Surfacing (username of the seller I contacted) did a fantastic job diagnosing my site and testing the speed using various WordPress plugins. After three days of testing his recommendation was that I need to change web hosts. Everything was fine with my WordPress site so it must be the server. He was right on. I changed web hosts and I saw a tremendous increase in my site loading time.

Fiverr is a global ... Read More »]]> I first heard of Fiverr through Ryan Lee’s blog. He was recommending that we outsource tasks so we can concentrate on what we do best. I took his advice that very day and contacted a seller on Fiverr to get help with my WordPress site. My site was very slow and I tried every trick I could think of but nothing was working. I needed an expert opinion.

Surfacing (username of the seller I contacted) did a fantastic job diagnosing my site and testing the speed using various WordPress plugins. After three days of testing his recommendation was that I need to change web hosts. Everything was fine with my WordPress site so it must be the server. He was right on. I changed web hosts and I saw a tremendous increase in my site loading time.

About Fiverr

Fiverr is a global marketplace offering tasks and services online starting at $5. Fiverr provides a living marketplace where people can monetize their skills, talents and resources in an easy and fun way. Gigs offered on the site range from web design, logo creation and market research, to personal greetings, video animation and personalized gifts.

Fiverr provides all the tools necessary for sellers to engage, build and grow their customer base, including efficient systems for collecting payment, promoting services, managing orders, exchanging files and communicating with buyers; making it easier for people to start selling their services without the need for startup capital, physical location, client acquisition and payment infrastructure.

Whether you are looking to sell your services or need help with your business needs, make sure to check out Fiverr. There are some really fun gigs on there as well that will come in handy next time you want to surprise someone with a funny digital greeting card or message.

With the support of a few more women from the industry, Global Change for Children (GC4C), a registered non-profit foundation ... Read More »]]> A few years ago I was invited to a friend’s party at the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver; a private function taking place after hours as part of the Mineral Exploration Roundup conference. I recall the fun crowd, lively atmosphere as well as the Latin and vibrant dance tunes, but most of all I remember the handmade posters and photo collages showing my friend’s recent volunteer activities in South America which told a story of how she has been helping schools by donating books and used computers. I was touched by her efforts and impressed that a senior executive in the mining industry would take the time out of her busy schedule to assist children in need and encourage their education.

With the support of a few more women from the industry, Global Change for Children (GC4C), a registered non-profit foundation with the purpose of providing financial and other types of assistance for the promotion and enhancement of the health, education, social and economic development of children, was established in 2008. Most of the money raised comes from the annual fundraiser party which still takes place during the week of the Mining Exploration Roundup conference, by means of ticket sales, silent auctions and corporate sponsors. I have made it a point to attend the party each year and help by spreading the word to my friends and co-workers.

It has been incredible watching the efforts and substantial growth GC4C has been accomplishing and I was thrilled to be asked to volunteer for the January 2012 party. Initially I was to help out during the event only but due to the kind donations of several corporate sponsors, GC4C had an opportunity to have a booth at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference hosted by Cambridge House and I got to work on the booth design. If you are attending any of the Cambridge House events in Vancouver in the near future, keep an eye out for the GC4C booth and try to make it to the party. The party is of course open to the general public as well.

It is very fulfilling to be involved with such an organization and one of the main draws from me is knowing that 100% of the net proceeds raised are donated to children causes.

Visit www.gc4c.org to learn more or make an online donation. Photos of the January 2012 event are posted on the facebook page.

Melanie is very articulate and has a great way of covering a lot of points in a short period of time. She covered some interesting statistics about Pintrest and gave valuable tips to help grow any business whether you are selling products or services.

With that said, at my office we usually try to skip a version when we upgrade. We recently upgraded all staff from CS3 to CS5 and of course a couple months later, Photoshop CS6 Beta is out to tease us. At least Adobe is giving us an opportunity to test drive it for free and thanks to Lynda.com there is free access to a ... Read More »]]> If you are an Adobe fan like me, you are probably always tempted to upgrade every time there is a new release of your favourite product. However, we all know that is not always feasible. In a work environment where there are several users on the line, it takes time and various levels of budget approval to upgrade everyone. Plus there is always the learning curve to keep in mind and work flow disruption as everyone migrates.

With that said, at my office we usually try to skip a version when we upgrade. We recently upgraded all staff from CS3 to CS5 and of course a couple months later, Photoshop CS6 Beta is out to tease us. At least Adobe is giving us an opportunity to test drive it for free and thanks to Lynda.com there is free access to a fantastic tutorial highlighting the new features. Some of the new features include: a darker interface, GPU acceleration, image controls, new crop tools, new filters menu, character and paragraph styles, editable 3D type, content-aware move tools and editing videos in the Timeline panel.

