It seems that Alexandria gave her boyfriend access to her work calendar, and this caused a cacophony of complaints and accusations and more drama. As if we didn't have enough. But something caught my attention in AOC's tweet response.

First, let me just give you just one bit of context. I don't care about who is right, or whether she's allowed to do that or not. That's not the point of this post. So let's have a look.

The person that seems to have raised attention to the fact that AOC had given access to her boyfriend was actually calling AOC out for getting her boyfriend to work for her. But she responded that he was listed there because she shared her calendar, and played it off as if doing this was normal for congresspersons.

While you were having a nice Valentine's Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff - drawing a salary on the taxpayer's dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly. pic.twitter.com/bvncwzxY53

— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) February 15, 2019

Here is her tweet in response and I highlighted the part that caught my attention.

She's using G Suite, previously known as Google Apps. And in fact, it's not only AOC using G Suite because that wouldn't really work in this case. I can only assume that her entire office is using it. And my optimistic logic mind tells me that if she's using it, then the whole of Congress is using G Suite; it would just make sense and would be the most efficient way.

I mean, they must be, right? If she got in trouble for sharing her calendar access with her boyfriend/partner who doesn't work with her and her response was that "Congressional spouses get Gcal access all the time."

That can only mean one thing, don't you agree? That Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is sharing her Google Calendar.

Maybe even the Federal government is using G Suite. I don't know for sure and I haven't looked into it, but if they are, that's good!

Good because that means that they hopefully are saving money and should have really good security in place. G Suite does security really well, and running a G Suite email system is much more cost-effective than a comparable system running on Microsoft, or Linux based platforms.

So why does this matter to you?

Well, because you too could be using G Suite for your business, saving money and increasing efficiency, security and reliability. Even though Google has products for Government, and Enterprise level operations, their bread and butter is G Suite for small businesses.

But, Oscar! The email address in the tweet is not a "Gmail" address!? 

Well, Google can host email for any domain that you want. So the difference is that Gmail is free, and you always get an email address ending with @gmail.com, but with G Suite, you can use any domain. Well, any domain that you own or control.

Ever since I started using G Suite when I still had a 9-5 job, I've been recommending it to everybody. I have been using it since it was called Google Apps, I think I've been using it for over 10 years now.

Sharing files with colleagues, vendors, and clients is a breeze. I can also share a file publicly with a couple of clicks, things like downloadable pdf reports.

I have folders for all my clients and each folder has files I share with them and I can specifically share some files with some people and other files with other people. We can collaborate on Word documents, spreadsheets and just like AOC, in calendars so everybody can see each other's availability.

I can even make public surveys or questionnaires after I collect all the responses then G Suite will give me a nice report of the data, with pie charts or graph bars to present the information easily, and it puts it into a spreadsheet also. It's pretty sweet.

I use G Suite to keep files for internal projects, I can store any kind of file and then it's available anywhere I have access to the internet, on my mobile device, on my tablet, on any of my laptops or even at a client's site if I need to. It's always backed up, always available and always easy to share.

Check it out, if you're interested in using it for your business, here's the link to it.

If you're really interested and are ready to sign up, I have a couple of discount codes. Google gives me a couple every few months. But they're single-use, so I can't post them. If you want one of the codes, leave a comment, make sure you fill out the email field, and I'll email you the code.

This discount code for G Suite gives you 20% off your first year of service.

The post Wait, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Uses G Cal? For Congress Business? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

He wanted to know if there was a way to share an Excel spreadsheet so both could work at the same time without disrupting each other's work, and without having to email it to each other or dealing with accessing it from a shared hard drive.

He didn't want to have to email it to each other whenever they made a change. That is just a nightmare and so 2002.

I was a bit taken aback because I thought everybody knew about the solution for this by now. But apparently I was wrong, I told him I had the solution for this, but I still wanted to hear his requirements. I think this answer might help you as well.

I listened to all the requirements he told me. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything and he didn't need anything too robust like a proper MySQL or NoSQL database. He didn't; he's in real estate and just needed to track stats and properties related to the business.

He wanted something just like his Excel spreadsheet, but better.

The clear-cut answer was to move the Excel spreadsheet to Google Sheets. Google Sheets is part of the Google Docs suite and it does most (arguably, everything) you need to do with Excel, and it does it better.

But can I run some formulas if I need to? He asked...

