My Name is Kate

The Internet Wants YOU to Contribute!

For better or for worse, we're all on the Internet together.

Yes, there are a lot of dark alleys and corners full of stupid. But there are also a lot of amazing, mostly-accurate pockets of information. So, my question to you today is how do you contribute to making the Internet a better place?

Now, I don't mean that you need to start a tell-all blog, sharing the daily minutia of your life. I'm really thinking outside of every day social networking activities. There are lots of simple and quick activities that if we all did, it would make the Internet even better.

Editing Wikipedia is, to me, the most obvious. (If you read my blog, I'm going to assume that you know a) what Wikipedia is and b) that normal humans can actually edit it.) I'm a Wikipedia contributor, albeit an infrequent one, but a contributor nevertheless. Now, I can't (accurately) edit articles on Heart Surgery or wax profoundly about the Biedermeier period in central Europe, but I can add in a missing link to the official website of a film I liked or put in who was a guest on The Colbert Report. These are small, but valuable efforts in contributing to a larger body of knowledge.

Now a lot of people FREAK out about the prospect of editing Wikipedia - I think, largely, because the formatting language is a little off-putting (remember Word Perfect's "Reveal Codes" feature - it's like that). But don't let that trouble you. Find something you love (a TV Show, an author, a location, an art movement) and check out the page for it. Is there something you can contribute? This video from ehow shows the steps in how to register as a contributor and make your edits. And of course Wikipedia itself has great info on how to edit it.

Nerd Alert - I'm also a librarian over at Goodreads. This I'm actually a lot more passionate about than Wikipedia. (I could go on for DAYS about how much I love Goodreads. Don't remind me that Amazon bought them. I will ignore you.) The thing is, being a librarian (at Goodreads) isn't super-sexy. Generally, it's just a lot of cleanup. Is the book cover finally out for a book that I want to read? I'll upload it. No picture for the author profile? I'll add it. No link to the author's blog? I'll fill it in. Book attributed to the incorrect author? I'll fix it. It's like being the Bob Vila of Goodreads (well, one of many Bob Vilas). It's quick, easy and it makes Goodreads better. I appreciate what the other librarians do - I'm sure someone appreciates my contributions too.

But maybe books or "facts" aren't your thing. That's ok. There are still a lot of places you can contribute. My lovely wife, Rosemary, is (for example) a prolific writer of travel reviews. After we've visited somewhere, she generally writes it up on Trip Advisor. Her ratings and reviews are read and marked as "helpful" by several Trip Advisor users. It's a great contribution as well as a fun digital souvenir of our trips. Same goes for reviews on Yelp (Rosemary writes reviews there as well); contributing to your local scene is so helpful. I go to Yelp all the time to look for a new place to take friends or when I'm in a new city where to eat out.

Product reviews are another area ripe for contribution. Did you just buy a new lawnmower? Taking 5 minutes to rate and write a couple of lines on the Canadian Tire or Home Depot sites about the product - super helpful! I always read these before I buy something and really appreciate the time people have gone to. Especially when they add info about how easy something was to assemble or how durable it is.

I know some people don't write reviews or be an editor on a site they don't own because they don't want to give their contributions to a site (like Yelp or GoodReads) where the site ultimately reaps the benefit. Well, I guess I can understand that. Sure, The Man owns Yelp and is reaping a benefit from all of us contributing. But each of us get our own benefit as well. So, I'm not sure that's really a good argument. And Wikipedia - that's a non-profit. So start there :) But think about it. Everyone I know has some really interesting expertise or perspective that is worth sharing. Find the best place to share that expertise online and do it!

I got started thinking about all of this because of some recent handwringing about some editing practices on Wikipedia that have highlighted the need for a diverse group of editors. Also, a few months ago was Wikipedia Contribution Month in Canada. I missed it this year, but next year I'd like to organize an event in Vancouver. And get involved in the WikiWomen Collaborative and maybe write for their blog.

Photo Sources: Wikimedia, BatBlog.com

Plagued by winmail.dat files in your email? TNEF's Enough is the answer!

It's 2012 and email is still an imperfect system - and the interoperability between Mac and PC is still inconsistent. We can put a Rover on Mars, but we can't make email seamless. I have a client who is on a PC and when she emails me attachments, I often (but not always which is even more maddening) receive them as the dreaded winmail.dat file.

What is a winmail.dat file, you ask?

