For the next few months, everyone will be discussing the inevitable – New Year’s resolutions (NYRs). Even as you’re reading this you’re already creating your mental checklist of NYRs. Some of the popular ones are: lose weight, drink less, exercise more, join a book club, become a popular socialite, make more friends, etc. The good news is, most of the things you want to change about yourself in 2010 can be accomplished with all sorts of technologies. Since this is a blog, and we’re not actively having this conversation, I’m going to put myself out there and share with you my NYRs for 2010.  For the next week, I will be posting one NYR per day and the technologies out there that can help me achieve them.

1. Lose Weight – This is the obvious one. The holidays (among being the happiest of times) can be the worst of times too. Some of us choose to drown our sorrows with food. So – how can you lose those pesky holiday pounds? Daily Burn is the answer (well the free answer).

Daily Burn is a website that helps you track calories, follow healthy guidelines, and network with others that will challenge you to be successful in your weight loss. Daily Burn has so many resources that help you stay honest to your goals and to make things easy on you. If you have an iPhone, DB has two apps that help you stay organized. The first is the main Daily Burn app. You can track your calories, weight loss progress, exercise routines, etc. The second is called Food Scanner. This uses your camera to scan the UPC code on any food item and automatically enters it into your Daily Burn food list for the day.

Part of the evils of losing weight is stepping on the scale and looking that number in the eye at least once a week. DB has partnered with Withings and created a body scale with WiFi that automatically records your weight to your DB account! Now the scale does the work for you! All you have to do is step up once a week and the scale will record your progress (and you don’t actually have to look at the number if you don’t want to).

So – as the New Year begins, be thinking about your NYRs and what you want to do differently in 2010. Technology is always available to help you achieve your goals – large or small. Check back tomorrow for my NYR #2.

In general, it’s good to have checks and balances in any process. You want to make sure things are done accurately as well as efficiently. Unfortunately, many companies take the checks and balances to the extreme. There is such a thing as “too many cooks in the kitchen”. I’m sure many of you know exactly what I mean.

Consider this – let’s say your department receives a request to change text on the company website from “Click here to learn more about Fresh Squeezed Tech”  to  “Learn more about Fresh Squeezed Tech”. Instead of just sending you the new verbiage, they send it to everyone in their department as well (claiming they want feedback). Suddenly you’re faced with an influx of emails, all with various ways of directing the user to Fresh Squeezed Tech. Then you find yourself being invited to a meeting where the exact verbiage is discussed ad nauseam. Does it really matter what the sentence says? If the ultimate goal is to efficiently direct the user to Fresh Squeezed Tech, why does it take 15 people to weigh in on what the link should read? Someone needs to take ownership (preferably the original requester) and make the call.

This example is just a teeny tiny drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of inefficiencies that are found throughout technology processes. It just so happens the above case would be a perfect opportunity for collaboration in Google Wave. In fact, I believe a lot of the inefficiencies most companies face (technology companies or not) would be greatly reduced with Google Wave technology (technology being the keyword).

Let’s make our processes more efficient by using technology to create technology. Now there’s a genius idea!

All of a sudden, you’re thinking about all of the possibilities this adapter can provide for you. You’ll finally be able to use your wireless router on your ancient desktop computer! This is going to be $30.00 well spent!

You get home – install the software – plug in the device AND… it doesn’t work?! Why not? The package said it would find wireless networks in range. Why isn’t it working? I installed the software like it said. (Your forehead crinkles as you sit there reading the quick install guide over and over.) Then you pick up the phone and call the customer service number.

For the next hour you are battling with a customer service representative (likely someone with a heavy accent that makes it increasingly difficult to understand what they’re asking you to do) over what you did and what they’re asking you to do. (The lines, “Yes I did restart my computer”, “I already did that”, “I’m sorry can you repeat that” come to mind.) After you hang up – you’re even more confused than when you started!

