flyte blog: small business web marketing blog

Google Chrome & Simon: Separated at Birth?

Decide for yourself.

The Art of Perception

How I see myself:

How others see me:

Rich Brooks
Am I Really That Gray?

Lessons from Vacation

We just got back from a week's vacation here in Maine and didn't see a truly sunny today until today, at which point we had until 10am to clean the house and checkout.

Luckily because of last-minute planning, the only available pickup all week on our boat rental was mid-afternoon today. Got about five prime hours on the pontoon with the family floating in the sun-dappled lake, walking on sandbars, watching the loons dive for lunch, and throwing back a couple of tall PBRs. Amazing how a strong finish can change the entire experience.

Here's a few other plusses to the week:

1. Saved a lot of money on bug spray and suntan lotion.
2. Greatly improved my jigsaw puzzle skills. At this point they're now skillz.
3. Didn't spend nearly as much on gas for the boat as I thought I would.
4. Finally saw "Step Up". Now will add "Step Up 2: The Streets" and "Step Up 3: Son of the Streets" to my Netflix queue.
5. Schooled my four- and six-year-olds in Guess Who? and Littlest Pet Shop Game.

Rich Brooks
Wrinkled

The Woman Who Haunts My Emails

I've gotten more emails with this woman's face than I care to count. (And these are the ones that make it past my two spam filters and junk folder.)

Who is this woman? I mean, this is a real person out there, making the rounds in spam.

If the old superstition is true, that a photograph steals a little of your soul, then this woman is toast.

Rich Brooks
Have You Seen Me?

Williams-Sonoma Packing Job

Today I received a belated Father's Day gift, a great mesh pan for grilling from Williams-Sonoma.

Unfortunately, it came packaged with enough non-recyclable peanuts to completely fill a tall garbage bag. Nuclear waste isn't so well protected. The New England Patriots don't have this much padding.

It's a freakin' mesh pan! Yesterday's newspaper could have protected it as effectively. There's gotta be a better way.

Williams-Sonoma: can't you find a more eco-friendly way to pack your products?

Rich Brooks
Can I Grill Those Peanuts?

Problems Opening Up Word Docs from the Internet Using Firefox

I don't know if other Mac users are having this problem, but recently anytime I download a Word doc from Basecamp, our online project management software, the file would appear on my desktop but it would refuse to open.

If I clicked on the downloaded document with Word open Word would come to the forefront sans document. (Nor would it appear in the Windows menu or the Open Recent menu.) If Word was closed, it would launch, but no file would open.

For those who care, I'm running Mac OS 10.5.3, Firefox 2.0.0.14, and Microsoft Word 12.1.0, part of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.

The Workaround:

If I copy and paste the URL of the word doc into Safari the file downloads to my computer and I can open it just fine. This is starting to happen to others in our company, and I think it's a problem with Firefox, but I'm not positive. The rest of my staff is running Mac OS 10.4.x.

Anyway, I post this in case you've run into the same issue and need a workaround, until this bug gets fixed.

Update: Gloria from our office realized that if you right-click a Word doc from the Internet and "save as" you can open it no problem. Thanks, Gloria!

Rich Brooks
Master of the Workaround

Wind Power and Sustainable, Alternative Energy

Last Friday MEBSR -- Maine Businesses for Social Responsibility -- put on our 15th Annual Sustainable Business Conference. The plan was to take all the audio and handouts and make them available to all of our members as a benefit of membership.

However, after hearing Governor Angus King's eye-opening keynote about alternative energy and the importance of wind power in the mix of energy sources, we (the board) decided that we needed to make the download available to everyone, whether they were members or not.

Given the current price of gas, the state of the economy, and our reliance on energy from people who "don't really like us all that much," I'd argue is essential for everyone--whether you lean left or right--to download this keynote, pop it into your iPod, and give it a listen during your commute or while at the gym. It will open your eyes.

Download the Angus King Keynote Now! MP3, 26.5MB, 57:53.

There's still a lot of great content for member-ears only, such as Peter Vigue's dynamic keynote "Sustainable Business in Maine: The Link to Global Competitiveness", and more coming soon. So, if you're not yet a member of MEBSR, learn more about the benefits of joining.

Rich Brooks
Sustainable Business Owner

State of the Rich (Brooks)

So, today's my 40th birthday. What's weird is it doesn't seem old to me. I remember when 30 seemed really old, but now I have friends in their 50's and they're skiing, snowmobiling, and partying like 20 year-olds. (It just takes us longer to recover now.)

