Monday, August 30, 2010

Vail enable RFID Check-Ins

Amplify’d from news.cnet.com

Vail Resorts unveils ski slope geolocation system

A few months before its five ski resorts open for the season, the Colorado-based Vail Resorts has unveiled a preview of something called Epic Mix, a set of Web and mobile apps based on skiers' activity as logged by radio frequency (RF) readers around its resorts.

It'll go live when the first of Vail's resorts, Keystone, opens for the season in early November. Vail Resorts' season passes and lift tickets are already RF-enabled, but with Epic Mix, interested skiers can unlock "pins" in the manner of Foursquare badges, get ranked on a vertical-feet leaderboard, post all manner of ski-related updates to Facebook and Twitter, and--via a mobile app--see their friends' activity on the slopes in real time so that it gets way easier to meet up for beers at the lodge. There's also a kid-oriented site for children under 13, which limits sharing to the kids' parents and has its own set of kid-friendly pins.

A skier can turn off RF functionality entirely if he or she so chooses, the company explained.

Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz said in a New York press event Monday that the company had ruled out partnerships with existing "check-in" companies, or an emulation of those services, because of the fact that he said they did not want to require any additional behavior to participate--"We don't think that works while you're on vacation," he said.

Not to mention that many ski resorts are not exactly hotbeds of high-quality cell phone service, and checking in can be a pain when you're wearing thick ski gear and don't want to accidentally drop your
iPhone off a chair lift.

Katz said that he hopes Epic Mix will "give a digital face to the experience, the very real experience that people are having day in and day out on our mountains." Unfortunately, the RF scanners are currently only located on entrances to ski lifts, so it can't precisely track exactly which mountains an individual is skiing on, though Katz said that it may be improved in future years--potentially along with real check-in rewards for frequent skiers (so, for example, if you make it down that double black diamond your first scotch on the rocks is free). Also out there is the possibility that the technology could be licensed to other resorts, meaning that the geolocation craze may be enjoying packed-powder prominence very soon.

Read more at news.cnet.com
 

Sunday, August 29, 2010

How To: Clone a Mac Hard Drive

How to Clone and Backup Your Hard Drive

What You Need

- Mac OS 10.2 or later
- Mac OS Startup Disk

When you need to clone your drive, or simply do a full backup, someone usually tells you to use Carbon Copy Cloner (Donation Recommended) or SuperDuper! ($27.95). Sure, both of these applications are great programs, but they aren't necessary. You can use Apple's own software that comes free with your Mac!

We're talking about Disk Utility ( User > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.app ) It's free, easy-to-use, and it does the job right.

Here's how to use Disk Utility to clone and backup your hard drive:

  1. Start up from the Mac OS X disk that came with your Mac. To do this, insert the CD or DVD into your Mac, and hold down the C key while your Mac restarts.

  2. Go ahead select your language. Don't worry: You're not installing Mac OS X again - this is just what you have to do to get to Disk Utility. When the menu bar appears, select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.

  3. When Disk Utility opens, you'll want to select your source. This is the hard drive you want to clone and/or backup. After you have a source, select the Destination. This is the hard drive you want to save the backup image to.



  4. Click Restore and you'll end up with a perfect copy of your hard drive. Restart your computer and you're good to go!


Editor's Note: For more information about backing up your Mac, check out Mac Backup BasicsBackup Your Mac Using Rsync, and How to Upgrade Your MacBook's Hard Drive.


Saturday, August 28, 2010

Create Free iPhone Ringtones

Amplify’d from mashable.com

HOW TO: Make Free iPhone Ringtones

iPhone Ringtone Image

Ringtones — They are the darlings of the music industry and the bane of anyone subject to hearing a bad one. If you’re sick of your plain old telephone ringer but don’t want to download a canned tone, you don’t need to spend extra money to turn your favorite song into a ringtone for your iPhone. There’s a way to create ringtones in iTunes from your existing music.

Once you’ve done it, you’ll be making ringtones faster than you can download them. It is not, however, the most obvious process. Here’s a how-to guide to help you out for both Mac and Windows (Windows) users.

Simply follow the steps outlined here to create your own tones right from your computer. Let us know how you got on — and what songs you ringtoned — in the comments below.


Choose Your Song and Edit It


The first part of the process is more or less the same for both Mac and Windows users. In iTunes, select the song you want to use, right-click on the track and hit “Get Info.”

Select “Options” from the menu along the top, then change the “Stop Time” of the song to 15 seconds (or how long you want it to be — reports vary, but apparently ringtones can’t be longer than 30 seconds).

Now, in the “Advanced” iTunes menu, select “Create AAC version.”

You will now see a second version of the song. Be sure to go back into the original song’s “Get Info” options and delete your “Stop Time” setting, or else the song won’t play past this point in the future.


Converting the File for Mac Users


Mac users should right-click on the new, 15-second version and hit “Show in Finder” in order to change the file extension from .m4a to .m4r. This can be done just by clicking on it and overtyping. You also want to make the file name as short as possible too, so rename this in the same way.

Now, still in Finder, drag the .m4r file to your desktop and delete the version that is in iTunes. When this is done, you want to import the file back into iTunes. To do this, open the iTunes “File” menu and select “Add to Library,” find the song on your desktop and add it back in.


Converting the File for PC Users


PC users will do this last part a little differently. Once you’ve got the AAC version of the song, you need to find it on your computer. Unless your default settings have been changed, it’s likely you can find it by clicking through the following folders: My Documents, My Music (my music), iTunes, iTunes Media, Music and then the relevant artist’s folder.

