Knowledge Log

It seems that many of the books I’ve read about marketing in the modern day have the same theme. Advertising to the mainstream is an easy way to get rid of your cash with minimal response rates. It makes perfect sense if you think about it.

Commercials

What does everyone do once there is a commercial break when watching your favorite television show? You change the channel. What do most people hate the most on the radio? Commercials. You can’t do anything without being hit with some sort of advertising. Hell, this blog right now has adsense on it.

The Solution

I think the absolute best way to market is through your customers. I believe that if you can get people to talk about your product or service, that’s most of your marketing right there. When a friend recommends something, you defintely take it into deep consideration versus what a commercial tells you. Your friends influence you where to eat, what computer to buy and even what movie you’re going to watch.

If you have a solid product/service and people will recommend it, you’re good.

Today in the mail I recieved some non-sense from fidelity about my 401k. I was puzzled at first but it seems my job automatically enrolls you for 401k. It’s great that they did because it motivates me to contribute more to it and also forces me to learn about it. I’ll be completely honest, I don’t really know much about 401ks.

First things first, I had to get my login information for fidelity and after that it was just exploring. I learned that my employer matches 50% of my contributions, so in a way it’s free money. Though it’s sort of scary to think that this isn’t a totally secure retirement plan, but it’s a start.

Some Useful Links
8 Tips for Understanding 401(k)s
401k Tips
Maximizing 401(k) Matching

I’ve learned that productivity is increased when you keep your inbox empty. No, don’t delete anything but put everything in folders so you can easily get back to them. It’s even better if you’re a gmail user, you can slap labels on things and archieve. If it’s important, give it a yellow star.

I don’t think anything can touch gmail’s usability.

I found myself in a position where I had to finish helping a customer, they were not pleased because of an issue that had risen prior to me helping them. Though it wasn’t my fault at all, but I apologized anyway. I aligned myself with the customer and apologized even though I had nothing to do with it.

Before he left he said something to me like, “I try to stay positive, I fought heart disease and cancer in the same year.” It really put things into prospective and brought new light into my life. I spent most of my teenage years almost to the point of self destruction because of negativity and pessimism.

Always look in the good of a situation.

When using iTunes I’ve only used it to listen to music and put hot jams onto my iPod. Finally, I began messing with podcasts and they are actually a great resource for FREE information. I’m currently subscribed to two podcasts. The first is just an audio podcast about linux tips and tutorials. The second one is a video podcast which gives tips for Mac OS from a Mac Genius.

The great thing is, everytime there is a new episode, iTunes magically knows and it starts downloading the new episode. Free information is the best.

“The biggest obstacle to wealth is fear. People are afraid to think big, but if you think small, you’ll only achieve small things.”

http://www.rd.com/advice-and-know-how/secrets-of-successful-entrepreneurs/article50301.html

A great thing about Safari is it’s magical orange back icon. What exactly does it do? Well lets say you’re searching google for a ringtone maker. You pick the first result you think will be what you’re looking for. You start clicking around and then you find out it isn’t what you wanted. You can either hit back a bunch of times, or just go to google.com in your address bar and type in ringtone again. 

Nah, I’ll just click the magical orange button that will take me back to my Google results for Ringtone Maker. Got to love innovative features like this.
 

I just started using adsense not too long ago. There is nothing cooler than checking your account at the late night hours to see a couple of bucks from clicks. I read somewhere that it’s pretty much a waste of time to check frequently. Checking your website stats/earnings once a day will suffice.

I learned that checking your adsense every hour will not increase your click amounts and that google analytics isn’t in real time. I check my adsense at night and analytics in the morning.

With the rising of gas prices, it seems that these gas companies own my wallet. That being said, I need to save money where ever I can. At this point in my life, being in my early 20s, my mother doesn’t really cook dinner for me. So what are my options? Cook for myself or go out to eat.

Economics

It is much more economical to go to your local grocery shop and buy something to cook up. If you have a significant other, why not cook for them? It’s cheaper, will taste good and is fun if you do it together. You can buy all your ingredients for half of the bill required at a decent restaurant.

Creativity - No Skill Required

Instant mash potatoes aren’t that bad, in fact I think they’re good. Frozen corn? I’m all about it. Rice-a-roni and Lipton instant noodles, got to love it. These are things I always pick up whenever I’m grocery shopping because they can be used in any meal. Just follow the directions, simple as that.

I’m big on seasoning, so I always put season salt and pepper on everything. It makes a difference.

Can’t beat a home cooked meal, even if it’s semi home cooked.

Whenever I’m in productivity mode, I like to do anything I can to be more efficient. One of the ways to improve efficiency is to do things quicker. In Firefox it’s common for me to have 5-8 tabs open up at a time. There are times I’m switching back and forth between two windows, so instead of clicking all over the place, I move the two windows next to each other.

If I have twitter between both of my Knowledge Log tabs, it’ll take an extra second to click between the windows.

Moving Firefox Tabs

It’s easy to move tabs, just click on a tab and hold down left click and drag to the location you want the the tab to move. A purple arrow mark where the tab will be relocated.

You can also CTRL + TAB to tab through the tabs.