Of course, you can run formulas. Complex ones, simple ones and if you have the chops or have some patience doing some web searches, you can even program very fancy scripts.

For example, there is the Content Strategy Helper worksheet by Builtvisible. Where you can plug in a search query and it will do a bunch of magic for you to enhance your research and SEO. To use it, you go to the Google spreadsheet they have, you make a copy to your own Google docs and you can start using it.

Another much simpler example is one spreadsheet I use where each of the sheets has a list of locations where my articles or videos might be shared. Each sheet contains network locations, for example: Facebook groups or facebook pages, Google+ profiles and groups, Twitter, Tumblr, Stumbleupon, things like that.

Then I have one more sheet where I use a simple formula to bring all those locations from each sheet into one new column in a document. I use this as an activity log to make sure I have shared my content out for maximum exposure. Think of it like a checklist for promotional purposes.

I have seen complex financial models, simple budgets, and all sorts of things done with Google Sheets. Sheets become even more powerful when you realize that they usually play nice with other Google tools, like Google maps, Google Documents (like Word). And you can also create forms to capture data that goes directly into the spreadsheets. Think surveys, questionnaires, RSVPs, etc.

Needless to say, my friend was happy with the answer because he didn't realize that you could share a spreadsheet in real time with other users and that it would all be backed up in real time, safely and securely.

My buddy also didn't know that you could run formulas as complex as you can in Excel, you can run charts, reports and more.

I have been using Google Docs since they came out. I have my reservations about Google's use of their political and economic power, but their products are unparalleled.

I don't know why many people think that Google Sheets is not as powerful as Excel. Maybe it's just the group of diehard Excel users that have been using it for their entire career and somehow think that Google sheets "just can't do that."

From having to use both and from having to teach people to use both and support both, I can tell you that Google sheets is as powerful and capable --if not more-- than Excel.

If you want to use it for a business and get support and a few more security features, you just need to get a G Suite account, previously known as Google for Business, here's a link to a free trial.

But if you just want to use it for yourself and a couple of business partners, family or friends, then you just need to go to your Google Drive when you log in to your Gmail account. You do know you have a free amount of storage with Google Drive included with your Gmail account... right?

The post If You Want Excel Spreadsheets but Need Something Better appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

So is Google listening AND recording everything you say?

Well, why don't we explore and expose the truth for everyone to see? That's exactly what I did in the video below. I took a look at my own account to see exactly what Google has saved. Does it have my voice recordings of everything I've said to and around my phone? Does it listen when I'm not even using the search function?

Google Tracking Other Activity

One of the things you see in the video is the Snapchat entry. It shows only briefly for a moment but I mentioned it. After I recorded the video I went back in to explore what this was all about. There were similar entries for Fitbit, and Twitter.

Turns out that because I'm using an Android phone and appears I've given Google permission to collect this type of data, the activity on my phone is also recorded. Not everything is recorded, but enough information to paint a good picture of everything I've done in any particular day.

Specifically, the Snapchat entry showcased how many times and at what time I had accessed the Snapchat app on my phone, the same applied to Twitter and Fitbit. It has recorded when I opened the app and how many times.

There are also the actual searches I've done at any given time, on Chrome, on Google (while logged in), and on Youtube, at least. Maybe more. If you want to see your own data saved by Google, you can go to My Activity page, linked right here.

What Can Google Do With This Information?

I can make a lot of conjectures about how I would use that data if I were Google. I would certainly be able to aggregate all that and average it out in order to present you with an advertisement related to Snapchat at just the right time. Or Twitter, or Fitbit, or whatever other app.

For example, if Google had this nailed down --and I don't have a reason to believe they don't-- then they can sell advertisement to a Snapchat index for example, like Snapdex or Ghostcodes and guarantee that Snapchat users would be targeted and not just anybody. They can even sell advertisement directly to Snapchat so they can send you targeted ads based on what you open before and after using the Snapchat app!

Far fetched? I don't think so, this is exactly how Google has stayed relevant all these years with their advertisement business. This is what they do and I don't expect one of the most profitable and powerful corporations in history to lose at this game. I'm just not concerned because of a couple reasons.

I like advertisements to be targeted to me instead of seeing random ads, and I know I have the option to partially or completely turn off the data collection and archival. But my questions to you are these:

Does this concern you? Did you know about this? And if you didn't know, are you inclined to turn these options off now that you know? Let me know in the comments or Twitter.