You need to change the file extension from .m4a to .m4r by clicking on it and overtyping. If you can’t see the file extension type (just the name) then you need to enable that functionality first. Go to your control panel and click “Folder Options.” Then, untick the option that says “Hide extensions for known file types.” Going back into the iTunes folder and you will now be able to see the extension to change it.

Once it’s changed, you need to import the renamed file back into iTunes through the “Add to Library” option in the “File” menu.


Getting the File onto Your iPhone


Now, both Mac and PC users will see the file under the “Ringtones” category on the left of your iTunes display.

To get the ringtone where it needs to be — on your phone — sync your iPhone to iTunes. If this is the first time you’ve added a ringtone in this way, make sure that the “Ringtones” tab is set to sync.

To change the ringtone on your iPhone to your chosen song, go to “Settings,” then “Sounds,” then “Ringtone” and you should now have a “Custom” list above the pre-loaded “Standard” list. Just touch the song you want and you can be free of that pre-loaded “Marimba” forever!

Read more at mashable.com
 

Friday, August 27, 2010

7 Online Options for File Sharing Online

Amplify’d from www.thesofthelp.com



Top 7 Free Online File Sharing Services!


Online File Sharing is a fabulous but paid service over the internet which allows you to upload your own files (whether of any format) over the internet and make a direct link to download them.This is favorable with two cases. First if that file is so important such that we don't want to ever loose it or second we had to make that reached to someone, thus we uploaded it over the internet and given him/her the direct link to download. Here we are going to introduce some services which will provide you the facility of online file sharing for free. Thus let us drive through the list...
1.) Ripway: A fantastic online file sharing service. Ripway allows you to upload content of about 100MB online direct link of which is provided to you. For all this, you just have to do a thing, you have to make a free signup on this website. This was probably the first online usage service I started to use for my free online file sharing. You also must check it out!







2.) Sendspace: Probably one of the best free online file sharing providers. The reason is not to explained but I think I must tell you that these people provide you unlimited online storage. And at a time a file of about 300 MB at the maximum can be uploaded over the net to get the direct link. The procedure to upload file is same as with the previous one, just get a free signup there and start uploading.







3.) MediaFire: This website allows you to upload any file without having any registration on the website. Just upload your file and get the direct link to it. However it you want to become a regular user of this service, then you can signup for free for which you will get unlimited file storage, uploading of up to 200 MB of file at a time and you can share/download them unlimited number of times from the direct link.







4.) FileFactory: With file factory, you can upload up to 25 files (1GB each) without an account on the website. You can join for free if you want. That will make you a routine user of this fabulous online file sharing service. If you are having an account, then you can even create/manage your folders/sub-folders on the internet. Yes, it would be just like storing on your local computer but your data would be more secure from being lost because of any system crash!







5.) 4Shared: Another service which allows you to upload your files over the network without any registration. Here you can upload about 100MB of per file and about 5 GB in total you can upload. Same is the condition is with this one also as that was with previous online file sharing service. If you want to be a routine user, then simply signup for free. Just visit the site once to know more!







6.) MailBigFile: Mail Big File is actually a file mailing service. Here no registration is needed to mail up to 200MB of a file to any person for free but if you want more, you will have to pay for registering yourself on the website. You can not store your data online but still there is are a lot more chances to keep it safe. Just email it to your own ID and keep it not only safer, but also secret!







7.) Files2U: Last but not the least, Files 2 U is a fabulous online file emailing service which helps you in sending your large files (about unlimited size) to up to 4 recipients at a time along with a personal message embedded in your email. You can also make a download of your files by tracking the number of file sent by you from the download option on the menu bar above. Just have a look!



Read more at www.thesofthelp.com
 

Monday, August 23, 2010

Recreating Your Resume in 10 Simple Steps

Recreating Your Resume in 10 Simple Steps

from Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life 

Stacks of Resumes
I like opening blog posts with something that everyone can agree with me on. I think I learned that technique from some "how to get people to like your blog post" article or book or something. So here we go — job searches suck.

With me so far? Okay, let me do it again.Writing a resume sucks. (The author of that article or book or something would be proud of me).

So, yes, searching for a job universally sucks, especially when it comes to that stupid little piece of paper that employers get to judge you by. And man do people freak out about resumes. Despite the 18 trillion articles about resumes on the internet, most of them totally drop the ball when it comes to creating an effective resume. Let's try to improve on that.

The way you need to think about your resume is that it is a sales tool. An effective resume should quickly communicate your strongest attributes to an employer who doesn't know a thing about you. For most people and most jobs, a standard resume format (you know, listing a work history) doesn't do that very well. Seriously, have you ever had to read a bunch of resumes? Even the good ones are boring. I don't know about you, but if I'm hiring someone I really don't care where they've worked, I care what they can do, what they achieved, and what they can bring to my organization.

So, that's where this great resume in ten steps comes from. I'm going to teach you how to very quickly build a highly effective resume that focuses on selling an employer on your best skills. Your resume will no longer be a boring biography; it will quickly tell an employer exactly why they should interview and find more about you.

So, let's build your new resume:

Gathering Your Selling Points 
  • List your top three most marketable skills
    Think about all the skills you can offer a company like "management," "communication," "leadership" and things like that. Decide what your top three most valuable skills or talents are (only the top three, you're trying to build the most effective selling resume you can).

  • Write down ten things that "prove" you have each skill
    Remember, employers don't know you so you need to prove your skills to them. You can do this by mentioning past job experiences or responsibilities, education, successes, awards, and any other support fact. Take the time to write ten support points for each of your top three skills.

  • Select the top three or four support points for each skill
    After you've got ten for each, you should have at least three or four strong points to support each skill. Pick the strongest ones. Again, stick with the top three or four because they'll be your most effective selling points.

