It's Not Me, It's You: Find Out if Your Web Service is Down

Jun 13, 2010 lackerman No Comments

There’s not much more annoying than trying to log into Gmail or check out a friend’s Facbook profile and getting an error message. “Is it me? Is it my computer? My modem? Do I need to re-boot?”. The next time that happens, save yourself that frusrtation as well as the agonizing minutes it takes to re-start up your computer by heading straight to http://downrightnow.com/. downrightnow monitors the status of your favorite web services, combining user reports and official announcements to tell you when there’s service trouble so that you know for certain what’s going on. You can also file a….

How Well Do You Know Your Bytes? Petabyte, Exabyte, Zettabyte and Yottabyte, YO!

Jun 12, 2010 genevangelist No Comments

We all know the “byte”, were just introduced to a “nibble” on a previous post by Sue Malomo, talk about “terabytes”, and refer to the Geek Girl logo sometimes as “Giga” for “Giga Byte”. But how well do you know your other bytes? According to Wikipedia, a yottabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one septillion bytes (one quadrillion gigabytes). As of 2010, no system has yet achieved one yottabyte of storage. In fact, the combined space of all the computer hard drives in the entire world does not amount to even one yottabyte. As of 2009 the entire internet was estimated to contain close to 500….

Let's Get Visible: Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile with Anchor Text

Jun 11, 2010 genevangelist No Comments

Do you have a LinkedIn profile? Are you still not impressed with it? Chances are you are not maximizing and optimizing it for what it’s worth, especially with specific links and anchor text. Here’s how to improve your profile for optimization. On your profile, you have links for your website(s) and blogs. If the anchor text still says, “My Company” and “My Blog”, you are obviously missing out on some great search data for Google and other search engines. Try this instead. Look at the image to the left where the red circle is (click on the image for a….

Come to the Mass Conference for Women! Early Registration Ends June 13th

Jun 10, 2010 genevangelist No Comments

Geek Girl Camp is a partner with the Mass Conference for Women all year round, but especially with their incredible conference attended yearly by over 5,000 women, being held this year on December 9th. Look at who the speakers are so far, and see who came last year! SPEAKERS If you are interested in going, the Early Registration discounts end Sunday, June 13. Remember to REGISTER NOW for the best price for the 6th annual Massachusetts Conference for Women, December 9 in Boston. Early registration prices are $125 per person, $1250 per table and just $65 for students. Wicked good price!….

Cut, Copy and Paste on your Motorola Droid

Jun 10, 2010 genevangelist No Comments

In our quest for equal opportunity tips for the Daily TechByte, here is a Motorola Droid one! You can cut or copy and paste text on your Motorola Droid by pressing and holding the text field you want and then selecting “Copy All” or “Cut All”. Go to the text field where you want to paste it, press and hold and select “Paste”. If you want to just select a single word, just double-tap. (Not to be confused with Rule 4, “Double Tap” from ZombieLand…)

And now, CAPs Lock for the Blackberry

Jun 9, 2010 genevangelist No Comments

As soon as I posted the iPhone CAPs Lock TechByte, the first question was, “how do I do the same thing with my Blackberry?” Here we go. To Lock the Number Pad, simply press and hold the ALT key while pressing on the numbers. Press the CAPs key to the Left of the SPACE bar once. You will see an icon in the top right of the screen, and you can type multiple numbers. And, Lock the Keyboard, just press and hold the ALT key. Press the CAPs key to the right of the SPACE bar once. You will see….

Get the most relevant Google search results

Jun 8, 2010 lackerman No Comments

Put double quotes (“) around the words you’re looking for to get search results that keep those words together and in that specific order. Use the minus sign (-) to exclude specific words that you don’t care about. Some examples: “copy and paste iPhone” makes sure that I get this helpful link, http://bit.ly/92n29b. Searching copy and paste iPhone -flaw makes sure that I get to this without having to sift through a bunch of posts complaining about the feature, like http://bit.ly/cxQwox .

Copy and Paste text on your iPhone

Jun 7, 2010 lackerman No Comments

To cut, copy and paste text from a text message or email you’ve written on your iPhone, double tab the text you want to cut or copy and select the option that will appear in a bubble right above it. Go to the new email or text you are composing, double tap on the area you write in and select paste from the bubble that appears there. You can do this for texts you’ve written OR received, but only from emails you’ve written (but obviously you can forward emails sent by other people have sent to you).

There IS a Caps Lock on Your iPhone – Just Don't Go Crazy With It…

Jun 4, 2010 genevangelist 1 Comment

Yes, we realize CAPS LOCK sounds like you are yelling at someone. But sometimes you need Caps Lock enabled for many things. The iPhone does have a caps lock mode built in, but it’s disabled by default. To enable it, go to Settings > General > Keyboard and turn on “Enable Caps Lock.” Now whenever you need to type in all CAPS, simply double-tap the shift key to engage caps lock. But, be kind to your sensitive geeky friends and not overuse it!

Quickbooks 101: Picking an Accounting Method

Jun 2, 2010 meghanvalero 4 Comments

5 things you need to understand before you set up your QuickBooks but that Intuit doesn’t put on the box under “Read and Understand Before Opening”:

Using Creative Commons to add media to your blog

Jun 2, 2010 writingroads No Comments

One of my readers once wrote, “I’m starting to think you find these amazing images and then write your posts around them—they’re so perfect!” Nope, that’s not how I do it, but the images are really something. I use a tool called Creative Commons. In their own words: Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright. We provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can….

Too Good (or Weird) to Be True? It Probably Is.

Jun 1, 2010 surfwebdev No Comments

We’ve all received those emails: the ones promising everyone who forwards the email a share in the profits when Bill Gates rewards you for helping him test email tracking software. Or the infamous Nigerian bank transfers. Some are very obviously fake or spam, but others can be tricky. Make it a rule to always check your facts before you follow directions in an email or forward it to your entire address book. A quick Google search will let you know if it’s true or not. Receive an email from a friend claiming to be stuck in a foreign country and….

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