The post Google Listens And Records Everything You Say appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Recently, I noticed that you no longer can share a video with a circle of people on GooglePlus. Currently the only options for privacy when sharing a Youtube video are:

• Private
• Public
• Unlisted

There used to be a fourth option you could use. You could share a video directly to GooglePlus and share it only with a specific circle. That was a really neat feature.

I actually would like to complain to Google on this one. First, they sell us on using their services as a life-archive with the Dear Sophie video. Heartwarming right?

I bet you there was a surge of new accounts when that video came out during father's day years ago. If you are guilty of creating at least a Gmail account for your kids in advance of them being able to use it, raise your hand!

Guilty!

But I can't help to be irritated with Google giving us features to use then taking them away.

This "hidden" fourth option of sharing video was great. You could share video with a specific group of people from 1 up to the maximum people allowed per circle in Google +.

I could share a family video with only 10 - 12 people. It was great. Now the best option is to post the video to youtube, make it "unlisted" then share the link with the people you want to share it via GooglePlus or Email or whatever.

The problem with this approach is that the link is really viewable by anybody that has the link. So if you wanted so share some personal videos with just a very limited group of people, you simply can't anymore.

I really don't understand why people don't like GooglePlus that much. I think it's a great service, but the problem is that people, critics and others tried to make Google+ a feature by feature competitor to Facebook. Intstead, Google+ had its features and Facebook has its features.

So Google now has disconnected this great feature I loved. In a way, it's a good thing. It makes me get back to reality.

We are at the whim of these companies if we put all our content in their service. You must be the owner of your own content! Get your own blog where you can really share your content any way you want. All the cloud services are nice as additional services but they own you!

Your own blog is your own blog. You decide. By the way, speaking of sharing photos and videos go check out the latest posts at my Daddy blog.

The post Youtube Sharing to Google Plus Disabled. The Beginning of The End? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But officially, Google's Bradley Horowitz confirmed that Google+ is getting a re-organization. But what does that mean?

An article from CNN has some useless info about it:

Pichai didn't give a timeline for when Google+ will be rebranded. A spokesman for Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Can we just all agree to stop expecting any kind of candor from Google? And why should we? They'll tell us when they're ready, even if it means letting users find better things to use elsewhere. Rebranded and broken up sound very vague.

Google+ is going to be broken up into Photos, Hangouts and Streams.

So what does that mean for us, the Google+ users? who knows. But I do know that this just reinforces my view on social media. Social media is great, but you can't count on it as a reliable means of longevity for your business, hobby or even personal communications.

You have to always own your online real estate. Get your website going and use that as your place to share what you have to say with the world. Yes, post on Facebook, yes, post on Google+, yes, post to Instagram, but remember, you are always at the mercy of their decisions. Get your own website for less than a Starbucks cup of coffee, you could use one of my hosts, like Inmotion or Siteground.

Why is Google Doing this?

Well, Google+ hasn't exactly been an active social media space. It has a bad user interface and despite having billions of profiles, only a small tiny percentage of those profiles are users. I found a great post by Edward Morbius that breaks down the numbers:

Only about half of those, 3% of active profiles, are not YouTube posts.

That is, 0.2% - 0.3% of all G+ profiles, about 4-6 million users, have made public post in 2015. That's 244,000 users posting daily.

More than "hundreds", but not by all that much.

This doesn't include non-public posts or comments, but its' a pretty clear indication of the level of activity on G+.

photo credit:

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By the way, recently Youtube changed their "Watch Later" playlist and removed the "removed watched" button. I was pretty irritated with that change because it is such a critical function for the whole thing. BUT... I am happy to announce that they brought it back. There's a removed watched button back on the Watch later Youtube playlist! Yeay! -- Okay back to our normal programming.

I thought I'd share with you some of the tips and tricks I use to help me keep my digital life somewhat in order. Each year I do quite a bit of this cleaning up and I try to keep it up during the year, but you know what Sweet Brown says.

Email Cleanup

First, email. I use Thunderbird to backup my email and as a side effect I get the benefit of sorting email quickly by date, or sender or even subject line. All I have to do is click on one of the columns and the email instantly sorts that way.

The benefit of this arrangement I've just described is that I can sort my email by sender and scroll down just looking for "big senders," these are easy to spot. You can't quite do that using the web interface of Gmail (or any other web client).