  • Rewrite each support point
    Rewrite each of your support points so they are specific, in the active voice, and result oriented. (Bad example: "Responsibilities included bookkeeping, accounts receivable, and budgeting"; Better example: "Streamlined financial management at XYZ Company by efficiently managing budgets, maintaining accounts, and keeping accurate books.")

  • Rank your top three most marketable skills
    After you have your three skills and your three or four support points for each, you need to decide which skills are your best selling points for the job you'd like to get. Rank them.

  • Rank the top support points
    For each skill, order the three or four support points by their strength.
Writing Your Resume
  • Qualifications Summary
    The first thing after your name and contact information should be a qualifications summary. This should only be three or four lines long and should give the reader a highlight of your best selling points. In slightly more professional language it should communicate "I'm awesome because I can do X, Y, and Z." If someone reads only one thing on your resume, these are the three or four sentences you want them to read.

  • Skills and Support Bullets
    The main body of your resume, the section that most resumes list each job you've had, should be about your top skills. Each skill should be in bold with the support points in bullets underneath. Put your best selling points first on the page, so that's the reader's first impression of you.

  • Work History
    Yeah, the reviewer still wants to know your work history, but it comes after your skills because you want them to focus on your best selling points and what you can bring to their organization. This should only show company, location of the company, dates of employment, and job title. You can discuss the details about these work experiences during an interview.

  • Education and Miscellaneous Information
    It's depressing, but a college degree doesn't tell an employer anything about your qualifications. Degrees are generally just used to weed applicants out, so it belongs at the bottom of your selling tool. If there is any other bit of information that you're dying to include in your resume, but it didn't make it into your support bullets, and cannot wait for an interview, put it at the bottom too. But remember, if it wasn't impressive enough to make it into your top support bullets, it probably won't add to your selling points all that much.
Tada, you have an effective skills resume. This style of resume will help you in a few important ways.
  • First, it makes your resume look distinct and refreshing compared to most of the other ones in the resume pile.
  • Second, it forces the reviewer to consider your strongest selling points and your best selling messages first. That way you can directly tell the employer exactly how you can add enormous value to their company.
  • Third, it forces you to weed out weak support points.
  • Last, by not divulging your entire work story, it encourages an interested reviewer to call you for an interview to learn more.
So that's your quick and highly effective resume. Remember, your resume should convince an employer to interview you and learn more about you, so don't give them your life story without a bit of face time. Hope this is helpful and feel free to click "comments" and ask any questions.

Phish - Alpine Valley Summer 2010 - Night 2 - Reveiw

Phish @ Alpine Valley, Night Two

Phish @ Alpine Valley, August 15

Coming off a scorcher on Saturday night it was tough to predict exactly what Phish had in store for the second night of a two-show run at Alpine Valley in East Troy, WI. While Saturday's two-set affair was more of an "anything goes" type of show, Sunday's gig was more a classic, quintessential Phish show that relied heavily on the band's best material.

[All photos from Alpine1 by John Schulze]

There's two ways to look at a Tweezer opener – a. it's a waste since there's usually little improv in an opener or b. what a statement to start off the show. I'll go with B. on this occasion as the boys actually did jam it out a bit. Sure, they didn't explore very much but the Tweezer opener was the first notice that Phish was on top of their game on this night, especially guitarist Trey Anastasio who hit a flurry of peaks with his frenetic riffing. AC/DC Bag kept the collective energy up and gave Red another chance to shine.

With only three plays over the past 11 years On Your Way Down was quite a treat during the first set. This Allen Toussaint tune may have been made popular by Little Feat, but Phish certainly does the tune justice with keyboardist Page McConnell's powerful vocals and a shredfest by Anastasio at the end. The rest of set one was song based and the quartet nailed nearly everything they touched on this night. David Bowie closed the set with a bang as the Junta tune featured tension and release fireworks leading up to an extended peak.

READ ON for more on Phish @ Alpine Valley…

The opening stanza was fun and well played but the second set brought things to a whole new level starting immediately with the Ghost opener. Hitting multiple peaks and showing off the resurgence in his ability to shred, Ghost was all about Trey this time around. This was a theme that would continue throughout the set. There was no rest for the weary during this high-impact performance as Ghost was followed by an off-the-charts straight forward take on Theme and the heavy metal tones of Big Black Furry Creatures From Mars. At some shows this tour most fans sat there with their arms folded, but not at Alpine on Sunday. Everyone around me was going nuts, especially during BBFCFM. I half expected a mosh pit to break out.

Phish has been toying with placement this tour as shown by dropping a mid-set You Enjoy Myself on Sunday night. On a weekend filled with insane machine gun work from Big Red, his YEM solo may have topped it all. The guitarist hit a level of fluidity and speed that hasn't been seen in years. This was the YEM solo I had been waiting for and it truly delivered. Anastasio was so jacked up after laying down his solo that he couldn't help but grooving during the bass/drum segment that follows. It was a display of happiness that was contagious.

You had to figure the band would take the energy level down at this point but the group went the other way and took Piper out for a spin post-vocal jam. I hate to be repeat myself, but once again Trey led the jam and fired off a number of blistering riffs that left mouths agape. After a fast-paced jam each of the band members settled on a more sedate groove before Page hopped on the Rhodes and drummer Jon Fishman broke down the beat. Could it be? Yes, it was – an hour into one of the more high-energy sets of 3.0 here came the group's cover of Also Sprach Zarathrustra.

Unlike some of the tour's previous 2001s, this version found the band being patient and willing to extend all of the sections of the song. Eventually the tune segued into another cover – The Beatles' While My Guitar Gently Weep – which was turned into a showcase for Anastasio's overdriven soloing. Speaking of overdriven soloing, the set ended with one more shredtastic Trey solo in a Character Zero that had arms pumping in unison.