The file is a rich text (or MAPI) message that is sent from Outlook to Exchange. When Exchange sends the message to an outside server it writes the MAPI message as a MIME attachment. The unfortunate side effect of this plan is that if the Outlook user has someone in their address book as a person who can receive "Rich Text" then the user will receive the TNEF (Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format) file whether the user uses Outlook or not.

The files are usually received by SMTP based e-mail programs from Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook users. The SMTP based e-mail program will usually either receive a MIME attachment named "winmail.dat" or a MIME attachment with the type "application/ms-tnef."

It was KILLING me. I'd have to ask her to resend. Or we tried using various file-sharing services. But it was a hassle for her. 

Then, I found TNEF's Enough by Josh Jacob.

It is the sweetest little Mac program - it extracts the original attachment from the Microsoft TNEF stream that comes along with the win.dat attachment. Powerpoint files. Images. Word docs. Any attachment that she sends me and has been converted to a winmail.dat, TNEF Enough can open. Oh, and the explanation of a winmail.dat file is from his FAQ.

Below is a screenshot of TNEF's Enough. When I open the offending winmail.dat file in TNEF's Enough, it shows me the original email message as well as all the attachments. I can then choose one or more of them and "Export" from the menu.

TNEF's Enough is donationware. Thank you, Josh Jacob!

Five Essentials for Your Next QR Code Campaign

We recently finished helping a client run a QR code promotion. It was the first QR code campaign I worked on directly; it was also the client's first.  The campaign lasted a week and was loosely modelled on a scavenger hunt.  We placed eleven QR codes across a variety of print and online placements, using five partners in addition to the client's own properties. Twice a day we released clues on the client's Facebook fan page as to the locations of the codes. And for every QR code you found, you gained an entry into a draw for a prize.

A few things came up during the campaign that I thought I would share here for when you're doing your next QR Code campaign. Either things we anticipated, didn't think would be a big deal and turned into a big deal - or things we didn't really anticipate and had a bit of a scramble about.

Kate's Five Things You Should Do for Your Next QR Code Campaign

1. Always have a non-smartphone option for entry.

There's a reason we pay lawyers a lot of money. My client's lawyers, in reviewing the contest guidelines, made sure we had a way to enter the contest if you didn't have a smart phone. I wasn't too concerned because a) who DOESN'T have a smart phone (ahem, my own arrogance and naiveté) and b) if for some reason you didn't have a smartphone, I expected people to just say "Hmm, guess I won't enter" (more personal arrogance and naiveté).

I was SHOCKED by the number of people who left angry, angry comments on the Facebook wall about having to have a smart phone to enter. Accusations of discrimination and threats to boycott were rife. It was epic. The interesting thing was we actually put everywhere we promoted the contest, a note to see the Rules & Regs for a way to enter if you didn't have a smart phone. People don't read. So the community manager patiently (and in a much more friendly tone than I would have mustered) answered each accusation with a link to the Rules & Regs. What was especially awesome is that other fans started answering as well - which rekindled my faith in the self-policing of online communities.

But the point is, if we hadn't had that option in the Rules & Regs, it would have been quite a different story. So make sure if you're using a non-ubiquitous technology as a contest entry, that you have a lower-tech, alternate way to enter. 

2. Test test test, especially with your client's boss's boss's phone configuration.

All the case studies about running any kind of QR Code campaign or promotion says to test, Test, TEST! Different hardware, different OS versions, different QR Code readers. We did this. I even had a testing matrix. It was a thing of beauty. But, we approached our testing by figuring out which phone/OS combinations were the most popular - both in Canada (using data from ComScore's MobiLens) as well as with the client's stakeholders by checking their web stats. Here's the overview data from ComScore:

The Evolution of Geek

Flowtown has an awesome infographic on The Evolution of Geek. And I swear, it's like they looked at my high school year book picture to create the illustration for the D&D Geek.

Something I learned from their infographic is that geek is a variant of geck, a word from the 1500's indicating fool or simpleton. Wikipedia, of course, goes into a bit more detail:

The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp[ecially] one who is perceived to be overly intellectual".^[1]

This word comes from English dialect geek, geck: fool, freak; from Low German geck, from Middle Low German. The root geck still survives in Dutch and Afrikaans gek: crazy, as well as someGerman dialects, and in the Alsatian word Gickeleshut: geek's hat, used in carnivals.^[2]

Formerly, in 18th century Austria-Hungary, Gecken were freaks shown by some circuses. In 19th century, in North-America, the term geek referred to a freak in circus side-shows. In some cases, its performance included biting the head off a live chicken. The 1976 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary included only the definition regarding geek shows.

