" alt="Click Here to learn about our Great Event" border="0" />

  If you want to provide even more info, you can add the following to the above code:

  <br /><em>(125 x 125)</em><br />

  This adds the banner size below the banner graphic in italics.

  Step 6. Add it All Together

  Adding together all the steps above, and using as an example the Podcamp Hawaii 125×125 banner, the code would look like this:

  <img src="http://podcamphawaii.com/images/badges/2008/podcamp-hi-125.png" /><br /> <em>(125 x 125)</em><br /> <form><textarea rows="5" cols="70" readonly="readonly" onfocus="this.select();"><a href="http://2008.podcamphawaii.com" title="PodCamp Hawaii - Honolulu Convention Center - October 24-25, 2008"><img border="0" src="http://podcamphawaii.com/images/badges/2008/podcamp-hi-125.png" alt="PodCamp Hawaii - Honolulu Convention Center - October 24-25, 2008" /></a></textarea></form>

  Which results in the following:
  

  
  
  

  
  (125×125)
  
  <a href="http://2008.podcamphawaii.com" title="PodCamp Hawaii - Honolulu Convention Center - October 24-25, 2008"><img border="0" src="http://podcamphawaii.com/images/badges/2008/podcamp-hi-125.png" alt="PodCamp Hawaii - Honolulu Convention Center - October 24-25, 2008" /></a>

  Step 7. Now Just Duplicate

  If you have more than one badge, just duplicate and modify the final code as needed for each badge.

  Leave comments and questions here in order to help others that may trip across this tutorial. And don’t forget to add your Event’s URL in your comment.

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