Some of these bulk messages are social media alerts, or software updates and newsletters. So as I scan down the list I'll notice sometimes more than a screen's worth of email messages so then I click on the first email, then scroll down to find the last one on the list.

Once I find the last email on the list I press the SHIFT key and then click on that last message and this combination selects all the messages in that block. Then I just press DELETE and the messages will get deleted. Even though I am doing this on Thunderbird, the changes get synchronized up to Gmail automatically.

You could also do this on the web based version of your Gmail, but you'll need to do searches instead of just scrolling through. Some people might actually like that approach better, but I'm not going to cover that today.

After a quick pass looking for big senders, I then sort the email by subject line. This gives me a view that helps me find alert notifications, newsletters and other repetitive emails that get sent out daily or multiple-times per day. Facebook email notifications for example, or Twitter alerts, Google Alerts and other similar ones.

Some of my big senders were: Google Alerts, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Empire Avenue, Youtube, Zendesk, Instagram, Hubspot and a few others. They'll probably different for you.

As I scroll down the list sorted by subject, it is pretty easy to spot the bulk of the emails that I'm looking for and I can then delete them just like the ones before when I sorted by sender.

Then I just do another quick scroll up and down looking for any other big blocks of patterns. I'm looking for blocks of 100 or more emails at a time so I'm looking for senders, or subjects or anything that stands out and even maybe a few of these searches:

• "mentioned you on Twitter"
• "is now following you on Twitter!"

Once you do a major round of cleanup you'll see why I like using Thunderbird for this. Outlook would work as well, or any other visual email client like these two I've just mentioned. All you have to do is make sure the bulk of your email is downloaded locally to your computer using IMAP. If you don't use IMAP then the changes won't be saved on the cloud (generally).

After all that I've mentioned above, I take a look at the drafts folder and delete as many as possible. Really, if it's not something you started in the past 2 days and needs to go out today or tomorrow, it shouldn't be in there. I'm guilty of keeping over a hundred drafts in there. I usually get rid of them indiscriminately.

If I feel a draft is worth saving then I copy and save it into an Evernote for more incubation. Clearly the draft wasn't ready to be an email to anybody if I didn't send it  yet. So back to the drawing board for a few messages, but for the rest of the drafts emails. Just delete them.

At last I move down through the folder or tag list whatever you want to call them, and some of them get emptied completely but the folder remains. Some of the folders get deleted themselves along with the contents.

This is the last round of cleanup I do through my inbox and I do this all throught Thunderbird. Why? Because Thunderbird helps me sort emails quickly, lets me do background searches and I can look at all my accounts in one location without having to login to one, then log out. Login to the next, then logout. This way I can do it all at once!

In this case I was able to delete about 15,000 emails or more which gave me about 1GB of space back in my main Gmail account!  So that works for me!

Notes Evernote

You know how I told you before Evernote is my second brain? It's like my extended memory. But it also needs some TLC from time to time. This one is a little bit simpler than email I think.

I do a couple of things for Evernote:

• I search for "Untitled note" - This will usually bring up a bunch of blank notes that had potential but just weren't meant to be. Nuke em!
• Switch to all notes view and sort by date. Go to the oldest and scroll up for a bit. This does two things, highlights any notes that may just need to be deleted and reminds you of possibly forgotten projects.
• Check folders from automation system and other apps. For example, I use Skitch a lot, skitch creates its own notebook so I go in there and clean that up. Do the same for any apps you use in conjunction with Evernote, like IFTTT, or Docusign, Zapier or even other Evernote apps.

A quick note in practicality. Evernote, like Gmail encourages you to save everything and just file stuff away without deleting stuff. For the most part that has worked out for Gmail quite well, and it works okay with Evernote but I still think it's good to do some housekeeping once in a while. Sometimes I just want to get rid of things, so this is how I do it on Evernote.

I think that's good for now, I will show you a little bit about files and a few other places where cleanup is needed on a regular basis, and at least for spring cleaning. It's funny how fast you can write 1,000 words about something you like. So if you liked this, let me know in the comments!

The post Digital Spring Cleaning appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

When you start your empire online, there are very few technical skills that you will need, but when you hear "no tech skills needed" or no "skills required" there is always still some skill level that you need to start with. No tech skills needed really means it is very simple and easy to do.