Although often considered as a pejorative, the term is also often used self-referentially without malice or as a source of pride - an example is the 'Geek Squad' of the Best Buy company.

So, any of these geeks resonate with you?

Book Review - My New iPad, Second Edition - by Wallace Wang

I LOVE my iPad. LOVE it. And while I am a pretty good "figure it out on my own" kind of person, sometimes I do like to RTFM. So I was excited when my buddies over at No Starch Press sent me a review copy of Wallace Wang's My New iPad, Second Edition.

Now, I've had an iPhone for a couple of years now, so was familiar with some of the basics of Apple's touch and swipe interface. But I did try to approach this book as a new iPad owner who didn't have a lot of experience with touch devices.

The Good:

• Absolutely comprehensive. Covers everything about the iPad in specific detail. Doesn't assume you have had an iPhone or touch device before. See the Table of Contents for how crazy-detailed this book is. 
• Goes in a logical order. There was only 1 time where the author mentioned something (I think it was a reference to using email) that hadn't been described in the book up to that point. But it was eventually covered.
• The sections on Safari are really strong. There are a lot of subtle and/or hidden interface components to Safari and this book uneaths them all.
• The map chapter very helpful - some of the touch interface tricks there are the biggest changes from iPhone and I appreciated the detail.
• Overall, I learned a fair number of tips, including: 
  • Lots about improving battery life
  • Sliding the hidden dock to get the secret panel of controls
  • Lots of safari tips - holding your finger on a link to get a menu as well as pointing out the "action" menu on safari.
  • The save image feature in safari.

Things I'd Change:

• I'd like to see the screenshots annotated - even if only with arrows. Sometimes there is an interface element, even after Wang has told you where it is and described it, that I had a little difficulty locating on the screenshot. A big arrow would be helpful.
• Sometimes there is a weirdly pedantic tone - like don't use the iPad outside b/c you may be staring at it and not notice thieves approaching to grab your iPad. If you need that kind of advice you may not be ready for an iPad.
• Wang does include a few app recommendations at the end of the book. But I would have liked to see these interspersed in relevant places in the book as well as at the end. Also, I would love a link to where he keeps an up to date list of his app recos. Finding good apps in the sea of apps in the app store is one of the most challenging aspects of having an iPad - would like to see more on this.

If you are new to the Apple family of touch devices in general, or the iPad in particular, I can definitely recommend My New iPad. It really is very comprehensive and walks you through everything in an easy-to-read, step by step manner. But as a geek, I was able to skim some of that and get right to the hard-core tip. It's the perfect book to get your parent or spouse who just got an iPad and has only used it to update their address book so far. Hopefully No Starch Press and Wang will update for the iPad 2.

You can get My New iPad, Second Edition for $24.95 - and it comes with a free eBook version! So give the physical book to your mom and keep the ebook for yourself.

 

Mac HTML Editor - I think I'm stuck in the '90s

I don't generally do a lot of HTML coding - a bit here and there for my blog, but other than that, not much. However, I've been working with a client on some custom Facebook page tabs and have found myself doing a little more coding that I would like, especially since I generally do it all by hand in TextEdit.

So, I thought it was time to get myself an HTML editor for the Mac.  I haven't used an HTML editor since probably about 2002. I was on a PC then and I used to use HoTMetaL PRO (I worked for SoftQuad, its creators, for a while and was totally hooked on the interface; it was originally created in 1994).  So now, I'm just looking for something that can create good structured markup.  Essentially, it should allow me to type something, and then when I highlight it and click the "B" button (or use Command-B) it puts <strong></strong> tags around that text.  It should do intelligent lists. And maybe a little table layout.  I don't need much.

And it doesn't need to be WYSIWYG - I like seeing the HTML code.  I just don't want to have to type all the tags out.

But WOW all the "HTML editors" I've looked at recently are really these hard core development web development suites.  Are there no lightweight HTML editors anymore?

Here's what I'm considering and/or in the process of trying:

Komodo Edit 6 - looks very powerful, but when I start it up I have no clue what to do. This is likely too techie for me. But I like the Open Source and cross-platform aspect of it.

Flux - recommended by a couple of people. Watched the intro video. Seems like it could work. Again, probably about 75% more tool than I will need, but I do like the tag interface and the way the inline CSS inspector works.