There is no end to new products on the market to test but from a practical point of view, it really comes down to finding the right balance between time spent learning new features, and time saved by applying the new features.

To download Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta and see what else is brewing at Adobe, visit http://labs.adobe.com/

For more free tutorials and sneak peeks to the latest and greatest from Adobe, make sure to visit http://tv.adobe.com/

The program is advertised as a “proven ‘step-by-step’ system that removes all CONFUSION and frustrating guesswork, geek-speak, and grief from creating a money-making internet business from scratch”. Being in marketing myself, a lot of the information was already familiar but there is no harm in repetition. After all “repetition is the mother of all learning”.

The course started about a month in advance of the actual live date with several pre-training recorded teleseminars presented by Alex Mandossian. We were guided ... Read More »]]> I recently got back from Los Angeles where I attended a 5 day Internet Boot Camp (UIBC) which was part of my two year Quantum Leap program that I signed up for in November 2011. While it was hosted by Peak Potentials, the course itself was actually produced by “Click and Be Free”, a company owned by Alex Mandossian and Harv Eker.

The program is advertised as a “proven ‘step-by-step’ system that removes all CONFUSION and frustrating guesswork, geek-speak, and grief from creating a money-making internet business from scratch”. Being in marketing myself, a lot of the information was already familiar but there is no harm in repetition. After all “repetition is the mother of all learning”.

Pre-Training

The course started about a month in advance of the actual live date with several pre-training recorded teleseminars presented by Alex Mandossian. We were guided to choose and register a domain name, open a PayPal premium account and signup with the major social media sites. We were given exercises to help us identify our niche and consider if there is a need for it in the market using keyword searches and competitive analysis tools. As an add-on we had to identify and assess our personal skills to ensure that our passions and skills can be monetized in the niche that we want to pursue.

Live Event

The 5 day live event was a blast. The trainers and coaches kept the energy high and delivered a cocktail of tips and tricks that will come in handy for any business, though I do think the course material presented could easily be cut down to 4 or even 3 days. The content was scattered with a lot of fillers that at times felt more like a comedy show than an internet marketing course.

The agenda was broken down by themes:

Day 1: Lift off – We identified areas that can help us profit from our passions

Day 2: Momentum – We created an information product offer in less than 2 hours

Day 3: Monetization – We all succeeded by selling our information product online (to friends and family) using PayPal for $1

Day 4: Social Influence – We addressed the importance of a mailing list and started our own list using iContact

Day 5: Breakthrough day – addressed a few features of driving traffic to our site but was predominantly geared to pinpointing any personal issues that might stand in our way of building a successful business. The afternoon was mainly dedicated to a sales pitch towards buying UIBC2 as well as the coaching and outsourcing packages (Approx. $10,000) which I thought was distasteful given that we were already at a course and many essential items, especially for beginners, were not even covered yet.

The web building tool we were given was very specific to the UIBC course and cannot be used elsewhere. It was basically a customized version of WordPress with a select number of very simple and dated looking themes, built-in standard sales letter template, as well as PayPal and iContact integration. There were a few pdf files and videos outlining simple steps like how to add a post and upload images. On the downside, all the powerful customization features that WordPress is known for, like a variety of themes and plugins, were disabled making it almost impossible to have a professional looking site with advanced functionality.

The web hosting is provided by UIBCDomains.com which does not allow access to domain management or any FTP uploads. Basically you have limited control building your site through the WordPress dashboard and zero control uploading your site through an FTP connection.

In retrospect, I think this setup is ideal for beginners who have one product to sell on a one page sales website. The PayPal and iContact integration will help build an online list and collect payment. However, it is not ideal for anyone that needs a more functional, flexible and up-to-date website.

28 Day Challenge

The live event was to be followed by a 28 day challenge where we received various tasks each day through the UIBC WordPress dashboard, but there was a catch. In order to maintain access to the dashboard and all the materials that are part of the already paid for course, we had to sign up for a monthly hosting plan of $45/month for 1 site and $70/month for 2-5 sites. I host my websites elsewhere and only needed access to the material from the course, however I was denied access as I opted out of the hosting plan.

In short, I was not able to complete the course that I already paid for or access the course material unless I paid the additional hosting fees. All I am left with is a few fill-in the blank note sheets that they handed out at the course and a USB Key that has re-purposed material from Alex Mandossian productivity courses.

Summary

If you are registered for Quantum Leap through Peak Potentials, then UIBC is part of the package. Don’t miss out on it. If you are aiming to build an online business and want to take UIBC on its own, dig in a bit more and ask detailed questions before you dish out the $4000 dollars.

