Top 7 Things on Jason’s Mind – June 6th, 2012

June 6, 2012 / in General Information / by Jason Terry

Every once in a while I have a bunch of things on my mind that I know would benefit our audience… (YOU).  Some of these might matter and some might not, but my hope is that there is a nugget in here somewhere for you.  Let me know in the comments below if you learned something or if you like (or don’t like) these kinds of posts.

Top 7 Things on Jason’s Mind – June 6th, 2012

1) LinkedIn Hacked – Change your Password

My friend Anne Rauth, owner of Entire Computer Solutions forwarded this to me from her iPhone.  Some 6.5 million passwords for LinkedIn may have been compromised and it would be a really good idea to change your LinkedIn password.  Why?  You probably don’t want someone changing your profile picture to a swimsuit photo, impersonating you, or capturing information about your contacts.  I just changed mine, it takes two minutes.  Go to LinkedIn, on the top right hover over your name to bring up the dropdown with Settings in it.  Click settings and then click the change password link.  Read more on TheNextWeb.com.

2) Economic Growth Slows in Kansas and Missouri

Mic forwarded me an article from the Kansas City Business Journal that talks about economic growth slowing in Kansas and Missouri.  The troubling statistic was “Both states are well below the overall U.S. gross domestic product growth rate of 1.5 percent.”  We have been talking with our peers and clients and there is a general sense that everyone is still having great meetings, but decisions are dragging out if not being made at all.  My answer to this is that we are all going to have to work harder and smarter to earn new business.  (Selfish plug, if you don’t have your LinkedIn focused sales and prospecting strategy together, give me a call.)  Read more on BizJournals.com.

3) 2nd Quarter Estimated Tax Payments Due 6/15

Yes, you probably already know this, but if you kind of forgot, put a reminder on your calendar to get this done (if you make quarterly estimate payments).  You can do this electronically with an EFTPS account.  (Electronic Federal Tax Payment System)

4) Skype Group Video Calls

Recently, I consulted with two companies in Virginia using Group Skype functionality.  One of the companies was Captivate Films owned by Kyle Vitasek, and he set up the call.  It worked REALLY well and actually felt like we were all in the room together.  It is basically a video skype call with more than two people… you can see their faces and hear them talking.  Another nice feature is that you can pull up web sites or documents and Skype will put a small video of the active person talking in the top of your screen so that you can collaborate on a doc while still seeing who is talking.  It costs $10 per month or $60 per year for this service.  Read more on Skype Group Video Calls here.

5) HostGator

Over the past year, we started noticing that our web site pages were coming up slowly.  This also affected some of our clients because they were using the same host as we were.  After a month of troubleshooting, we decided to move our website to a new host.  We did the research and decided to try HostGator.  The process to move was fairly painless (took 2 hours) and immediately our web pages were coming up twice as fast, and the backend of WordPress where we edit our content worked much more smoothly.  Since then, we have started the process of moving all of our clients to HostGator and have seen the same results.  If you are running a self-hosted WordPress based web site and are having problems with your hosting company, take a good look at HostGator!  We recommend the Linux Business plan for $12/month because you are assigned a static IP (the technical people reading this knows why that matters, the rest of you could care less.)  For more info, here is the Blue Gurus Hostgator Affiliate Link.

6) Blubrry Podcasting – WordPress plugin

We recently started a new web site project for Christ Church in Overland Park.  (Thank you Donna and Tommy!)  One of their requirements is to be able to provide their sermons in MP3 format via iTunes as podcasts.  WordPress supports podcasts out of the box, but there are a few plugins out there that make the process even easier.  The one that we plan on using for Christ Church is the Blubrry Podcasting plugin.  We are kicking that project off next week and making sure we have our technical ducks in a row.  For more info, here is the link to the plugin.

7) Tomorrow is Trista’s Birthday

For those of you that know my wife, Trista Terry, her QuadNill-ith birthday is tomorrow, June 7th.  It is not appropriate to discuss a woman’s age, so that is my sneaky way of letting you know this one is a milestone.  Please join me in wishing her a Happy Birthday!  We are celebrating with friends and family in town, and going on a cruise at the end of July to really celebrate!  She owns Curious Compass and helps people set up their perfect cruise, so of course that is her present!