If that wasn't clear enough, let me be more forward. Let’s be clear and honest with each other, you need at least some basic skills.

If you have ever sent an email out, or if you have ever filled out a form online, that’s about all the skills you’ll need to be able to start with an online business.

The rest you’ll learn as you go. Don’t get me wrong! By the time you start making some money, you’ll have some really good tech skills under your belt. These newfound skills are not needed to start, but you’ll develop them as you go, that’s for sure.

And once you learn a few tricks, you will be able to continually learn more and improve. This will happen naturally, but as I discuss on the Hype vs. Facts section, you should have a desire to also continue and improve.

Always push yourself to find the next thing to improve, or work on after you overcome a challenge.

But that’s not enough, Oscar! You say!.

You’ve heard this before, you’ve heard “no tech skills needed” and it wasn’t true. It turned out to be really complicated and I quit!, you're going to tell me.

The truth is that you will need some technical skills but they’re very simple to attain and very simple to use on a regular basis so you learn them forever.

If you can write an email, search for something in Google and fill out a form like you do when you want to buy something, or answer a questionnaire online, you have all the basic skills you need to start a business online.

I know people that make great money online but started knowing less less about computers and the internet than my elderly neighbor. She’s 66, but they simply follow instructions and formulas and make several thousand dollars each month online.

Some people I know that make tons of money online can’t even touch-type! Really, hunting and pecking two-finger method is good enough to start.

If you say that you are not technical or techie-type, or any other excuse about having technical skills, after having read this post, then you are simply afraid and don’t want to be free, or maybe you're a duckliner.

If you still think you can't start a business online because of lack of tech skills, then  the desire isn’t there. Or the desire isn't strong enough to drive you through this silly misconception.

I know many people that are afraid of failing when they use WordPress, what if they chose the wrong theme? Give me a break, don't worry about it. Everything can be changed and fixed in WordPress. Just make sure you always have backups handy.

Or email marketing, what if you forget to include your signature? or email, or you're afraid of sending the wrong link on Aweber. You know what? all of the big marketers I follow have sent me a mistake at least once.

If the big guys are allowed to make mistakes and still run a successful business, then so are you, and this includes technical mistakes!

Really, it's not a huge deal. Do try to minimize these mistakes and learn from them when you make a mistake so it doesn't happen again, but it's not the end of the world by any means.

Everyone makes mistakes. It’s part of it. Deal with it. Move on and forward!

I once met this great lady named Peggy at an event in Long Beach. I have an interview I did with her and I love her spirit and enthusiasm, you should watch the interview, I'll give you a video link to watch in a moment. The thing I really like about Peggy is that she wasn't involved with anything online before she started.

She didn't know much about anything online really, she came from the healthcare field and didn't have any computer skills or even knew where to start. So she asked a few people what she should know, what she should learn, and where to start.

Can you guess where she went to learn most of the stuff she knows now?

By the way, considering that I teach technology for a living, I would say that Peggy is an advanced computer user at this point and she did it all on her own. And she learned most of it for free! She has even attended some of the free video training I provide.

Can you guess where she learned everything she knows?

Youtube.

Well, maybe not everything she knows, but like she says on the interview, she needed to know excel so she went to Youtube, when she wanted to learn word, she went on Youtube and she gave me many more examples even off-camera.

Update: I found her video and posted it on Youtube, here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mje_Gcpcd0M

And it's true. I have created some tutorial videos out on Youtube and i know they help a lot of people. If you need help with something, a great place to look first is Youtube.

Simply use some of these special starting phrases and just add the topic you're interested in:

• how to + topic
• lessons + topic
• "for beginners" + topic
• tutorial + topic
• "video series" + topic

Like this: "how to" record a podcast. For more detailed examples and a full search guide and cheat sheet, don't forget to download the free workbook (Sorry my loyal readers at notagrouch.com the workbook is in progress as well, but if you stay tuned, you'll be the first to know when it's available for download).

The reason I like using "for beginners" and "video series" is because the results from these phrases tend to have more than one video to give you more information you may not even know you needed. This is when you start learning about how much you don't know you don't know. This is a great thing!

I bet you know more about the internet and how to use it than you realize. And I'm being literal there, you don't realize how much you already know.

The stuff you need to research will lead you to some technology based decisions. I bet you're not afraid of doing something like that. Or when you pick up a new hobby or take on new roles at work. You are often faced with technology based questions this thing we're talking about here, it's no different.