We all knew Tweezer Reprise was coming but the question was what else would we get? That question was answered with the first mellow song since Farmhouse nearly two hours previous – a gorgeous cover of Oh! Sweet Nuthin' by the Velvet Underground. Played for only the fourth time since Halloween '98, OSN let McConnell's voice shine and featured stellar riffage from Trey. As we prepared for Reprise most were shocked when Cavern came instead. In fact, Reprise didn't even come after Cavern since Joy was thrown in for good measure during what turned out to be a four-song capper.

All in all the Alpine Valley run was one of the most consistent of 3.0 and showed just what this band is capable of after getting a few weeks of shows under their belts. The pair of gigs weren't dependent on bust outs or especially creative improv instead it was on focused and cohesive versions of classic Phish tunes. Summer Tour 2010 has been a winner on a number of levels and Alpine put

Phish - Alpine Valley Summer 2010 - Review

Phish @ Alpine Valley, Night One

Phish @ Alpine Valley, August 14

Phish's stop at Alpine Valley in East Troy, WI this past Saturday and Sunday was setup for success with its placement near the end of the group's summer tour. The quartet, like most bands, typically gets better with each passing show, so it's no surprise that the band turned in two sizzling performances at the familiar shed that's a regular summer stop for them.

[All photos by John Schulze]

Unlike Deer Creek it didn't take much time for Phish to achieve consistency at Alpine. Coming out with Tube was a strong statement and the band nailed it, though once again the tune came to a close after an all-too-short jam. A tight Oh Kee Pah followed and went into another raging version of Suzy Greenberg in which keyboardist Page McConnell laid down some nasty licks on the Moog. Bassist Mike Gordon – the MVP of the run, the tour and 3.0 for that matter – slapped the living shit out of his bass drawing all sorts of smiles from guitarist Trey Anastasio and cheers from the crowd. The applause was still going as Mike stepped to the mic to sing Funky Bitch.

Not only did this show start with fun and well-placed song selections, the band was tight and wasn't rushing through tunes. This patience paid dividends in a gorgeous Reba that like most of the rest of the Alpine shows was light on the "whale calls." Mike and Trey locked in a number of inventive patterns of notes while McConnell layered electric piano underneath and drummer Jon Fishman kept things moving. For the 99.9% of the crowd who weren't at Charlotte in July, our first Fuck Your Face came next and once folks realized what they were hearing they flipped. Despite only performing Fuck Your Face once since about 1987, the boys delivered a tight and nasty version that featured metal licks from Trey with a crunchy tone reminiscent of his early sound. READ ON for more on Phish @ Alpine Valley…

Alaska and Back On The Train kept the energy up before the one majorly trainwrecked composition of the Alpine run – Taste. Though Anastasio struggled during the composed parts, both his solo and McConnell's solos were blazing. Trey seems to have turned a corner with the end of his solos as multiple times each night he would just drop these jaw-dropping runs of notes that were way quicker than what he was able to play previously at the peak of his solos since Hampton. The apropos When The Circus Comes was a second leg debut and gave fans a breather after a ridiculously high-energy start. Hopefully the crowd took the opportunity to rest because after the Lawn Boy that followed Circus, it was right back to the fast pace with Sparkle, Gumbo and Antelope. Run Like An Antelope was straight out of the mid '90s as it contained multiple peaks, plenty of tension and release and the group nailed the transition into "Rye Rye Rocco." Trey gave fellow New Jerseyian – and his former GRAB band mate – Marco Benevento a shout out by replacing Esquandolas with Benevento to big cheers.

One of the trends that developed this year was opening set two with a jam vehicle. That wasn't the case on night one as a quick run through The Sloth – played in response to a Sloth sign near the stage – kicked off one of the better sets of the year. Turns out the band was only delaying the inevitable once Mike turned on the effect that signals the start of Down With Disease. Picking up where they left off in Hartford back in June, Disease contained at least three distinct jams all of which contained otherworldly full band improvisation.

The first part of the jam was extremely fast paced and showed off Trey's propensity for quick licks that I mentioned earlier. After a few minutes of Anastasio punishing the fret board, Gordon started slowing the pace down and the exploration began. Mike and Trey took turns leading the jam as Fish alternated between bashing a rock beat and offering funky rhythms. Towards the end of the delicious segment the group combined on a jam that had a Talking Heads' feel to it and then all of the sudden Trey started in with a few pretty, major-key licks that took the improv from dark to light. Before you knew it the quartet had connected to begin the powerful instrumental What's The Use? for only the second time since Hampton. While the beginning of this tour was marked by horrid transitions, this segue was a winner.

Scent of a Mule used to be a staple in Phish's repertoire but somewhere along the line it became a rarity. After the anthemic What's The Use? the group delivered the first Mule of 2010 – 68 shows after its last appearance at Great Woods in 2009. Page and Trey Mule Dueled and then it was time for Mike's. Mike's may not contain as much exploration as in years past, yet with Anastasio in "fire the afterburners" mode the Mike's jam was a scorcher. Trey dropped one intense lick after another and was creative in weaving the disparate riffs together.

Would Hydrogen follow? Nope, the predictable Mike's Groove sequence continues to be screwed with a bit as Dirt came next. Now we'd get Weekapaug, right? Guess again my friends because the funky Sneakin' Sally caught everyone's attention in what we thought might be the place of 'Paug. Whereas Anastasio led most of the jams on this night, Mike Gordon was clearly out front for Sally and the crowd ate it up. As nuts as the fanbase goes for Trey's moments of brilliance, at Alpine it was Mike who got the biggest reception, especially when he started his bass solo at the beginning of the Weekapaug that finally showed up post-Sally.