I am a big fan of Harv Eker and Peak Potentials but will give UIBC 3 out of 5 stars and they go mainly towards the wonderful Karma Crew. They kept the energy high and were very helpful. As far as the actual course material and price range, I would not recommend UIBC to my friends and family.

If you are like me, you don’t want to miss out on this opportunity. The minute I received the email invitation, I followed the link and purchased my VIP ticket.

This event has already been a massive success in London, England and Sydney and Melbourne, Australia attracting over 10,000 people into each venue – and now Peak Potentials is a partner in bringing this monumental live event to the San Jose Convention Center, April 10th – 12th.

So for the first time in the USA, the National Achievers Congress is bringing these names on stage together:

There are different eBook file formats that cater to different electronic readers on the market. Apart from the obvious file and device compatibility, each file format has its advantages and disadvantages. Depending on your target audience, you might choose to publish your eBook in one or several file formats.

Some of the most common file formats at this time are PDF, ePub (compatible with ... Read More »]]> When we hear the word eBook, our first thoughts might lead us to think of eBooks for sale on Amazon.com or other book vendors which are typically digital versions of books already published in print format. However there are many books for sale that are only published in digital format and there are even more informational eBooks that are distributed free of charge and are mainly used as a means for online lead generation or customer education.

There are different eBook file formats that cater to different electronic readers on the market. Apart from the obvious file and device compatibility, each file format has its advantages and disadvantages. Depending on your target audience, you might choose to publish your eBook in one or several file formats.

Some of the most common file formats at this time are PDF, ePub (compatible with most digital readers except the Amazon Kindle), and Mobipocket a format used by Amazon Kindle. The good news is they can all be designed and exported from Adobe InDesign. You also have the option to export the InDesign file to flash to achieve the curled page effect, but you have to keep in mind that flash is not supported by some tablets and mobile devices.

I have worked on several eBooks for my current employer and given our target audience and where they are most likely to access the files, we decided to stick to interactive pdf. Pdf is universal, supports interactivity, video and audio and can be printed at the same time. The pages are static, which means items stay in the same location no matter what device the pdf is viewed on. ePub and Mobipocket support a fluid text format that adjusts in width and height depending on the size of the reader.

For this post I have shared a few sample pages of some of the recent eBooks I worked on. The animated side ad was used to promote one of the eBooks on a third party site. To brighten up a dry topic of audit, risk and fraud, most of the sample pages shown here have bright colors and use cartoons for imagery.

If you would like to learn more about putting together an eBook, there is a great tutorial on lynda.com that is approximately 6 hours long. You can basically become an eBook pro in a weekend!

Camtasia Studio is more affordable, supports the much needed zoom feature that is lacking in Adobe Captivate but outputs files in a video format that is harder to edit. Basically it records anything taking place on your screen, even things you ... Read More »]]> No matter what line of business you are in there will come a time when you need to demo your products and services in a more systematic way so you can reach a larger audience in the shortest amount of time possible. There are several products on the market that can package your screen captures, presentations and narration into a distributable format, like videos, flash presentations or eLearning step by step chapters. I have had a chance to work with both Camtasia Studio by TechSmith (approx. $300) and Adobe Captivate (approx $700) and they both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Camtasia Studio is more affordable, supports the much needed zoom feature that is lacking in Adobe Captivate but outputs files in a video format that is harder to edit. Basically it records anything taking place on your screen, even things you would prefer not to show like a popup window showing you just received an email or the occasional delays in response time. It also creates a challenge synchronizing voiceover narration with what is happening on the screen which becomes a bigger issue if you plan to localize the demonstration as some languages need more words to describe the same thing.

Adobe Captivate is a more powerful tool that is better suited for eLearning as it supports quizzes, scoring and integrates with Learning Management Systems. It also happens to be a great tool for software demonstrations as it has more than one recording mode. You can record in full motion which comes out like a video or in manual mode which takes screen captures every time you click on something on the screen. The mouse movement is captured and saved as a separate item on the timeline giving you the flexibility to move it anywhere on the screen and create simulations of features that are still in the making.

Each screen capture is saved on a separate slide that supports multiple timeline levels allowing you to add highlight boxes, buttons and text animations. It also gives you the flexibility to adjust the timing to fit the length of your voiceover narration. In the event something was captured that you don’t want to show in the demo, like a client name or address, you can export that particular screen capture to Photoshop and edit the information with something more appropriate and then import it back to Captivate.