Don't be afraid of starting a business online because you think you don't know anything about computers or the internet. That's just plain nonsense.

The post No Tech Skills Needed to Start a Business Online appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I can only assume that because of the way the files are named. wpid-longass-id-with-date-and-time.jpg So anyway, enjoy.

The post Random Pictures From Last Year appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

This is the team that decides not only which type of sites you see in the results, but some people may think that this team is more in charge of the sites you don't see in the results. The ones that get blacklisted or de-ranked, the ones that disappear from the Almighty Google Index.

Matt Cutts. Love him or hate him, that's up to you. The web, or at least the people that care about their website being found online seems to be at polar opposites in this matter. I think the majority of people in the business don't like him very much.

Personally I don't dislike the guy and I don't particularly like him either; that is not to say that I dislike him. He seems like a nice enough guy. He reminds me of a long-ago boss I had. He speaks with a very methodical tone, he is a diplomat. He is here to tell you how stuff is happening, without really telling you how stuff is happening.

Your job is to read between the lines. Pay attention to what he says as much as how he says it. If you are even remotely serious about developing your website to make you money, you need to watch every single video Matt Cutt puts out. Here's one of the recommended videos by Matt Cutts.

How WordPress and SEO work together for better Search Engine Results.

Forget the notion or idea or rumor that he is hated by the entire SEO community. What's important here is that this guy is the liaison between you and Google. He is the guy that tells you what is good and acceptable and what is not. When you hear about "Panda" and "Penguin" or "Hummingbird", these are the versions of the current algorithm of Google's search engine. Matt's in charge of this.

As far as I'm concerned, the information he provides is really good. So you should stay on top of his video posts. You'll find them in a couple places:

• Matt Cutts - Blog
• Google Webmaster videos - Youtube

So there you have it, I introduce you to Matt Cutts. Subscribe to the Google Webmaster videos linked above and pay attention to the videos he shares. They are golden nuggets of information. You could even use them to review your next SEO company if you want to outsource your online marketing or SEO.

You could get acquainted with the top viewed videos and learn about SEO, you could get the basics down in about 2 hours of videos. Then ask the agency or person you're interviewing the same questions you saw Matt Cutts answer. They should be very similar if you want to have someone help your business and do it in a way that will survive the next Google update.

The post Matt Cutts, The One SEO Guy You Must Know appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Living in Irvine gives me an insight into the culture that we have, and I know most people have smart phones so this is a great move. You can use the phone to find and connect you different places. You can email or call the police officers in charge of the different high schools around town. If you're social and want to go out and mingle with other city dwellers you'll find a cool section that shows you events coming up so you can join.

One thing that I thought was really interesting is the crime tip tool. You can actually report a non-emergency crime directly from your phone. That's pretty neat, you can just send and alert to IPD if you see a crime taking place and you don't even have to dial the police department or 911. Though you're still reminded to call 911 if there is an emergency. Something that was a bit unexpected for me,  is the "Teen Events" and "Youth Action Team" social media icons, in fact there's a whole section related to Teens and I just found that odd. Why isn't there a "seniors" section, or "entrepreneurs"? Perhaps Teens is the demographic that the Irvine Company determined is using mobile devices with these kinds of apps.

I got the app as soon as I heard about it and I like it. It's a bit rough around the edges when it comes to design. The functionality of the app although  limited, is well done. The icons and menus make sense and you are able to do what you are being offered. The app hasn't crashed on me or given me any problems. If you want to try it yourself, just head to your respective markets and Download for Android, or Download for iOS.

At last, a few screenshots of the app to give you a better idea of what it looks like. So far it's been great and you should get it if you live in the area. I'm guessing that cities like Costa Mesa, or Tustin, Newport or even south of Irvine will start their own apps soon, especially if enough people download and use the Access Irvine app.

The post Access Irvine, The City of Irvine’s First Mobile App appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

LoriMoreno - @LoriMoreno
One love, one heart, one destiny. ~ Bob Marley

Great message, great song. Let's get together and feel alright!...

LoriMoreno - @LoriMoreno
Multiply Your Reach and Supercharge Your Retweets with Triberr! http://t.co/nXkzLMWl via @DanielSharkov

Two of my favorite people on Twitter talk about this post so it must be good. A good article actually about using Triberr.

