Video

A giant thank you to @roddee for this wonderful and tasty treat!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Happy Customers Equal Chocolate Appreciation

I just love getting chocolate and goodies from people who appreciate how I go about helping them with technology! I’ve been receiving gifts since 2004. Before that, it was letters of praise from customers. It certainly encourages me to do my best every time I work with a client and posting these to my blog is a nice way to say, “thank you” back.

Websites, Worms and Wireless

I met Roddee on Twitter. He saw me on the Rachel Maddow show and we quickly became Twitter pals. He was always sending people my way for help. Well, one day, Roddee needed help.

I helped Roddee setup a WordPress website for his aquarium maintenance business (Aquarium Pros MN) and trained him how to use it. We spent time discussing content strategy and SEO. He has now changed his Wordrpess theme and is doing an amazing job at posting relevant content with beautiful images that will draw new, potential customers to his site!

Roddee also needed computer help. He ordered a router and I set it up remotely. I recommend the Linksys WRT54GL and that’s what he got along with a wireless PCI card for his computer. The last step was setting up his wireless network so it was secure. I generated a very long password from GRC’s password page and setup WPA2 security on the router.

Before I was able to help him with the router, Roddee got a nasty virus/spyware infection. As he was asking me about deleting files in Safe Mode, I simply said, “Have you ever successfully removed a virus or spyware infection from a computer before?”. He said no and I told him he should not do this himself. I was heading to New York for Wordcamp NYC so I couldn’t work on it but I did direct him to the nice, honest folks at General Nanosystems. While they did remove the virus, they didn’t help Roddee backup his Thunderbird email so he lost that. But, now he’s using Gmail more. Yay!

I mention Zendesk in the video because they support good customer service. Not only did I start using their software a year ago to better serve my own clients, I now work for them spreading their message of technical zen. I run the weekly webinars to show new folks how they can make customers happy with snappy support!

This is just an average day in the life of Adria Richards, Organic Technology Consultant where I help solve a variety of technology problems, providing hope at the end of a dark tunnel.

Rod, thanks so much for such a great treat! Hashtag, #willtech4chocolate should be used generously on Twitter to solicit tech support in exchange for chocolate!

Here’s Chocolat Celeste’s site where you can pick up your own tasty chocolate truffles, bon bons and assorted chocolate confections! #nomnomnom!

Dear Chocolat Celeste, please add a “legend” so I can tell which bon bons are which based on their design.

I’ve been drooling over this battery charger for almost a year.  This charger will rock your tech world  because it shows the health of the battery so you don’t waste time charging up duds.  Take your old batteries in for recycling.  I’m all about saving the earth and rechargeable batteries are the way to go!

Thank you to Jacque for sending me this from my Amazon wishlist for jailbreaking and unlocking her iPhone onto T-mobile!

Contents

The La Crosse Technology BC-9009 AlphaPower Battery Charger comes with:

• Charger unit
• Carrying case
• Set of 4 AA batteries
• Set of 4 AAA batteries
• Set of 4 C battery adapters
• Set of 4 D battery adapters
• Power cord

[ad#googleadsensepost]

Battery modes

Charge

8 seconds after placing batteries, charging automatically beings at 200mA, or select 500, 700, 1000, 1500 or 1800 mA settings for faster charging times

Discharge

Reduce memory effect in rechargeable batteries by discharging completely then recharging to full capacity in one cycle.  User selectable mA.

Refresh

Batteries will be discharged and recharged 20 cycles or until batteries are refreshed to maximum capacity.  user selectable mA.

Test

Batteries are charged to full capacity, discharged completely to measure capacity for dispaly on mAh or Ah, then recharged to full capacity.

What I Doing With It

I’m  testing the “refresh” mode on two older batteries I have and will see if I am able to extend the life of my existing batteries.

Summary

This battery charger rocks!

Questions I still have

Do “fast chargers” affect the life of the battery?

Jacque (@jacquebona), one of my clients, graciously sent me a box of delicious Godiva chocolate cookies from my Amazon wishlist!  Nom, Nom, Nom.

Thanks Jacque!

These delicious treats consist of a dark, smooth pat of chocolate stamped with the Godiva logo carefully placed on top of a heart shaped butter cookies.

To bite into one of these cookies is like leaning back on the beach into your chair after a nice swim.

The chocolate is softer than a chocolate bar and the cookie part has a good crunch to it.  You bit into the same amount of chocolate as cookie so that’s a nice balance.

I found the dark chocolate to be flavorful and had that lovely, sharp taste of good cocoa beans!

You get 12 cookies in a box so if you’re looking to treat yourself (or your favorite IT person), this is a great item to pick up!

Godiva Biscuits at Amazon

Amazon has been shipping all the chocolate in a Styrofoam cooler so there was no melting.  Sorry environment and Mother Earth!  Is there a waterproof alternative to Styrofoam?

