Thought and Freedom

Facebook recently expanded to include people outside of the college ecosystem. Now everybody can sign up. This is a good thing for their company. After all, why throw out dedicated customers just because they now have real jobs?

Even though Facebook will allow me to be a member when I graduate from my university (In 3 months!), I do not feel that it is orientated for a professional network. I am sure that one day this will change, but it currently feels like a big party for freshmen college students.

If you wanted to make contacts to get hired in the career of your choice, Facebook would probably not be your first choice, but LinkedIn might.

The Social Networking site is designed with professionalism in mind. Of course that means they don’t have the option to “Poke” your friends, and you don’t have the option to join clubs with names like “If this group grows to 1 Million Members I will move to Uzbekistan.” Instead, it emphasizes work history, and recommendations from people that know you. It is really like a dynamic resume.

One of the major uses of the network is the fact that you can see who your friends know and can request an introduction. This is perhaps one of the best ways to get hired (other than knowing the person yourself).

LinkedIn allows you to search by company name and see if there are any connections between yourself, your friends, and the people who can hire you. It is a unique and excellent idea.

They also have some great tools (much better than AOL’s Plaxo Service) that allow your contacts to stay up to date. There is an Outlook plugin just for this. There are also plugins for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and even for Mac Widgets. I have tested the Firefox plugin and outlook plugin and I am impressed.

Anyway, be sure to check them out and add me to your network when you do!

I was at the Chicago O’Hare airport the other day and our flight was delayed. So I did the thing that any guy with a laptop computer would do. I checked for wireless internet connections.

In fact, there was a wireless connection at the airport, but they charge about five dollars a day to use the internet. However, you could use the internet to check airport information and weather for free.

I thought that it was very convenient to do so. I believe that more places should use targeted internet.

Already, most places that have wireless will first direct you to a specific page for you to sign an agreement  (by clicking on a button).

Why not set up wireless connections in retail establishments that simply direct visitors to only the store’s web information. It could give product descriptions, special deals, maps of the store, order pages, etc.

The visitors could access these pages through a wireless device such as a PDA.

Anyway, just an idea that I had.

Microsoft is currently giving away Microsoft accounting 2007 express edition for the low price of FREE! I was surprised when I saw this.

I am sure that they are looking to corner the Accounting market and perhaps steal some thunder from Intuit Quickbooks. A few years ago, Microsoft attempted a purchase of Quickbooks, but failed due to monopoly problems.

Anyway, check out the offer while it is still available. It looks like it could be a good software package.

I was recently asked to help build a website for my church in Minneota. I think that a church website is an excellent idea, and dove into the project as soon as the semester was over.

Having little information about what is needed for a project, can sometimes be difficult for the developer. He feels the need to do a good job on a project, but does not know which direction to take to meet the unsaid expectations.

So it is always good to plan then produce a prototype before diving into the real project. My planning began with a few simple ideas. I thought about the users of this website, what they would be able to use, and which tools would be possible to implement on a limited budget.

Because they probably could not spend large amounts of money on hosting, I figured I would have two options:

1. Build an HTML based website that would be quick, easy, and cheap to implement, but would require knowledge of HTML to update.
2. Use an open source LAMP based content management system. It would be slightly more difficult and time consuming to update, but it would be cheap and would not require the users to master HTML before modifying the pages.

I chose the second option. With the right content management system, the site could provide more than just basic information about Bethel Fellowship. It could provide tools to make the church better organized and provide a method for collaboration among members on various projects.

I looked at several content management systems (and used some experience from the past) to pick the perfect system. I looked for systems that had the modules or add-ons that I needed, and that looked like they had good templates for use. I also observed the learning curves for the average user.

I ultimately chose Xoops. To be honest, Drupal was a close second. It was a tough choice. If it had been my own site, Drupal would have been on the top of the list, but the interface in Drupal is difficult for new users to understand. So even though Xoops is less customizable, and contains less free add-ons, it met the needs of the organization (especially the easy to use environment), and I decided to go with it.

I built a prototype site on my own server, and provided a link to the people who made the decisions. We discussed through email, various changes, made updates, and then decided to move to the next step.

Next, I needed to find a hosting provider. Fortunately, I had done my homework when I setup my dad’s two sites, MikePearson.org and CriticalMove.info. I had found that 1and1.com provides reliable hosting for a really good price and therefore, was able to conclude quickly that this was still the best option.

Last night, I finally received the user name from 1and1, and began building the site. It went rather fast (since I had just built the site a few days earlier on my own server). A lot of time was simply uploading the files. Today, Bethel Fellowship’s site is up and running, and it looks pretty good. When I have some more time this week, I will be adding more to the site.

You can check out the progress at BethelFellowshipChurch.com.

If you spend time out of every day writing on your blog, you might agree that you should at least be paid for it.