What is it about round numbers that makes one take stock of one's life? I'm not entirely sure, but I do feel that it was an appropriate time to start jotting down some notes.

I apologize in advance for using this space--and your time--to make promises to myself. But who knows, maybe it will jolt some of you into asking new questions and making your own list, whether you're 20 or 60.

My wife asked me a few weeks back what I wanted for my birthday. While there are some "toys" I want, I'm at the point in my life that they're either something I can easily buy for myself (a new video game, a camera) or that are way too expensive (a boat, a vacation home on the water, etc.)

Last weekend my wife threw me a surprise birthday party and got about 60 or 70 of my friends, family and co-workers together at a local pool hall. A few brought gifts. It's interesting to see how your friends view you through the gifts they get you. A quick sampling:

• Three bottles of bourbon (two Knob Creek, one Basil Hayden)
• Two bottles of wine
• A bottle of champaign
• Two graphic novels (aka big comic books)
• An adult sized Spider-Man costume

Hmmm....not sure what this says about me.

Right now I'm most interested in new experiences. Lately I've been playing around with the idea of taking a photography course, or sailing lessons, or learning to rock climb. (My friends, who know that I can spend two hours every night sitting in front of my XBox playing GTA IV are probably laughing right now.)

I've gotten better about trying new things, but this year I'm going to make a concerted effort to doing things that are outside my comfort level (taking a kayak out to our next "boy's" island camping trip as opposed to motor boat) or just something I don't usually do (a play, classical concert, etc.)

Goals for Rich:

• Get a few lessons in with a personal trainer and drop 5 - 10lbs.
• Take a course in something new.
• Spend more time with my daughters: reading, playing, teaching them how to kick boys' ass in video games.
• Learn to cook 6 new dishes (salsa chicken and tuna salad will only take you so far)
• To lead a more sustainable life: more recycling, less buying of crap, healthy food shopping, and less "second dinners" at 11 o'clock at night.
• Have more points of contact with friends and family. This means face-to-face, phone calls, emails, Facebook, etc. Too many months go by between interactions with me and people I truly care about.
• Do something with the 72 hours of home video that's just sitting on digital tapes in my office.
• Reward my wife regularly because she deserves it.

Goals for Flyte:

• Put on four Webinars by year's end.
• Finish the several nearly-completed ebooks and put them up for sale.
• Go to at least two industry conventions I haven't been to in the next 12 months.
  
• Get the company to the point where I can take a paid sabbatical within 3 years. (Yes!)

I'm sure there's more that both I and my company can accomplish this year, but this seems like a good starting point. It will be interesting to check back on this post in 2009 (and 2011) and see how far I've come.

Rich Brooks
40 is the new 25

Problems for Lefties on MacBook Pro Trackpads

I guess I noticed something was odd about my new MacBook Pro's trackpad while I used it over the past couple of days, but most of the time I was using a mouse so I didn't really notice it. I also chalked it up to the trackpad's iPhone like abilities.

However, this morning, as I was pulling out my laptop for a presentation at MEBSR's 15th Annual Sustainable Business Conference I discovered that the button on my trackpad wasn't working. Basically, it was behaving as if it was the 2ndary button on a two-button mouse. To further frustrate the situation, I couldn't manage the trackpad through System Preferences because THAT required a primary button click!

Luckily, I was able to work around using my laptop at the conference, but I was still pissed. After the conference I came back to the office where I had a mouse. I plugged it in and played around. The mouse worked fine, but the trackpad continued to behave like the secondary button on a two-button mouse. I couldn't figure it out.

On a whim, I opened the mouse control panel and switched it back to the righty/default position: left button as primary button Boom! My trackpad behaved correctly.

Now, who's the genius over at Apple who would have the primary button control affect the behavior of a one-button mouse!?! Is there not one lefty on quality assurance in Cupertino? (Please note that on all previous versions of the MacBook Pro changing the primary button on the mouse had no affect on the trackpad button's performance.)

Luckily, thanks to this thread at the Apple Discussion board, I discovered Steermouse, a free application that fixes this bug/feature.

You just need to install Steermouse, restart your Mac, and then open up Steermouse through the System Preferences.

I'm sure Apple will fix this bug in a later release, but if you can't wait--and trust me, you can't--download it now. There's a lot of other features in Steermouse worth checking out, but if you're a lefty like me, it's a life saver.

Rich Brooks
Southpaw

Pre-Vacation Haiku

Cold rain hits my face
Umbrella's out, heads are bowed
Florida beckons.

Rich Brooks
Vacation Minded