Coda - trying this now. It seems fine, but isn't doing what I want to do.  There is a "code snippet" feature that would allow me to put in frequently used tags, but that seems like a lot of work. I can do that in something like TaskPaper - no editor needed.

Freeway Express - pretty. WYSIWYG. Free. Oh, has a specific template editor for Blogger blogs. This is kind of cool - if I were on blogspot, this might be something to consider.

RapidWeaver - I don't know about this whole add-on thing. Seems like the price of your HTML editor is going to get out of hand. Seems like a really powerful suite - comes with lots of themes, publishing across multiple sites.

Espresso - might do the trick - looks a little more lightweight (not a bad thing) than some of the others. I actually got a license for this as part of a MacHeist bundle.

If you're a Mac type, what are you using to edit HTML? Or is there no such thing as just a plain Jane HTML editor anymore. It's either a web dev suite or hand coding?  Your thoughts and advice are appreciated!

Update: Thanks to my buddies Dethe and Daniel for some of these recs!

Update 2: 

• @leehorrocks recommends Textmate along with the Zen Coding plugin
• @alan_schietzsch likes Espresso's code folding feature
• @sbouchard likes Taco HTML Edit
• @sprilmains likes TextWrangler and Vormplus Web Tools; and
• McCormick likes BBEdit

I've started using TextMate - I really like some of the shortcuts.

Photo Credit: laihiuyeung ryanne

How-To Check on Your Domain Propagation Change and Other Domain Miscellany

I bought a domain name recently. Once it was transferred from the owner's registrar to my own, the best domain registrar ever - Hover.com (use code mynameiskate for 10% off domains at Hover), I needed to change the name servers and then one of the records in my host file so that the domain would now point to the new website I had set up for it.

A lot of you who are reading this have now put your fingers in your ears, closed your eyes and started singing "la la la la la la geeky stuff la la la la".  Stop it. Breathe.  As a marketer or a PR person who conducts some of their craft on the Internet, it behooves you to know the tiniest bit about how it works.  It will make you a better communicator and a better person. Kind of like eating your veggies.

Name Servers. Name servers maintain a directory that match domain names (like www.mynameiskate.ca) to IP addresses (like 204.9.177.195). And that means that I only need to remember the human-friendly domain name and not all the numbers of an IP address when I type it into my browser. 

Host Files. These are the plain-text files that contain the individual directory entries for the name server. Host files allow me to do a lot of interesting things, not the least of which is to have different services running on different machines (e.g. my email and my blog are run on different servers) and allows me to have sub-domains off my main domain.

Propagation. When you make changes to your name server or host file, it can take a little while for all of the other name servers around the world to get the message.  So there can be a period of time while all the name servers get the new address mapping. This can happen if you're switching domains or putting content on a new domain. That's why it's important that marketers build in time in their campaigns for their sassy new domain names to propagate.

Domain Information Groper. Sometimes, when you want to check on what the rest of the world thinks your domain mappings to be (as opposed to what you have put in your host file), you can use a Domain Information Groper (DIG) tool to query other name servers about what they think the official mapping for your domain is.  The DIG tool is usually a command line on a unix server, but sometimes very clever and helpful folks build web interfaces to it.  I had been using a dig interface that apparently wasn't updating very often, so the helpful folks at Hover pointed me to one of their fav tools - digwebinterface.com (built by Martin Holk Rasmussen).  It's quite a nice interface.  This is the output for www.mynameiskate.ca:

I know, I know .. to some of you that may not seem like either sexy or helpful output, but really, it is. :)

Note for the hard core geeks in the crowd - remember, this is written for tech-curious marketers.  I'm sure I've missed a lot of the nuance of the wonder of name servers and host files. But as long as the basic ideas are correct, please don't flame too much in the comments :)

Geek Thursday: Icons in Your iPad Dock and Two Excel How-To's

I got an iPad for my birthday in November. I love it. ADORE it. (Thank you, Rosemary).  I've been reading all the "So, you just got an iPad, what now?" articles I can find. So many of my friends and colleagues already have an iPad, I want to be sure I'm keeping up.  This year, at a New Year's Eve dinner, several of us had our iPads out (Geek Dream Date) and were swapping app recs.  As we were passing iPads around, I noticed that only I had 6 icons in the dock (the default is 4).  "Hey, you guys know you can have 6 apps in the doc, right?" 