Blogs have become the “new media.” They provide us with news and information faster than the newspapers and television, and give us all the ability to interact with the news stories.

Since blogs provide us with so much, why not use them for shopping and making money as well?

I recently came across an excellent way to make some money from your blog while providing your visitors with some great deals. It is through a company called Chitika eMiniMalls.

They give website owners the opportunity to post a small ad on their site for a product line of their choice. The ad rotates each time someone visits the site providing a different product.

If you get a chance, be sure to click on the links above to sign up for the program. It is free, and you get paid through Paypal (or by check).

By the way, if you have WordPress. After signing up, use the Chitika WordPress Widget for even better results.

Today, I finished a report for one of my classes. The assignment was to provide report on a financial topic. I chose to demonstrate how a potential employee might choose to evaluate a possible employer. For my case study, I chose one of my favorite companies, Lawson Software. Below is the report in its entirety.

The Analysis of financial statements is usually thought of as a task done by investors and financial planners. These are not the only entities that should consider a financial analysis of a company. It is important for a potential employee to know the details of the financial status and history of a prospective employer.

This analysis can provide a person with knowledge about the company that they would not receive from an interview or simple review of the company website. With such a tool, one can analyze the company’s goals, their ability to promote employees, and the overall stability of the company’s employment situation. The following is one such analysis using the St. Paul based Lawson Software as an example.

History

Lawson Software (Nasdaq: LWSN) was founded in 1975 by Richard and Bill Lawson, and colleague John Cerullo, with the mission to “provide the best business applications to customers by taking full advantage of the latest technologies.” …

To read the entire paper, click here.

terrypearsonc-20%26lcode=xm2%26cID=2025%26ccmID=165953%26location=/o/ASIN/0448157047%253FSubscriptionId=0EMV44A9A5YT1RVDGZ82″>It appears that of all the stores that had great deals this Thanksgiving Weekend, Office Max had the best deals.

I went to Office Max late in the day on Friday, and all (or at least the ones I saw) were still available.

I especially liked the fact that there were NO MAIL IN REBATES this year! That made it the most customer friendly experience I have ever had at Office Max. The workers were all helpful, and I found every deal that I wanted.

Today (Saturday), I also went to Office Max, and they still had a lot of the products available.

It was great to see that Office Max has taken the lead on making customer friendly service possible in a technology store. Who knew you could get great deals without rebates!

One thing I have always liked about Texas is their humorous approach to getting people to obey their laws.

Their “Don’t mess with Texas!” road signs are world famous. If you have ever traveled through the state, you know exactly what I mean. (Other famous signs in Texas include the What-A-Burger signs, and the “Natural Bridge Caverns” advertisments)

Speaking of not making a mess over Texas, NASA has changed their policy on space junk. The Space Administration has become increasingly worried about the large amount of debris in the path of the International Space Station, and has therefore made a change to their garbage disposal policies.

NASA has decided to encourage astronauts to send their garbage back to earth. This makes sense, since it will simply burn up on it’s way down.

We on earth will never get to see what sort of space junk is found near the space station, but there are reports of putty knives, gloves, etc. If that is not strange enough, a Russian Cosmonaut will soon take place in a Golf Ball Company promotion in which he will launch the world’s longest golf shot from outside the space station. The ball will stay in orbit for between 3 days and 3 years.

I have to admit, it is a brilliant marketing plan. They even got me to blog about it!

Microsoft has announced the creation of a MySpace-Like site just for the IT community. It is called Aggreg8.net.
From the front page:

Aggreg8 is a social networking and collaboration space for the IT community.  Inside you can keep track of your trusted network, find others through your network with similar interests or situations.  Then you can collaborate with anyone in the community inside our working groups.  …  So come on in and build your influence in IT!  To the MVP’s we offer a warm welcome for helping us to build the best community possible.

It might be cool to check out. I think I will sign up for an account tonight and see what it is all about.

If you have the desire to see who visits your website, and how much, Google Analytics is for you.

If you wish to have free professional analysis of search engine terms that point to your website, Google Analytics is for you.

If you wish to see charts, make goals, integrate with adsense, etc., Google Analytics is for you.

Google has made this tremendous project free to everyone. The do have a slight ulterior motive. Google wants individuals to use this tool to help track adsense and optimize their sites for the Google Adsense ads.

But, Google being the mostly awesome company that they are has provided this tool to everyone. Even if you never would think of posting ads on your site, Google will still let you use the tool for free.

Today, I made the decision to create a Google Analytics account and begin tracking stats on my site.

One of the first things I did was to first read a good review on Google Analytics. I then went to Google Analytics Website and signed up for an account. I am so far, very impressed by the interface and the tools.

I also found a WordPress plugin for Analytics. While it was fine to hardcode the Analytics Javascript tracker (formerly known as Google Urchin), it is much easier to have a somewhat graphically based interface for the tracker.