Apparently Trey had enough of following Mike during Sally 'cause the Weekapaug was just one giant shredfest. It was "buckle your seatbelts" time for one of Red's most blazing solos on a night – make that weekend – full of 'em. Weekapaug often closes sets that late in a show, so it was quite the surprise when Bug came after it. No one was complaining at this "Bug Bonus" and it served as a fitting conclusion to a powerful set of Phish 3.0. Quinn The Eskimo, the Dylan tune busted out just a few days earlier in Telluride, was the exclamation point for both the evening and for Mike Gordon as the one-of-a-kind bassist gave his new envelope filter a whirl leading to hoots and hollers from the tens of thousands of fans assembled on the hill.

Leaving the show it was hard to find anyone with many complaints. The quartet turned in a consistent, blistering performance that picked up where the Deer Creek shows left off. All four band members are hitting a stride and the band fed off the lively audience and vice versa. The first night of Alpine was one of those gigs that kept you guessing and when it comes to Phish that's a very good thing.

08/14/2010 Alpine Valley Music Theatre

Set 1: Tube, The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony > Suzy Greenberg, Funky Bitch, Reba, Fuck Your Face, Alaska, Back on the Train, Taste > When the Circus Comes, Lawn Boy, Sparkle, Gumbo, Run Like an Antelope

Set 2: The Sloth, Down with Disease -> What's the Use? > Scent of a Mule, Mike's Song > Dirt > Sneakin' Sally through the Alley > Weekapaug Groove, Bug

Encore: Quinn the Eskimo

Friday, August 20, 2010

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint



The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

I suffer from something called Ménière's disease—don't worry, you cannot get it from reading my blog. The symptoms of Ménière's include hearing loss, tinnitus (a constant ringing sound), and vertigo. There are many medical theories about its cause: too much salt, caffeine, or alcohol in one's diet, too much stress, and allergies. Thus, I've worked to limit control all these factors.

However, I have another theory. As a venture capitalist, I have to listen to hundreds of entrepreneurs pitch their companies. Most of these pitches are crap: sixty slides about a "patent pending," "first mover advantage," "all we have to do is get 1% of the people in China to buy our product" startup. These pitches are so lousy that I'm losing my hearing, there's a constant ringing in my ear, and every once in while the world starts spinning.

Before there is an epidemic of Ménière's in the venture capital community, I am trying to evangelize the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. It's quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. While I'm in the venture capital business, this rule is applicable for any presentation to reach agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming a partnership, etc.

Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting—and venture capitalists are very normal. (The only difference between you and venture capitalist is that he is getting paid to gamble with someone else's money). If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you probably don't have a business. The ten topics that a venture capitalist cares about are:

  1. Problem
  2. Your solution
  3. Business model
  4. Underlying magic/technology
  5. Marketing and sales
  6. Competition
  7. Team
  8. Projections and milestones
  9. Status and timeline
  10. Summary and call to action

You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you're using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector. Even if setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early. In a perfect world, you give your pitch in twenty minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion.

The majority of the presentations that I see have text in a ten point font. As much text as possible is jammed into the slide, and then the presenter reads it. However, as soon as the audience figures out that you're reading the text, it reads ahead of you because it can read faster than you can speak. The result is that you and the audience are out of synch.

The reason people use a small font is twofold: first, that they don't know their material well enough; second, they think that more text is more convincing. Total bozosity. Force yourself to use no font smaller than thirty points. I guarantee it will make your presentations better because it requires you to find the most salient points and to know how to explain them well. If "thirty points," is too dogmatic, the I offer you an algorithm: find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. That's your optimal font size.

So please observe the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. If nothing else, the next time someone in your audience complains of hearing loss, ringing, or vertigo, you'll know what caused the problem. One last thing: to learn more about the zen of great presentations, check out a site called Presentation Zen by my buddy Garr Reynolds.

Sunday, August 08, 2010

Sell a Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months

Amplify’d from www.blogtyrant.com

How I Sold a Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months

152/365

In my first year of University I sold a blog for $20,000 USD after only eight months. It was then that I realized that making money online was something I really wanted to give a shot. Since that time I have sold several other blogs for similar price tags. In this post I am going to show you what I did in those eight months and how you can create a blog that someone might just want to pay big money for.


I am going to divide this post into three sections:



  1. The pre-blogging stage

  2. Building a blog worth some money

  3. Selling your blog


Nothing in this post is particularly insightful or new, if you know where to look. What I wanted to do though was write a post that lays out the whole process so that everything is in one place and you can continue to come back and reference it as you move forward.



The pre-blogging stage


#29 - Working

Creative Commons License photo credit: johnonolan


This section is about all those little things you need to do before you start your $20,000 blog. If you already own and run a blog then you should still read it and just see if you think it is worthwhile continuing with your current project or perhaps starting something new. Most of the time you will be able to keep doing what you are doing by just making a few little tweaks.


1. Write a blog you believe in, or pay the price

One of the things all the pro’s tell you is that you need to do something you love. I know how tacky it sounds. Every time I read it I die a little bit inside. But, to be honest, it is actually a really important thing to think about both from a self fulfillment point of view and a profit point of view. Here’s why.


Firstly, if you spend eight months working on something you don’t believe in or something that disagrees with your personal morals then you are going to end up hating yourself for wasting that precious time. Unless you really believe in the project then don’t even bother doing it because you will end up with lots of regrets later on. I, for example, would never do anything in the adult industry because I don’t believe it has a good impact on society.


Secondly, if you don’t enjoy working, writing and building the blog you will lose interest after about a month. Glen from Viper Chill talks about this a lot. The initial excitement of making a bucket load of cash wears out really fast, especially if it doesn’t go as fast as you anticipated. If you don’t enjoy writing those posts you will pay the price from a profit point of view.