Well, they didn't know.  And I had my moment of geek superiority.

 

Carriage Returns in an Excel Cell (Mac)

I've been spending a little more time than I would like in Excel lately. And I often forget how to put a hard-return (carriage return) in a cell, particularly on a Mac.

Well, for those of you who want to know, it's control-option-return.

 

Counting Characters in an Excel Cell (Mac and PC)

I've been doing a little Facebook advertising work lately. They have character limits for the headline and the body of the ad.  We're getting several ads approved by the client at a time, so they are all going in an Excel spreadsheet.  I wanted a character counter so I didn't have to do it manually.  Very easy.

• Create a column adjacent to the column where you have the text you want to count (technically, it doesn't HAVE to be adjacent, but for simplicity's sake).
• Use the formula =LEN(A1) (where A1 is the actual number of the cell whose characters you want to count)
• Done!

Now, it doesn't update in real-time (e.g. you have to exit the cell you're editing for it to update the count), but it's better than counting by hand!

 

More on Choosing a Blogging Platform plus a Serendipitous Lesson about Graphs

Following on my post yesterday about choosing a blogging platform for small and medium businesses, Catherine Winters asked if I had any market share data about the different platforms.  Good question.  So I did a little searching and Señor Google did have a few interesting things to say ...

First, I liked this piece by Pingdom on the blogging platform of choice for the Top 100 blogs.  About 2/3 of them use a self-hosted service - so those aren't really relevant.  But a 1/3 or so use a hosted platform and it was interesting to see those results.

 

I liked the Pingdom piece (even if the data is from Jan 2009) because it included only "real" blogs - there are a lot of spam blogs out there.  This is what concerns me a little about the report from BuiltWith (a site I totally didn't know about that tracks technology changes and trends).  It looks at the whole universe of blogs and I feel fairly certain that a large number of them are spam.

Wordpress is certainly the most popular - especially in articles about which blogging platforms are the most popular :)  There are a lot of those articles out there.  This one from Fuel Your Writing was the best written one I found.  While he doesn't quote market share stats, David selected four platforms that he was familiar with (Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr and Posterous) and shared his well-thought-out pros and cons.  I only wish he would have included Typepad since it would have rounded out my recommendation list nicely. 

David comes to one of the same conclusions that I did - you need to choose your platform based on your needs - which is why I was trying not to focus on "feature set" in my blogging platform recommendations, but on other "meta" issues around blogging.

Oh ... here's the other neat piece I discovered.  ProBlogger has done a survey of the blogging platforms used by his readers for the last few years. Great data - again, Wordpress on top.  What I was delighted to discover what this companion piece by Jon Peltier where he uses ProBlogger's data to improve the graphs used to visualize the data.  If you're interested at all in data visualizations and how to use graphs to improve your content, read Peltier's piece - I love how step-by-step and clear it is.

And I'm still looking for any "meta" criteria (vs features) that you would add to my list when choosing a blogging platform.

What To Look for in a Blogging Platform

Update: I've written a companion post about some of the market share info I found about blogging platforms as well as a bit about data visualization.

I'm teaching a class this fall at UBC on Social Media Fundamentals.  Very excited about it!  One of the areas we're covering is, as you would expect, blogging.  I wanted to put together a little comparison table to help people choose a blogging platform.  I'm making some assumptions: that the platform will be hosted (no Wordpress self-installs) and that the people who will be managing the blog are not super-technical.

So, I put together a list of criteria.  It includes:

• Cost (both initial and "add-ons")
• Allows a unique domain name
• Is there a theme library and/or a template designer
• Easy to Use for Non-technical users (1=easy; 5=hard)
• Allows you to export your content
• Analytics options

If you were a small or medium business owner, what else would be important for you to know.  I'm not doing a feature by feature comparison because I don't think it's necessary.  Most of the features are similar (e.g. offering both "pages" and posts) - to me, the true difference comes down to how intuitive and "friendly" the interface is.

Am I missing anything really important?

The blog platforms I'm including are:

• Typepad
• Wordpress
• Blogger
• Tumblr
• Posterous

I've embedded the doc below (or follow the link) if you want to take a look. And I realise that the 4th criteria (easy to use) is completely arbitrary. So you Wordpress fans - don't jump on my case. My experience of Wordpress isn't delightful. And, I recognize that I have a bias towards Typepad since I've been using it for 5 years. I promise I will disclose all my biases to my class :)