VitaminCM.com

Step By Step Instructions with Video Tutorials

Many people have free blogs on sites like Blogger or Wordpress.com. These free services have simple, effective functionality, but they don’t have the flexibility and functionality that you may need. You can’t have your own domain name on these services On top of that, you don’t own your data.

If you want to have a blog that you own, has your own domain name, and allows you to make any custumizations, you need to host your own blog. This tutorial and the others in the series will show you how to install, configure, customize, and publish your own blog using free software and inexpensive web hosting.

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Software, Tutorials blogging, ftp, mysql, php, set up wordpress blog, software tutorial, wordpres

Sharing the Best Tutorials on Twitter

If any of you are Twitter users, you’re probably aware of the #followfriday phenomena. The original theory to tell the people that you follow about other Twitter users who regularly post interesting, useful tweets. This is a great concept that helped me find a bunch of good people to follow.

Recently #followfriday seems a lot more like an artificial, obligatory way for everyone to pump up each others follower counts.

I still do post the occasional #followfriday tweet using the following guidelines:

1. They are someone whose tweets regularly add value to my experience.
2. I can provide a reason for why I’m recommending them. (for example, #followfriday @abc123 They have the best information on #letters and #numbers anywhere on the web)

This serves two important purposes: It lets you know why you might care and the #tags give a little “twitter-wide” credit to the person being recommended. (Help the follower and followee; good idea, right?)

My Variation on the #FollowFriday Theme

VitaminCM.com is all about helping you learn how to do things. So I came up with the a twist to the original idea that will hopefully help pass on useful information. I’m calling it #TuesTorial.

During the week, I’m going to bookmark any good tutorials that I come across. Each Tuesday I’ll tweet the ones that I think are particularly helpful. If you would like to see my suggestions, just follow me on Twitter.

They will also be posted here in the sidebar widget.

Here is the format that I will be observing:

#Tuestorial – Great video showing how to do #XYZ – link.url/12345

I promise not to shamelessly promote any of my own articles, just other people’s work that I think is excellent.

If you want to see my suggestions follow me on Twitter. (They will also appear in the Twitter widget to the right.)

Your Call to Action – Please Join In the Fun

If you really like the idea of sharing helpful tips, please join in. I really want to see the tutorials that you recommend, so put your @Twitter name in the comments below so that I can follow you.

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Productivity, Software, Tutorials, Web Surfing followfriday, social networking, tuestorial, tuestorials, Tutorials, twitter

Be the Most Productive You Possible

Over the last few weeks I have written several articles focused on productivity and organization tips. I thought it might be helpful to create a page that groups, explains, and links to them in an organized manner.

I separated the articles into three general categories:

1. Collecting Information
2. Scheduling Activities
3. Productivity on the Go 

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Productivity, Tutorials get organized, getting things done, Note taking, organization, Productivity, series, software tutorial, tutorial

Use this Simple Technique to Record, Organize, and Recall Everyting

The information age is upon us. Every day I take in or crank out so much information that it is very difficult to keep it all together. With all of the computers, PDAs, and voice recorders available, I rely on a plain old notebook as my main weapon in the battle to record, create, and organize information. Even though my notebook is simple, my method of taking notes is anything but. I’m going to show you a quick way to go take great notes that will keep you on top of everything.

My Approach to Taking Great Notes

I use a combination of a few approaches modified into my own special method. I base it mostly on the Cornell Note Taking method. Since I’m not a student, I adapted it for taking notes at business meetings and brainstorming projects.

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Productivity, Tutorials evernote, Note taking, Productivity, rememberthemilk, Time management, tutorial

Productivity Does Not Just Happen on your Computer

I spend a lot of time writing about ways to stay organized and productive using your computer’s applications and web services. There is another area where you can give yourself a big boost and that’s your office supplies.

I keep a collection of supplies around that help me collect, create, display, and organize mountains of information. I categorize my supplies by their purpose:

• Collecting and Creating Information
• Displaying Information
• Organizing Information

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Productivity Brainstorming, Business, dry erase board, Highlighter, information managment, notebook, office supplies, organization, Productivity, productivity kit, Whiteboard

Turn your Smartphone into a Genius Phone

Do you ever wish you had a secretary to take care of setting things up for you? Yeah, me too. Well, I found the closest thing to having your own secretary that you can get without opening your wallet. The free service Dial2Do.com will allows you to use your phone to do the following: check and update your calendar, send emails and text messages, create to-do’s and memos, check the weather, update your twitter account, and a bunch of other things.