2. Pick a niche with depth

The next thing you need to do is pick a niche, but make sure it has depth. You need some room to move and grow and expand. If you pick something too narrow you will find your readership doesn’t expand despite all your hard work. If you pick something too broad you will find it is far too hard to compete with the existing sites.


Let me give you an example. Let’s say you really want to do a blog about content or copy or sales writing. It would be very hard to compete with Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com as he is largely considered the authority blog on this niche. But if you had some experience with offline sales copy you might want to write a blog that is more focused on that – sign writing, brochures, TV ads, etc. You have a niche but it is not too big or too small.


3. Don’t worry about dominating the niche

When I first started trying to make money from blogs I wanted to have the biggest and the best blog on that particular topic. I was frustrated if I was ranking number four or five on Google instead of number one. But after time I realized something. You don’t need to dominate the niche entirely to make money. Sure, being number one is amazing but it isn’t a requirement. The internet is big enough for you to still be successful without being the dominating website in your niche. Remember that.


4. Have an idea about how to monetize the blog

Before you start this journey you want to have some idea about how it is going to make money. Why? Because people are only going to buy your blog if it is profitable. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you get, how many great articles you have, etc. unless you make a good profit. I have seen some amazing blogs for sale that get tonnes of traffic and have some really good subscriber levels but buyers just aren’t interested in them unless they can see a way to turn a profit without much effort.


5. Choose a good domain name and brand the blog well

In this post on choosing a domain name I talked a bit about how to choose the right domain name for your branding. This is SUPER important when trying to sell a blog as people are essentially going to be buying your brand equity – your reputation. The blogs that do really well are the ones that get a lot of traffic, make money but also the one’s that people know about. Make sure you differentiate yourself from the competition in both your look, feel but also the content your produce. It is something you cannot ignore.


6. Set up your blog on WordPress

If you want to sell your blog for $20,000 you need to be on WordPress. Why? Because it is a blogger’s dream. It let’s you add hundreds of different free plugins that change the way your site works, it is perfectly optimizable for Google and allows you to post articles with ease. I really am a little bit obsessed with it. If you don’t use WordPress to publish your blog then you are not giving yourself the best advantage. I will be writing a lot more about how to use WordPress to your advantage so make sure you subscribe to the feed.


Building a blog worth some money


Building Site Driver

Creative Commons License photo credit: garryknight


Now I want to go into the stage where you actually have a blog and are trying to gear it towards a sale in a few months. I want to go through all the things I did (and do) in order to give it the best possible chance of selling.


1. Produce a lot of valuable content

The most important thing you need to do is produce content that is valuable. And you need a lot of it. The whole purpose of a blog is to help users in some way so unless your content is doing that you are going to fall short.


So what does valuable content mean? Well that is what you have to figure out for your particular site. Sometimes valuable means having a lot of articles that touch on a lot of different keywords and as such bring in large volumes of traffic that click ads. Other blogs get better results by getting subscribers to sign up and then selling them affiliate products over time. I have had websites that work both ways – it depends largely on the niche and the way you structure and run your site.


Figure out what will make your content valuable and produce it accordingly. Keep tweaking it over time as you may find that it takes a while to get into the right rhythm.


2. Have a clear call to action based around that content

In marketing we have a thing called a call to action which basically means that you encourage your visitors to do something. Once you have figured out what type of valuable content you are producing you need to figure out your call to action based around that content. Let me give you an example.


Let’s say you have a blog about the latest BP oil spill disaster. You might be producing content that is all about keeping people up to date with the developments of the leak – essentially a news site. In that case you might find that the best call to action is one where you ask people to subscribe to get the latest news on the progress. You know people are interested in what is happening now (otherwise they wouldn’t be on your site) so then it follows that they will be interested in future updates. Work with that.


3. Make it super easy to subscribe, comment and navigate your blog

Your blog’s content is what brings visitors to your site. The last thing you want is a crappy design sending them away. It is critically important that you have all the design elements in place so people can easily subscribe to your feeds, leave comments and navigate around all the different sections. Not doing so could cost you money.


Imagine you write a three part series on how to look after your heart. Now imagine it gets Dugg and Stumbled and starts to go viral. Thousands of people get sent to a post in that three part series. But what if you failed to show people how to navigate to the other parts in that series? You would lose a lot of readers on that initial page. That is a navigation issue – something that happens all the time.


Your design has to work with your content to get more page views, better interaction and more subscribers. Take a look at Darren Rowse’s multi-million dollar digital photography school blog – everything about the design makes you want to look further, explore different categories or buy a product from one of his affiliate links. None of it is an accident.


4. Interact with every single comment, email or forum thread

I once sent Darren Rowse an email telling him that I was having problems leaving a comment on his site. I told him not to worry about it too much as it was obviously working fine for everyone else. He replied in about ten minutes telling me that every single one of his readers were important to him and then tried to problem solve the issue with me. Instant fan for life.


You need to make your blog more than just a soap box platform and more like a discussion over coffee with mates. Talk to your readers in the comments, answer emails and take the time to make it feel like you care and you are available. Why? Because one loyal reader that returns each time you post something new is far more valuable than 100 visitors who don’t interact in any way. And you have to recognize that people become loyal to other people, not to random websites.


5. Install Google Analytics on day one

One thing I will talk more about later is the fact that all potential buyers who are serious about the transaction will want to look at your statistics. If you only have a few months on record then you will almost always lose the sale. This is a mistake I have actually made more than once. I get so caught up in just pumping out content that I forget to install the statistics. Here is why that is stupid.