Vi - @vi_rox
Great panel tonight discussing Social Gaming - @rivvid @gamingangel @betterworks @zamland for @smc_la @ingdirectlacafe #smcla

Interesting, I must see what this #SMCLA is all about. Maybe meet Vi in real life soon.

Daria - @msdcarey
Sometimes I want things to go much faster, other times I want things to slow down. At this moment I have no idea which is which

This is how I feel a lot lately, and it's only Tuesday. We can only do what we can do right Daria!?

Mitch Devine - @DevineLines
Thank you, Amber! RT @AmberCadabra: Great time with #LinkedOC tonight. Thank you all, and thanks @BryanElliott for the amazing hospitality.

Everyone was tweeting about this event. Sad to have to miss it, but client work has taken up all my time. That along with some very exciting news coming soon... And some new projects and finally wrapping up the beginning of the year stuff.

Angel Xie - @AngelXie
Build a database of everyone's heartbeat and health infor RT @gigaom: Every heartbeat tells a story. Why not track it? http://t.co/ADzYbQBB

This sounds interesting. With this kind of data over a long period of time and across a large enough sample you can probably start predicting and finding out about heart disease and abnormalities really early on.

Raghavendra Swamy - @bennishiroor
#Google has taken on the location based social network #Foursquare with the launch of http://t.co/3xSlc0xI

Turns out that Google is planning on doing something more useful than Google Places with all that data it has been gathering on you. It's called Schemer and it's in private beta right now - https://www.schemer.com/

Amalik Amriou - @amalik
#storytelling vs. Corporate Speak. #digitalmarketing #socialmedia #contentmarketing #infographic http://t.co/VLnFSF6x

Great infographic, and it is posted on Pinterest. Go figure! I'm starting to see more and more infographics in Pinterest. Seems like a logical place for them since it's such a visual place.

Amanda Wernick - @FUNomenalMe
RT @ABC Philadelphia Man Rescues Squirrel Stuck in Bag of Pistachios http://t.co/Av7Bnuf6 < @BillLublin. Did this make Ur evening news? =)

Amanda always tweeting to make you smile.

John Chow - @JohnChow
@jeffreyskang Hell no! I ordered my 27" iMac with the normal 4GB RAM and then upgraded to 16GB afterward.

And that's how you should always buy apple computers. Buy the least amount of RAM then upgrade with third party RAM. Cheaper and just as good. No sense in spending hundreds of dollars for something that costs a fraction... oh wait...

Jeff Hester - @jeffhester
The end of Dropbox? RT @DarinRMcClure: Go Google! Go Google Drive! http://t.co/7RjaLy55

Definitely not the end of Dropbox or other cloud services as much as Gmail didn't and hasn't marked the end of Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and exchange. Extremely useful, incredibly valuable, but not easy for everyone to adopt as early as we do.

With all the recent "issues" and complaints about Google, I see this as an uphill battle for GOOG.

MaryAnne Wendt  - @maryannewendt
I love when the audio & video feed is not synced on the news. It's like watching a Bruce Lee movie with the lips not matching.

This happens to me a lot on Netflix, not just the news. I think it's going to be a more prevalent problem in the future as more and more people move to online TV & shows.

Curated with: Dashter

The post Google about to enter the geolocation apps arena with Schemer. Humpday Tweet Review. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Here are some screencaptures I made with a little bit of commentary for those of you that didn't get to try it out.

The post Another one bites the dust — Google putting Aadvark to rest appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

You can easily practice each time you search and there are tons of guides out there. Instead of giving you a guide of the different operators, I thought I'd give you a list of actual search queries that can save you time and help you find exactly what you're looking for.

Try this one.

I was looking for an app for a client, a finance app to be exact. The requirements were very simple and part of the requirements were to find apps that had similar features and worked across a variety of systems. This is actually in fact a very popular query if you start to abstract it. Lets take a look:

You might start with a search like this:

accounting app for macs

And it is clear what you're asking, show me accounting apps for macs. Pretty straight forward right? Its actually a good search, but this would be so much better:

accounting (app|program|utility|extension|"add on"|addon|plugin) macs

The first query is really simple, it simply rolls of your tongue and flows straight to your keyboard. The second query is a bit more complicated. As we break it down, you'll find that it actually is a combination query that gives you a greater amount of focused results. Let me explain what is going on.

