Part of my daily email routine involves logging into my Google Apps GMail accounts and applying the label:unread filter, which allows me to review any emails that I did not read throughout the day (since I filter my emails aggressively).

Now, I have found an even easier way to do this via my feed reader (which is currently NetNewsWire on Mac OSX and Reeder on the iPhone). Simply, use the following magical URL in your feed reader and enjoy:

https://mail.google.com/a/[your domain name]/feed/atom/unread

Note that you will need to authenticate your feed using your Google Apps username and login, where the username is your full email address.

After scouring the Edit Page and settings links, then searching through Facebook’s help system, it ultimately took a Google search to figure out how easy it is to do this.  Hopefully I’ll save you the 15 minutes of my life I can no longer recover.

continue reading "How to Add a Vanity URL to your Facebook Page in Two Minutes"

When you add custom HTML with Flash or Javascript using the WYSIWYG editor, Joomla will modify your code, rendering your code useless. Instead of using one of these modules, here is a simple hack using the built in Category feature.

continue reading "Using Custom HTML with Flash or Javascript in Joomla without Modules"

Staying “in the zone” becomes increasingly difficult with the plethora of ways to be distracted. Especially if you spend most of your time in front a computer. Between email, IM’s, RSS feeds, phone calls and text messages it’s a wonder we ever actually find time to work for than 15 minutes at a time. My hope is that this simple tip will help you avoid at least one of these distractions multiple times per day … the non-important email. Before you continue, you may also want to check out How to Forward an Email as a Text Message.

continue reading "Reduce Distractions and Stay in the Zone with an Aggressive GMail Filtering Strategy"

When your customers are searching for a solution online or begin to research your company, they usually turn to a search engine. Therefore, what shows up on that front page is very important. Using the following tools and procedures, you can stay on top of what the Internet is saying about your company or yourself.

continue reading "Do It Yourself Reputation Management with Google Reader"

Whether you are a student or a busy executive, the fact is, you have to eat, and Doritos, Cheesy Poofs and Diet Pepsi just can’t cut it for too long. And just because you maybe a starving, poor student, does not mean you have to be on forced diet. The following free resources show you how to prepare meals when you are short on cash, time and ingredients.

continue reading "Fast Low Cost Recipe Resources for the Starving Student or Busy Entrepreneur"

I’m in the process of evaluating my GTD weekly review process, as I feel like I’ve entered into the trap of executing the checklist without concern whether I am doing so productively. Following is the current checklist I am using:

continue reading "What is in your GTD Weekly Review Checklist?"

When you want a user to be automatically logged in after they register, you can use the following code where you have access to the sfGuardUser module:

$this->getContext()->getUser()->signIn($user, true);

The following is guest post by Corry Cummings

You’ve likely heard the old phrase that permeates through online web marketing forums and message boards – Content is King. Why is this? In an online environment where videos are growing in popularity and the average visitor reads about 20% of a page, what makes high quality web content so necessary for success? Well, as you begin to explore the scope and value of content, you might find that there is no single more profitable investment that your online business or web site can make than high quality web content.

continue reading "Why High Quality Web Content is Necessary for Success"

As an entrepreneur and consultant, I find that a balance between being responsive to people vs. focusing on work can often lead to an obsessive email checking compulsion. To battle this issue, I have  a recurring task to clear my inbox every four hours via OmniFocus. When I check off that task (check email, voice mails, text messages, etc…), OmniFocus creates a new task automatically in 4 hours.

But what about the case where there is an email that is critical and you need to know when it arrives right away? Option 1 is to sit in front of your email hitting refresh every 30 seconds, option 2 is to use some sort of notification program that pops something up when you receive a new email. The problem with option 1 is obvious and option 2 is a bit more subtle. Every time you see that pop up or see a number next to your email client you will likely be distracted and break your workflow to check email, only to discover some non-important email.

So this post introduces option 3. Setup a special filter to redirect the email you are looking for to your phone via SMS. This tip assumes that your SMS is primary used for urgent matters. Following are the specific steps to do this in Gmail; however, you can adapt easily to any email client that provides forwarding functionality.

continue reading "How to Forward an Email as a Text Message"