Firstly, you need to constantly monitor your statistics to see what content, keywords and design elements are working on your website. If your bounce rate is 95% you need to start to figure out why. If 80% of your Adsense income is coming from just two successful posts don’t you think it would be a good idea to know which ones they were and optimize the crap out of them?


Secondly, if you can’t prove all of the statistic claims you make in your sale period then you won’t get a buyer. You need to have physical proof that you get a certain amount of views, rankings, clicks, etc. Syncing your blog with Adsense and Analytics is the best way to do this. Make sure you do it today if you haven’t already.


6. Spend 20% of your working time on other websites

This is an extremely important point. Please read it carefully. If you have 10 hours a week to work on this blog you need to spend two of those hours on other websites leaving comments, writing guest posts and interacting in a meaningful way. This might seem like a lot but, in actual fact, it is free advertising that gets you more readers, better rankings on Google and a bigger profile in the industry you are in.



  • How to comment properly

    Make a folder in your bookmarks called “Comment Blogs” and every time you find a website in your niche bookmark it for later. Each week you should visit all those websites and leave a comment or two on their latest posts or popular posts with a related link in the URL section. Make the comment useful and helpful and always related to the content of the article. In a few weeks I will show you how to find hundreds of relevant posts to leave your helpful comments.


    Make sure you sign up with Gravatar with an image that will represent you for years to come. You want people to instantly recognize the logo or picture and associate it with great comments and a good knowledge base.


  • How to guest post properly

    The best guest posts are the one’s you write an have to sit and think about whether you actually want to post it on your own website because it is so damn good. Find the top guys in your niche and email them casually about some unrelated topic. Perhaps chat to them on Twitter for a few weeks in a cool and friendly way so you can build a rapport. Finally, when you have an amazing post written, send them your idea and a bit of an excerpt. Nine times out of ten you’ll get the gig.


    Make sure your bio line in that guest post is very catchy and draws people over to your website. And make sure the links you include have a good anchor text with relevant SEO keywords. I have seen my rankings for particular phrases skyrocket after doing guest posts with good links on a top website. Don’t muck it up.



None of this should have the feel of spam. You are a real person interacting on other real people’s websites. Make sure you are adding something nice that represents your own website in a good way.


7. Plan your articles around keywords and topics and then people

You will often hear the big boys talk about writing for people, not search engines. And while that is a very good rule that you should abide by, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t spend a good deal of time making sure the topics you write about are keyword focused. You see, writing articles for Google is, in a way, writing for humans because Google build their search engine to help people find what they want. What I’m trying to say is you can’t do one or the other – you have to make sure your articles are written for both.


Where the clouds are

Creative Commons License photo credit: NIOrnob


Here’s what you need to do. Brain storm a whole bunch of topics in your niche and then get online and start researching keywords. You need to come up with a whole bunch of main keywords. You then need to come up with a dozen long tail keywords for each of your main keywords. Once you have done that, you need to turn them into interesting questions/post ideas that appeal to real readers.


For example, you might run a blog about cooking. Your main keyword might be potato curry and your long tail might be recipe. You then have to create interesting articles around those two like Are Potato Curry Recipes Bad for Your Health? and How to Cook a Potato Curry Recipe in Five Minutes.


8. Develop social media accounts and leverage connections

A big part of building a successful blog is building successful social media accounts. Why? Because you can then use these accounts to promote your website and drive more traffic and better interaction. It is also a big plus when it comes to sale time – buyers love to see that you have Twitter and Facebook accounts with certain amounts of followers.



  • Twitter

    Sign up for an account under your real name if it fits with your blog’s strategy and then create a background image that sells your blog. Darren Rowse does it perfectly here. You should start by finding people in your niche and following them and some of their followers. Make sure all the people you engage are relevant to your blog. Tweet on a daily basis and reply to questions and interact with topics. Post any new article you produce on Twitter and occasionally ask for a re tweet. Again, if you provide value you will get a good response.


    Make sure you install the Re Tweet plugin on your blog to make it easy for people to Tweet.


  • Facebook

    Facebook is becoming bigger and bigger in the blogging world as they make changes like adding a “like” button instead of “share this”. You can also now use FBML to change the look of your Fan Page to make it more unique and branded. Create a Fan Page, not a group, and develop a high res sidebar image that takes up all of the available 180px x 540px. Make sure your sidebar text has a call to action and feel free to add a fancy splash page using the FBML extension.


    Don’t spam Facebook. Don’t use it as much as Twitter. You should think of it as more of a reminder that your website exists as opposed to a conversational tool like Twitter. Keep it simple by asking relevant questions about interesting topics.



You should also be on Stumble and Digg and all the others and make sure that you use them regularly. These things don’t really pay immediate benefits but, over time, they become extremely valuable for your blog and your long term success in the industry. This is especially true when you begin to connect with the big players in your niche. Such contacts often lead to valuable back links, guest posting jobs and so on.


9. Knowledge is power

The blogosphere is constantly changing. New technologies, plugins and trends emerge and it is vital that you stay on top of them. Furthermore, it is important that you become good at writing blog posts or outsourcing them efficiently, whatever it is you are doing. For these reasons and more you should read and then read some more. Follow blogs like Copyblogger, Problogger, Viper Chill, Dosh Dosh and SEOmoz and everything they write. These are guys who do it extremely well and pass on a lot of good information to their readers.


Selling your blog


sold

Creative Commons License photo credit: DaveBleasdale


Now we can get into the final curtain call, the time when you decide to sell your blog. In this section I am going to go through all the main things that you need to know in order to maximize your sale price, stay safe during the sale and finish it off quickly and without stress. Of course, if I miss anything please leave a comment and let me know.