First our main keyword no trick or anything:
"accounting"

Second, we have our combination of other search terms. These include a variety of names that people might use to refer to a program or app. Notice how they are all surrounded by parentheses "( )" and separated by a symbol called a pipe like this: "|". The pipe means "or" so that our search translates like this:

Search for accounting and then for app, OR, program, OR utility, OR extension OR "add on", OR addon, OR plugin all at the same time.

screenshot (utility|app|program|extension|add on|plugin)

The post Real use Cases for Google Advanced Queries. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Here's the transcript of that video:

Did you know?

Sometimes size does matter.

If you’re one in a million in China there are 1,300 people just like you. In India, there are 1,100 people just like you. The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQs is greater than the total population of North America. In India, it’s the top 28%.

Translation for teachers: they have more honors kids than we have kids.

Did you know?

China will soon become the number one English-speaking country in the world. If you took every single job in the U.S. today and shipped it to China, it still would have a labor surplus. During the course of this presentation

* 60 babies will be born in the U.S.
* 244 babies will be born in China.
* 351 babies will be born in India.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10 to 14 jobs by age 38. According to the U.S. Department of Labor

* 1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company for whom they have been employed less than 1 year.
* More than 1 out of 2 are working for a company for whom they have worked less than 5 years.

According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley,

* The top 10 jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.

We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t yet been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet. Name this country

* Largest military
* Center of world business and finance
* Strongest education system
* World center of innovation and invention
* Currency the world standard of value
* Highest standard of living…..

…England in 1900.

Did you know?

The U.S. is 20th in the world in broadband Internet penetration (Luxembourg just passed us).

Nintendo invested more than $140 million in research and development in 2002 alone). The U.S. federal government spent less than half as much on research and innovation in education.

1 of every 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online.

There are over 106 million registered users of MySpace (as of September 2006). If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th-largest in the world (between Japan and Mexico). The average MySpace page is visited 30 times a day.

Did you know?

We are living in exponential times. There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month. To whom were these questions addressed B.G.(before Google)?

The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population of the planet.

There are about 540,000 words in the English language about 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.

More than 3,000 new books are published daily.

It is estimated that a week’s worth of New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.

It is estimated that 1.5 Exabyte’s (1.5 x 1018) of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year. That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.

The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years. For students starting a four-year technical or college degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. It is predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.

Third generation fiber optics has recently been tested by both NEC and Alcatel that pushes 10 trillion bits per second down one strand of fiber. That’s 1,900 CDs or 150 million simultaneous phone calls, every second. It’s currently tripling about every 6 months and is expected to do so for at least the next 20 years. The fiber is already there. They’re just improving the switches on the ends, which means the marginal cost of these improvements is effectively $0.

Predictions are that e-paper will be cheaper than real paper.

47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year. The $100 laptop project is expecting to ship between 50 to 100 million laptops a year to children in underdeveloped countries. Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the human brain.

By 2023, when 1st-graders will be just 23 years old and beginning their(first) careers it only will take a $1,000 computer to exceed the capabilities of the human brain.

And while technical predictions farther out than about 15 years are hard to make predictions are that by 2049 a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the human race.

What does it all mean?

Shift happens.

The post Very Interesting Globalization Video appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I explained the system to a couple of buddies over lunch, after one asked me what was that about. I'm not the greatest teacher or presenter so I decided to find someone else to explain it for me. Who better than David Allen himself.

Check out this video from the Google Channel. It's a bit long, about 45:00. Its informative if you want to get an overview of the process. If you're already a seasoned GTDer then its just a review of what you already know.

[youtube Qo7vUdKTlhk]

Whether you use the GTD system for every aspect of your life, or just pick some of the favorite tips and tricks, this can seriously help you manage anything.

I like the neutral definition of work: Anything that needs to be done and it isn't.

The post Getting things done, Google Video. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Now residents in California's Humboldt County are complaining that the drivers who are hired to collect the images are disregarding private property signs and driving up private roads.

In an episode reported recently by the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, a Street View driver cruised past two "no trespassing" signs to collect images of a residence that is 1,200 feet from the public road.

What's funny is that this is going on in Humboldt County. I can see why the residents would want to keep their houses and surrounding areas private. Google... leave those people alone.

The whole article by Cnet.

The post More Google Privacy Issues, Norcal is Not Happy. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.