Chocolate Covered Cherries Arrive Special Delivery!

While doing research for a SXSW panel submission (more down below on that), I saw a character buying a box of chocolate covered cherries.  She looked to be enjoying them, A LOT!  This got me thinking about how long it had been since I’d tasted the sweet, creamy, delicate texture of cherries wrapped in a cream center and encased in rich milk chocolate.  So I tweeted it!

This started a dicussion online about how good chocolate covered cherries were and I linked up to some on Amazon for @kimberlyoh and @missashe who both expressed their love of chocolate covered cherries.


And then I took a big step and told Twitter what I wanted!  I had been hiding my Amazon wishlist after a few folks had bought me things…feeling sorta embarrassed I guess.  I decided success did not walk with modesty so I added back my wishlist to my blog as a page and put it on my About page too!

Thank You @wr3n For The Chocolate Covered Cherries!

I’d like to give a special shout out to @wr3n for picking up some delicious, mouth watering chocolate covered cherries from my Amazon Wishlist!  They arrived special delivery to my door, packing in ice! How awesome is that?

Research for SXSW Leads to Inspiration

Last week, I was watching a string of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” shows on Netflix for inspiration.  I submitted a panel topic for the 2010 SXSW conference on how Sci-Fi has shaped our interent experience and what better way to pitch this then by going old school!  Hitchcock’s series started in 1955 and I found it funny how he would make jokes about the sponsors.  As the show moved on, he mentioned the sponsors less so that has inspired me to do an upcoming series of pitches to some of my favorite companies on the web like Timebridge, Zendesk, Eventbrite, Harvest, Techsmith, Mozy and Moo on how I can connect with them to promote their awesome products.

I have keep a low profile on the internet for many reasons but mainly because I’ve never felt comfortable interacting with a bunch of people.  That’s been changing for me in the last 3 years in ways I cannot describe except to say I see people in a whole new way and really enjoy connecting with them!  This is why I love Twitter.  Staying under the radar hasn’t been easy since the whole you-know-what thing happened.  I was reading Chris Brogan’s post about how to get public speaking gigs and he mentioned “social proof”.  I devoured the entire Wikipedia article and understood that I’ve been learning to use Twitter the way someone learns to play a game without knowing the rules. This could be viewed as a bad thing but for me, it’s a breakthrough since I’m learning to pick up on people’s behaviours. 

I realize that people want to know what I’m interested in, what makes me happy and are looking for ways to connect with me.  If this post isn’t your cup of tea, I apologize.  After seeing Amy Stephen Tweet about the palm sized 3M projector, simply saying, “want”, I decided I must share my desire for this amazingly cute, awesome, roxor shirt I saw today on ThinkGeek.  It features two My Little Pony characters who have Super Nintendo controller buttons on their butts instead of the usual butterflies, ice cream cones and flowers:

I Want This

From the ThinkGeek Website

OMG Pwnies!!!!

There’s only one gift that would make every little gamer girl’s dreams come true: pwnies. Pwnies are just like real ponies except with less mucking out stalls and more fragging of the enemy. What could be better than having your own pwnies to play with? You could braid their manes, feed them apples, equip them with rocket-propelled grenade launchers…. There’s no end to the fun you can have with your little pwnies.^*

Two prancing controller-ponies with the phrase “OMG Pwnies!” printed in tan, grey, and red glitter on a black cotton babydoll shirt.

*No pwnies were harmed in the making of this shirt. However, the red glitter is genuine unicorn blood. Sorry about that.

I put it on my Amazon Wishlist which now supports “Universal” adds from any website.

With This T-Shirt I Do Deliver

If you pick this up for me through my Amazon Wishlist, I will thank you (or your business) for an entire week on my daily lifestream, AskAdria.com.  You will also be listed on my blog, ButYoureAGirl.com on the bottom right where I thank people who buy things from the wishlist.  Hey, if Jason Sadler can sell t-shirt days and sit on his couch for his ustream.tv shows, I’m going to say I would really, really, really like to own this shirt.

The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest

NPR is interviewing Dan Buettner this morning.

Dan Buettner’s Tips To Enjoy a Long and Healthy Life

Move naturally
exercise

Downshift
yoga, prayer

Know your sense of purpose

Forget diets
veggie, moderation

How you connect
family, religion, who you hang out with

How I Plan To Reach 120 Years

Reduce Stress
I’ve made changes in who/how/why I work and live to put myself first.  I catchup with previous co-workers and can’t believe the BS we put up with crazy bosses, overtime, angry customers and kicking dead horses.  It’s also a drag to come home from work and step into another stress inducing situation.  Evaluate each relationship in your life and ask yourself: Is this relationship adding or subtracting from my life?

Have a Life Purpose
Dan talks about people waking up for more than just work.  Ever been around someone and felt as if they were radiating energy?  That person has a life purpose.  Everyday I focus on truly and deeply connecting with people.  I seek volunteer opportunities, pray and write down my goals so I know where I’m going.