1. Gather data and discover your site’s value

The first thing you need to do is figure out how much you are willing to sell your blog for. This is called valuation and is an area that is extremely controversial amongst web marketers. There are three questions that need to be asked and answered here:



  • How much does it make?

    How much does your site make per month, on average? Is that a consistent level or are you having spikes. Is that income stream at all inefficient and as such could be improved before or after the sale. Figure out exactly how much it makes before we move on.

  • How much are you willing to let it go for?

    Your blog might only make a few hundred a month but you might perceive it to be worth a whole lot more. This can be an issue at sale time as your potential buyers won’t have the same emotional attachment that you do. You also need to know this in case you want to reject the bids you get in order to develop it further.

  • How much is someone willing to pay?

    This is the ultimate answer and, realistically, the only relevant question. I have heard Yaro say it and I heard my dad say it to me when I was in high school. The only true valuation is what someone is willing to pay. The other methods are just speculative.


The general equation that people go by when it comes to website valuation is 12 x monthly revenue. So if your site makes $500 a month it is worth around $6000. That being said, I have seen blogs sold for closer to 24 x monthly revenue on a lot of occasions.


2. List your blog on Flippa.com and point other listings to that sale

The best place to sell your blog is, without a doubt, Flippa.com. This website is solely designed for selling websites and as such it has a lot of serious buyers with real money to spend on quality websites. There are other places to sell your blog but most of them don’t have the same protection and reputation that Flippa has so what I do is just use them to direct traffic to my Flippa listing. For example, you might want to create a thread on Digital Point Forums about selling your blog but then say that the purchase can only be made over at Flippa.


3. Create a truthful and enticing listing with all the necessities

Your listing must be enticing but it must also be truthful. If you lie on any of your statistics or earnings you will get found out. The guys spending $5k plus on websites know what a cheat looks like and the will, most of the time, take legal action if you mislead them. Make sure you sell your website as much as possible but don’t manipulate any of the facts.


Your listing should:



  • Have a catchy title

    The title is what draws attention to the sale. Make sure it is catchy and sells the benefits of your website. Include things like a high Page Rank, monthly income, large traffic numbers, etc. if they are what is working in your advantage. For example, if you have a lot of RSS subscribers but not much income your title could be something like: Cooking Blog with 5000+ Subscribers, Top Google Rankings, Massive Opportunity. Always take the option to list your sale on the front page of Flippa. It is expensive but worth it.

  • Include screen shots of your data

    You need to include screen shots of your important data items like traffic proof, income proof and so on. You can also go one step further and take screen shots of popular articles and Google rankings. This is not required but it really gets people interested. To take a screen shot on a Mac just do Command-Shift-4 and on a PC just press Print Screen and then Paste it into a blank Paint Canvas. Windows 7 users (well done!) you can just use the Snipping Tool. Make sure you blur out any sensitive information like account numbers and number of click in Adsense.

  • Use dot points to show benefits

    A website listing is just like a blog post – people only skim read. Use dot points and headers to divide your listing in to areas of traffic, revenue, subscribers, etc. You should also make a summary dot point list at the top of the sale showing all the advantages and benefits that the buyer will get when purchasing your site. Focus on benefits, not just features. If you have a number one Google ranking tell them why that is going to benefit their business.


Don’t be stingy on the amount of time you spend writing this listing. All your hard work can be undone by laziness at this stage. Spend some time looking at the other listings that have lots of bids and see what they did with their advert. Make sure you really have a tight, easy to read and enticing listing before you put it up.


4. Price it properly

When I list a price for my website I always put it at slightly higher than what it is worth using the 12 x monthly revenue model. This has the effect of leading your buyers to believe that it is a quality site and getting them to delve deeper to see why it is priced so. I then set the reserve price at the level I am ready to let it go for. What often happens is you get into negotiations with a potential buyer over email and work out a price that suits both parties. If you set your initial price too low than you can’t bargain up, only down. Keep this in mind.


5. Make sure your site is clean and working

Something that a lot of newbie sellers do is forget to tidy up their website before the sale. I even remember visiting one listing and noticing that the site had just been hacked. A very unfortunate bit of timing but you have to make sure it doesn’t happen when you are trying to make a good impression.


Before you post the listing up make sure your links all work, your site is cleanly coded and there are no cross browser design flaws. For example, sometimes people’s sidebars go a little out of shape in IE or Safari. Make sure all of these issues are sorted out before you sell.


6. Accept payment only through Escrow.com for above $5,000 sales

Escrow.com is a website that makes your sale very safe. Why? Because they only release the domain name to the buyer once you have received the money. Here’s how Escrow works.


You open an account and then create a transaction between you and the buyer. You both agree to terms and then the buyer send their money to Escrow’s third party website. You then send the files to the buyer and once they have approved them in the Escrow website they send you the money they have been holding. The idea is that you don’t send them the domain name until you are certain they are going to pay. Escow makes sure of that.


Paypal is a wonderful service but I have heard so many horror stories about people who have transferred their domain and then had the buyer charge back the money. They lost out big time. Quite often you can get your domain back but it is massive hassle I would try to avoid.


7. Check your local tax laws

Before you make that sale ring your accountant and check your local tax laws. In Australia, for example, if you sell an asset after owning it for less than a year you get an rather big tax penalty. Selling a blog after eight months might, in that case, be a bad idea. Make sure you know how much tax you are roughly going to be charged and what category the sale falls under. For example, is it part of your income or is it a capital gain?


Conclusion


If you follow these steps you will, hopefully, have a nice smooth sale of a very valuable website. Once you have done it once the task is then, as I am doing, to build tens or hundreds of them at once. Now that is a nice income! If you ever have any questions about your blog sale or development just drop a comment and I will try to help you out.

Read more at www.blogtyrant.com