Here’s how they describe their service:

Dial2Do lets you do common tasks by just calling a number and speaking. Use it to send EMAIL or TEXT messages, record REMINDERS to help you remember things, post updates to your TWITTER or JAIKU stream and LISTEN to your favourite internet content. It’s easy and handsfree…

How does it work?
You get a call in number when you set up your account. When you dial the number a robotic voice ask you what you want to do. You say what you want and they recognize what you said and do it for you instantly.

They integrate with more services than you can shake a stick at. Calendars, Email, RememberTheMilk, Evernote, Twitter, FriendFeed, Wordpress, Blogger, and Typepad, Twitter, Ping.FM, and Tumblr. See the complete list of all of the services that you can use with Dial2Do.

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Podcast, Product Reviews, Productivity, Software, Tutorials Blogger, calendar, dial2do, evernote, FriendFeed, organization, personal productivity, Ping.fm, rememberthemilk, software tutorial, task management, twitter, TypePad

My Favorite Places for Tutorials and Instruction

VitaminCM.com’s goal is to help people get more from their technology. I want to help and inspire people to do more fun and useful things with computers, the internet, and gadgets. This help is provided via detailed written and video tutorials along with News, Reviews, and Surveys.

I would like to share several invaluable resources that I use for information, instruction, inspiration, and tips of my own. This is my list, I would love to hear where you go to learn new things. Please include any relevant places in the Comments below.

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Productivity, Tutorials, Web Surfing

Always Have Your Important Files

Do you work on multiple computers during the day? Perhaps one at work and one at home? Maybe one is a Mac and another is a PC? Well there are a lot of files that you may create or update on one machine that you suddenly need on the other. Sure, you could use a USB drive, but that is very manual and error prone.
If you need to have a common collection of files that are synchronized and instantly available everywhere, you should use DropBox. DropBox is a service that allows you to sync files between multiple computers via their servers.

I have a few computers in my house: A windows desktop in my Office, Windows laptop downstairs, a Linux Laptop in our Bedroom (My Wife’s) and a new MacBook Pro where I do most of my writing now. I have some files on my old Windows desktop and laptop that I need on my MacBook and newly created files that I want back on my PCs. The other problem is that I need to work with certain Windows or Mac only apps at different times. This allows me to move all of the files that I need back and forth to the machine where I need to work in “real-time”.

If I do a Screencast on my PC, I just put it into my DropBox and upload it from my Mac when I’m ready. If I make something in iMovie on my Mac, I just drop it in and open it on my PC later.

What exactly is Dropbox?

This is how DropBox describes their service:

Dropbox is the easiest way to share and store your files online.
Works like you do
No complicated interface to learn. Dropbox runs in the background on your desktop.
Worry-free syncing
Sync your files automatically to your computers and the web.
It’s everywhere you are
Sign in and access your files from any browser or mobile device.
Easy sharing
Sharing files with your friends and family is just two clicks away.
Photos
View your photos in a gallery and share them easily with anyone.

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Podcast, Product Reviews, Productivity, Software, Tutorials dropbox, iPhone, linux, mac, software tutorial, sync files, video tutorial, windows

Capture Anything, Anywhere, and Recall it with Ease

When you have to create content for a living (here and my day job), you are constantly processing information. I am constantly looking for new approaches to capture the information and ideas during the day. The best tool that I have found so far is the note taking service Evernote.

Here’s how Evernote explains their service:

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

1. You capture the things you want to remember using what you already use—your Windows or Mac computer, the web, and your mobile phone.
2. We run everything through our recognition technology, and then synchronize it across your devices. You can then organize and tag the notes, if you wish.
3. When you want to find something, just search or filter and there it is just like you remember it.

Adding Information to your Notebook

You can install a desktop application on Windows or Mac computers and use their web interface on Linux machines. They also have a browser plug-in for Firefox and Safari that allows you to clip text and images from web pages and save them.

If you use multiple computers (work and home) with multiple operating systems, don’t worry Evernote will sync your notes to all of your devices instantly. No matter which device I’m using I can always capture any information and pull it back up. You can use a PC, Mac, and Phone (text, voice, photos).

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Media, Miscellaneous Ramblings, Movies, Podcast, Product Reviews, Productivity, Software, Technology, Tutorials

Simple Flexible To Do List Management

Keeping track of the myriad of things that I need to get done on a daily basis can be near impossible. I use the RememberTheMilk task management service to keep track of my tasks. This is a very simple, powerful, elegant tool for task management and to-do list creation.

You can sign up for a Free or Pro (paid) account. The Free account gives you just about all of the best, most valuable features. The Pro account ($25 USD/year) adds applications for your phone (iPhone, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile). I currently use an iPhone and used to have a Windows Mobile phone and always just used the free mobile web interface, which is very good. Times are tight and so’s my wallet.

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Podcast, Product Reviews, Productivity, Software, Tutorials