Eat Less and Higher Quality Food
There is a study which tested if reducing calories was an effective method of increasing longevity.   This dietary schedule, known as calorie restriction, increased the lifespan of rodents by as much 50%.  I keep this in mind so I chew my food more and focus on taste, texture and quality.  Most food I eat now, I cook myself.  Most of my groceries are organic.  Now, I still scarf down pizza and BBQ ribs with soda pop but I no longer live on take out and frozen foods.

Common Things Seen Among Centurions

• Having a Sense of Purpose
• Eating Vegetables Daily, Meat Less Often
• Having Daughters

Challenges to Longevity

• Toxins
• Accidents

A friend of mine just recommended this book Outliers: The Story of Success – Malcolm Gladwell $16.79

Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots’ culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math.

I personally love it when people compile research to establish statistical “proof” that life is more than a series of unrelated events. My friend mentioned Outliers because he says I remind him of the book’s subjects. It is true that I wonder what my life would be like without computers. If I didn’t have such a passion to learn, know, test and try things out.

How I Got My Start In Computer Technology

I often think back to my early beginnings on the computer. There was no one in my life telling me “girls don’t work on computers” so I was able to move forward with my curiosity. My mother got me signed up as a Windows 98 beta tester. Now I have no idea how she heard about the program or why she even thought I would be interested. This was 1997. I has just graduated high school and was taking psychology classes at MCTC. I had taken the very painful “Computers 101″ which, as I remember was confusing, strange, hard to understand and abstract. Anyway, she had me fill out some form and then I got some letter in the mail from Microsoft saying I had been accepted. The first thing Microsoft needed me to do was ensure my computer met the “minimum system requirements”…and so began my love affair with technology.

I had a really, really, really old computer. An employer’s wife had the computer from her old job site and they had given it to me. It was an NCR SCSI based model from 1992. So first things first, I read the Microsoft letter and saw:

Hard Drive – this size is the minimum
CD-Rom speed – this is the minimum

Alright, I better make sure I have those. Mmm, how do I tell if this computer has those? I started my search at the local library and came up empty handed. I bought my very first computer book (Upgrading and Repairing PC’s, 8th Edition) and started calling NCR for computer support. I would call them and tell them my final goal (computer needed this size drive and this speed CD-rom), where I was at right now and they would tell me my next step. They had me editing lines of the autoexec.bat. I would carefully write down their instructions, get off the phone, make the changes, test the changes and then call them back to report the new status. Sometime during this process I realized, “Hey! This is really fun and logical!”. They directed me to get a new hard drive.

So being a broke college student, I headed over to the used computer store that used to be on Bryant and Lake Street near the Bryant Lake Bowl. I picked up a SCSI hard drive that couldn’t of been more than 8GB. As I was paying for it, the manager asked, “Hey, do you like computers? Do you want a job?”. I jumped at the chance because this looked like a great opportunity to learn about computers and get hands on experience.

I was able to get my “new” hard drive installed and successfully set the SCSI ID to a non conflicting number. I kept having trouble with the CD-Rom drive so this is where working at a computer store came in handy. I was able to get help from the on-site tech and put my paychecks towards a new computer. I participated in the beta, submitted bug reports and received a shiny final version of Windows 98.

That’s how my tech career got started.

Interestingly enough, it turned out to be a good thing that I had just one computer book. I would read chapters, think about what I’d read, go back and re-read it, cross reference item in the index and even had some “computer solution” dreams. Techies and programmers know what I mean…you work out the problems in a semi wakeful state.

So, going on Malcolm Gladwell’s theory that successful people end up that way through a set of events:

Challenging our cherished belief of the “self-made man,” he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don’t arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: “they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.”

I am curious as to:

• Why my mom thought I would be interested in computers and Microsoft
• Why I didn’t give up when I encountered obstacles
• Why the manager offered me a job
• Why I completed the Microsoft beta testing
• Why I even thought I would be able to complete this series of tasks

Maybe it was the lack of fear. Not concerning myself with doubt and reasons why I would fail. I’ve always been a problem solver. The cool thing was this experience paved my future. When I sat down at the Geek Squad in late 1998 to apply for a job and I saw the following question on the test (Yes, Geek Squad used to make everyone take a test)

What does fdisk /mbr accomplish?

I was immediately able to recall that this formatted the master boot record to clear out viruses and reset the partition information. So looking back 10 years, I can clearly see that this experience helped me establish an unshakable confidence in my ability to understand problems, collect the right tools, test and resolve the problem to completion. I would repeat this method throughout my IT career with great success.

So this post turned out to be much longer than I intended but I hope it provides insight as to why I have the skill sets I do and why I am excited about this book. I’ve added it to my wishlist so if you have found my blog helpful and want to say thanks with a gift, go right ahead and send me a copy of this book.