Your Personal Geek

How to make free conference calls

strom — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:23:51 +0000

Do you need to make conference calls but don’t want to spend a lot of money? When it comes time to make calls that involve three or more people, there are several different ways you can do it. You can use your cell phone if you just want to connect to two other parties, Skype (for up to five parties) or you can try out one of these absolutely free conferencing service providers:

http://www.freeconference.com
http://www.freeconferencecall.com
http://www.freeconferencecalling.com (used to be Basement Ventures and also allows you to record calls)
http://www.freeaudioconferencing.com

Listen to my podcast here for the details and the differences among these providers.

How to combine Google email and WordPress hosting

strom — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:11:49 +0000

If you want to become master of your own domain, you can use Google’s free hosting service for your email and WordPress’ nearly free blogging service. But getting them all to work is a bit tricky. In this screencast, I show you how to put it all together.

How to start your own mailing list

strom — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:59:10 +0000

Here is how to become an Internet publisher on less than $75 a year using your own domain name and the Mailman hosting provider EMWD.com. This screencast video shows you the five simple steps that you need to set things up.

more about “How to start your own mailing list“, posted with vodpod

How to choose the right email list server provider

strom — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:25:13 +0000

]In my latest short how-to video, I show you how to choose among Google Groups, Mailman hosted by EMWD.com, and iContact, and the basics behind setting up your own list server.

Screencast video CDs for sale

strom — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:41:27 +0000

After much work, I have put together a video CD that I will send you for $20.
This CD contains a series of short video tutorials that will show you how to take control over some basic tasks, recommend free or low-cost things that you can do to help promote your company online and become more productive.

Pay via paypal here.

The lessons follow two themes: why a particular set of technologies is important to your business, and how to actually get started and use the stuff. We all come from different places and different levels of experience and comfort with new technologies, and you may find that some of these lessons are more elementary or more complex than your needs. Not to worry: you can skip around as you wish, or rewind if you need to have something repeated. You can always return to the main CD menu and play something over again, and the little slider control can be adjusted while you watch if you want to repeat something over again.

The CD was assembled with Camtasia, which allows me to record a narrative as I demonstrate what you need to do to use the various technologies and Web sites that I mention. Here is a brief lesson plan:

And a sample lesson can be found above.

Lesson #1. Why domain names matter
Lesson #2 How to register your domain
Lesson #3 – Why blogs are important to your brand
Lesson #4 Setting up your first blog
Lesson #5 Different email strategies
Lesson #6 Where to host your email domain
Lesson #7 What are your alternatives for sending large files
Lesson #8 How to send large files
Lesson# 9 Why emailing lists are important
Lesson #10 How to use Yahoo Groups
Lesson #11 Why Internet fax
Lesson #12 Using eFax
Lesson #13 Why Internet phone
Lesson #Using Vonage
Lesson #15 Why use social networks
Lesson #16 — Using LinkedIn
Lesson #17 Using ezineArticles.com
Lesson #18 Using Facebook

Making your Web site more secure

strom — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:07:10 +0000

Allow me to show you how to hack into your own Web site. You don’t need any specialized tools or skills, and it just takes a couple of minutes.

Hacking is usually a pretty arcane thing, but when all you need is a Web browser and the ability to enter the appropriate search syntax to Google, it is chillingly easy to do.

The payoffs could be huge: an intruder could easily obtain a copy of your most sensitive data in about the time it takes to listen to this podcast.

Here are some references to helpful sites:

How to send large files

strom — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 16:25:13 +0000

Have you ever tried to send a large file as an email attachment?

Sending email attachments of any size these days is a big issue. There is the whole virus thing — because many viruses are transmitted as email attachments, and most people delete attachments from unknown senders — or they should. Also, many people use email services that limit the size of their inbox.

Luckily, there are plenty of services that can send large files for free or for fairly low fees.

Listen to my podcast, and here are their names and the basic details.

Leapfile.com (up to 1 GB for $18/mo)
YouSendIt.com (up to 100 MB for free)
DropLoad.com (up to 100 MB for free)
DropSend.com (up to 250 MB free, other plans for a fee for bigger files and encryption)
SendThisFile.com (up to 200 MB for $3/mo, encryption)
MediaMax.com (up to 25 MB for free)

How can I use Outlook to get my Yahoo emails?

strom — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 12:09:39 +0000

One of my readers has a Yahoo email address and writes: I want to have a professional e-mail system for my personal life and use outlook on my own computer (not to be confused with my employer’s computer). What would you recommend?

In this podcast, I talk about the various options available. Here are links to the resources mentioned:

Finding the best broadband service

strom — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 11:16:39 +0000

Are you confused about which broadband networking provider is best for your situation? There are three basic choices you have when you want to get into the Internet fast lane: cable modems, digital subscriber line or DSL, and satellite. I have used all of them over the years and they all have plusses and minuses.

On this podcast, I tell you how to pick the best service for your needs.

Here are some links to resources that I mention on the podcast:

A good place to check out local deals on broadband service is Amazon’s Broadband page
DSL reports, a great site with tools, user comments about particular service providers and more
Earthlink DSL
HughesNet service

Bringing your PC back from the dead

strom — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 10:48:22 +0000

If you are using Windows, you probably need to reinstall your operating system every so often. I find that Windows gets gunked up after a year or so of heavy use. In this podcast, we’ll talk about what is called creating an image on your computer. No, this isn’t an episode about digital photography, but how to make a true digital copy of your hard disk using software like Symantec’s Norton Ghost. If your PC has been infected with a virus and is really messed up, this is a way to bring it back to life.

Listen to the podcast here.

And here are links to Norton Ghost and some free disk imaging utiltiies.