Adobe Captivate still does not support the zoom in feature during recording but it has a zoom effect that you can add to small segments of each slide in editing mode. To me they look a bit fuzzy as it attempts to expand existing pixels and make them appear bigger. However, I have found a way to work around that. I usually ask the product manager to record the demonstration at high screen resolution and then I rescale the project down to 960px width. During editing, when I reach a point where I need to show a particular area a bit more clearly, I use a segment of the screen capture from the initial larger recording using the fade in and fade out effect which makes it seem as if we are zooming in. Hopefully that issue will be addressed in new releases.

I have placed a couple of links to some of the demos I worked on recently using Adobe Captivate. One feeds directly from YouTube which is not as crisp as a flash file but can be viewed on all devices, and one links to a flash file which comes out clearer but cannot be viewed on mobile devices that don’t support flash like an iPad or iPhone.

Both Camtasia Studio and Adobe Captivate are great products, so deciding will be based on your budget and what exactly you need them for. If you can’t decide, try downloading the trial version for both and test them out before you make a final commitment.

View Sample Demo in Flash View Sample Demo From YouTube

While attending the Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar in November of 2011, I bought a set of Secrets ... Read More »]]> We all go through different sprouts of productivity depending on what projects we are working on and what time of year it is. Like many, I feel there is something about the months of January and September that mark a beginning of productive seasons part one and part two. In January it is about reassessing our life in general and goals for the year. In September, the typical back to school season, it is about work, training and improving our skills and value. Our birthdays can also act as a milestone for measurement, however unless there are unexpected life events or deadlines on the agenda, this model leaves a large stretch of time that could pass by without much personal and professional skills evaluation.

While attending the Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar in November of 2011, I bought a set of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind Cards that are meant to give daily reminders of some of the points we learned. They are very simple and each card mentions one point taken from the book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth. And of course, there is an app for that! One of the first things I do each morning is randomly pick one of the cards and read it. It sets the tone for my day and helps me stay focused, evaluate where I am at and remember what I need to do to get where I want to go.

Part of our professional evaluation is also comparing our self to someone else in the same industry. If you are in the communication design profession in North America and wondering how much you are worth, you might find the The AIGA/Aquent Survey of Design Salaries for 2011 of interest. This will also help if you are planning to hire someone in that field.

It is common sense, but I did find this quote from T. Harv Eker really resonated with me. “You will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the marketplace.” The main word here is value and four factors establish our value in the marketplace; supply, demand, quality, and quantity. Supply and demand are dictated by the market, but quality and quantity is something we can control. For my goals this year, I am aiming to maintain a high quality and start delivering in larger quantity.

While I have bought stocks in the past of public companies that I have personally worked for, in general I really don’t know much about trading yet. Our trainer Courtney Smith did a fantastic job teaching us the fundamentals of low risk and high returns position trading techniques. We learned about the psychology of trading, channel breakout, trend analysis, seasonality, risk management and so much more that are beyond the scope of this blog.

We also spent a lot of time learning how to read and analyze charts and looking for areas where some of the techniques we learned were manifesting through historical data. I got to know eps as earnings ... Read More »]]> I was in Los Angeles again this weekend attending Freedom Trader Intensive by Peak Potentials; one of the seminars that are included in my Quantum Leap two year self development program.

While I have bought stocks in the past of public companies that I have personally worked for, in general I really don’t know much about trading yet. Our trainer Courtney Smith did a fantastic job teaching us the fundamentals of low risk and high returns position trading techniques. We learned about the psychology of trading, channel breakout, trend analysis, seasonality, risk management and so much more that are beyond the scope of this blog.

We also spent a lot of time learning how to read and analyze charts and looking for areas where some of the techniques we learned were manifesting through historical data. I got to know eps as earnings per share rather than encapsulated postscript. It was all fascinating but the designer in me couldn’t help but think how all of this would almost be impossible if it wasn’t for the visual representation of the data. Working on diagrams and charts are not necessarily my favourite tasks but after this weekend, I will make it a point to treat them with much more respect.

I will end this post with a chart that was shared at the event. The term, a picture is worth a thousand words is familiar to many but for this chart it will have to be adjusted to a picture is worth 70,401! It shows what would have happened if $100 was invested on April 30th 1950 in both the S&P 500 and the Small Caps market with adjustments based on seasonality. Of course there are many other factors to consider, but in general it shows that the markets do perform better from October 1st to May 1st.

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If you would like to improve your presentations and documents using charts and diagrams, there are great video tutorials on Lynda.com. There you will also find a short documentary on Duarte Design, Presentation Design Studio that discusses the power of presentations and how Nancy Duarte started and grew a very successful business based primarily on presentations. She also has two great books, slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations, and Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences that you might find helpful as well.