Goals, objectives, quarterly metrics, business plans, draining the swamp … Who has time to sort out the higher-level ponderings? Well, here are some "worth a minute" articles that we think you will find of interest:
Do You Look Forward to Starting Your Workday? From time to time, most people go through a period during which it’s hard to muster up enthusiasm for work. This is normal, and usually a vacation or a little time off reignites your passion. When weeks drag by in such a state, you may need to take a closer look at why you're not looking forward to starting the workday.
The Fine Art of Criticism Related to the above article and from the same source (National Federation of Independent Business). For a business owner or manager, criticism, even done properly, can be difficult for the critic and discomforting to the recipient. Done incorrectly, criticism can be hazardous and damaging.
Really slick way to add or extend a wireless network comes from Dick Hamilton, one of EasyStreet's system integration partners who works with small business clients.
Have you come across articles that should be highlighted here? Let me know.
January 30th, 2006 by Day Tooley
Posted in General | Enter a comment »
Potential readers can make snap decisions in just 50 milliseconds, according to research published in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology by Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University in Ottawa.
Lindgaard and her team presented volunteers with the briefest glimpses of web pages previously rated as being either easy on the eye or particularly jarring, and asked them to rate the websites on a sliding scale of visual appeal. Even though the images flashed up for just 50 milliseconds, roughly the duration of a single frame of standard television footage, their verdicts tallied well with judgements made after a longer period of scrutiny.
So what are the key ingredients of a good-looking website? Marc Caudron of London web-design agency Pod1, suggests that the amount of graphics on the page should be strictly limited, perhaps to a single eye-catching image. “It’s not about getting as much stuff on the page as possible,” he says.
Conclusion: Clean and simple is better. For example, Americans and Europeans tend to look at the top-left corner of a page first, so that’s where the company logo should go. And most users also expect to see a search function in the top right.
OK. I’ve moved the search function on this blog up to the top right. The logo apparently was in the best spot to begin with.
How would your site measure up?
January 19th, 2006 by Day Tooley
Posted in Websites, Blogs | 1 Comment »
Small businesses receive more spam per user per day than larger companies. As much as five times as much when you compare the smallest to the largest companies?
This came from a survey conducted by Postini, a message management company, which asked more than 600 companies worldwide on the state of messaging threats for 2006. Postini also reconciled this data with an analysis of the more than 150 billion emails it processed in 2005 for its customers.
Some suggestions:
- If you have your own mailserver, try Postini. Here is a Return On Investment (ROI) calculator to help see the financial benefits.
- If you're using POP3 email accounts, I have found SpamEater Pro (30-day trial, then $25) to be an excellent solution. It is protecting multiple POP3 accounts.
- And for the Outlook users who are a little geeky, installing SpamBayes (free) learns your preferences and what you personally consider to be spam. Sophisticated stuff, but easily used.
- 8/28/2006 Update: Here's a suggestion for Mac users. Kimberly Black recommends JunkMatcher (free) which apparently also uses the SpamBayes engine.
- 4/10/2007 Update: As more Mac users are being buried in spam, SpamSieve (30-day trial, then $30) is receiving high marks and works with Apple Mail, Entourage, Eudora, Thunderbird and other email clients.
No surprise that the ones you pay for seem to be better.
January 19th, 2006 by Day Tooley
Posted in eMail | 2 Comments »
