One of the ways I keep up with great online resources is to bookmark them. I’m sure you’ve clicked that “bookmark” or “favorites” button in your web browser a few times, too. Over time though, my collection grew unwieldy and I could never find an easy way to keep up with them across the various computers I use. I tried del.ico.us and a couple of other social bookmarking sites but they didn’t really meet my needs. I wasn’t necessarily looking for a way to share my bookmarks with others as much as I needed a way to access them from anywhere.
A couple of weeks ago I added the Google Bookmark widget to my iGoogle page. 
That’s the ticket! It’s simple, easy to organize and available anywhere by logging in to my iGoogle page. I’ve taken the time to actually visit most of the bookmarks in my collection. It’s been fun rediscovering a lot of terrific resourceful sites. Good thing I bookmarked them. Now I can share them with you. Stay tuned!
I just hate getting a call from a mysterious phone number! I figure if it’s not a number in my phone’s directory, I certainly don’t know the person. I’m obsessive about keeping numbers in my phone. Personal, work, you name it. So was it someone who dialed a wrong number? Someone I know calling from a strange location? Opportunity knocking, er - calling? I can’t stand it, I have to know.
The Internet is perfect for solving this kind of mystery. My favorite reverse phone directory resource is SuperPages.com. Here you can do a reverse search by residential or business phone number or address. Just type in that mysterious phone number and see the address and name of the person calling. Of course unpublished numbers aren’t included, but it sure beats the days of going to the library to look up this kind of information.
Even though I haven’t been blogging for long, I recently decided that I was bored with my first choice of blogging tool, Blooger. It was very easy to use and I would highly recommend it to anyone starting out. But…
Last Friday I met with Doug Karr, who is working on a Google mapping project for us at Wild Birds Unlimited. Knowing that Doug is a very sucessful and prolific blogger who uses WordPress, I took the opportunity to ask him about it. I few mouse clicks later he was giving me a “behind the scenes” tour of the WordPress interface. Wow! What a difference - I was hooked.
I spent the weekend moving my stuff from Blogger to WordPress. I was worried that I would lose my posts and comments in the move. I studied the help section and followed everything very carefully. Then to my amusement, I arrived at the WordPress ”Magic Button.” One click and everything from my Blogger account magically appeared in WordPress. Most excellent! Now, if I could just find the “Magic Button” in my laundry room.
I know just enough about graphic design to be dangerous. I can hack my way through using PhotoShop but it isn’t 
pretty. I always struggle with making rounded corner graphics for that nice Web 2.0 look. Today I found a nifty tool called Cornershop that will make my life easier. Simply type in your page background hex color, the corner radius, transparency and viola, instant corners! You can download .gif images ready to use in your page layout or download CSS or HTML code. All this for free. Gotta love coders!
OK, I know I’m off to a rocky start with this blogging thing! I’ve already broken one of the cardinal rules of blogging by not posting for a loooong time. Well, life takes strange turns sometimes and that’s what happened to me recently.
I’ve been fortunate to work with Marty Bird, a fantastic boss, mentor and friend for the past nine years. A few weeks back, Marty announced that he would be leaving Wild Birds Unlimited to join a local start-up, Compendium Software. Suddenly, it all made sense! Marty was the one who challenged me to start a blog in the first place. Little did I know at the time that he was about to go to work for a company whose tools help organizations create, manage, and search-optimize multiple blogs.
Besides being very happy for Marty, his departure from the company sent me into a “resource-less” panic. You never realize how much you rely on a person you spend 8 hours a day with until he isn’t right across the hall ready to brainstorm at a moment’s notice.
For now, I’m learning to get input from other co-workers when thinking through work situations. They’re a set of resources I knew existed but haven’t used to their full potential until now. I think it’s going to be a good thing.
So, dear readers, I’m back at it. I’ll try to add new resourceful tips on a regular basis from now on.
Oh yeah…and I still haven’t purchased an iPhone!