STOP – this next part is crucial. Here’s where the customer went wrong:

1. At no time did he check the original router to find out if the adapter and the router were compatible.
2. If the computer is ancient – chances are the system requirements don’t match what the device needs to operate.
3. He purchased something off the cuff without having done the proper research (i.e. reviews, compatibility, requirements, etc.) – instead he saw something fancy and bought it.
4. He let himself be marketed to by fancy claims and fancy packaging.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with buying a piece of technology without fully understanding it. In fact, that’s my favorite way to go – just so I can learn more about it by being “hands on”. The fact is, if you don’t understand what you are buying the greater the chance you’ll have to shell out more cash for additional things just to get the first thing to work!

It’s been my experience that it’s not always good to just hop in the car, head down to Best Buy (or wherever), and take a look at a piece of new technology. It’s nice to be able to see it in a fancy, colorful package but my time is better spent researching the product to find out if it’s worth it in the end.

Don’t make the same mistake as this customer. If you want to buy something you don’t know much about – take a tech geek with you. At least he/she will be able to ask the questions necessary before you invest the money on the item (and possibly additional money afterward).

Twitter - I check my Twitter account 3-4 times a day. Why is this a go-to tool? Twitter is a fantastic social media platform. The simplicity of the allowed 140 character posts makes reviewing updates quick and easy. I have the opportunity to follow people that I admire, aspire to be like, make me laugh, or deliver relevant newsworthy updates. There’s always something interesting out there to read on Twitter. If you don’t have an account – you should jump on the tweet wagon.  If you’re a twitter newbie, check out Twitter and Your Website for some great tips!

iPhone – If you’ve read any of my other posts you already know I use my iPhone like it’s going out of style. There is literally an app out there for everything. It makes me more productive, more connected, and it keeps me occupied during any free time I might have. I even have a page in my blog dedicated to reviewing an iPhone app each week.

Mashable.com – Mashable is a social media and technology news guide. The information I find from this website is always new, fresh, and accurate. I find myself checking the front page hot topics several times per day (aside from reading @mashable tweets).

Google Wave – I use Wave on a daily basis. More and more of my contacts are getting access to Wave and it’s now much easier to send them a wave instead of an email. Conversations are much easier to follow; documents, images, etc. are much easier to keep track of; and collaboration is more productive and effective. If you’re not sure what Google Wave is, you can learn more or you can watch the “brief” demo from the creators of Wave.

Snagit – If you’ve ever had to grab screenshots of a website it can be such a pain to hit ctrl+Prnt Scrn on your keyboard, paste it into Paint, edit out the things you don’t want to share with the world, save, and send out. Being a website designer and website manager, I discovered Snagit early on and believe me – it has certainly paid for itself.

What makes Snagit so great? For one thing – I can set it to snag a region of a page (that I specify), a particular window, a scrolling webpage, etc. There are so many options. After a screen has been captured, I can edit it right inside the Snagit Editor. No need to save it and edit it elsewhere. I can add other images, point out parts of the capture, and I can even create things from scratch using the the editor.

You can download a 30 day trial or purchase the software for $49.95 (definitely worth it).

These are just a few go-to technology things that I use and love. What’s in your technology toolkit? Send us a comment.

When I hear a particular company is developing an app, I’m interested to learn more. As an avid iPhone user, it’s feels like a Christmas present every time I download a new one. (Of course the “present” is even better when it’s an app that I like.) Today I learned about a company that is developing an “iPhone-esque” web application that will have the same look and feel of a native iPhone app, but will only be accessible via the phone’s browser. (The thought being that multiple types of mobile phones will be able to access the app.)

Here are the thoughts that ran through my head:

A.) Why would you spend ‘x’ amount of dollars on development, resources, etc. to create a web application that looks like an iPhone app and behaves like an iPhone app, but ISN’T an iPhone app? (How does the saying go, “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck” – or maybe it should be.)

B.) If the web app doesn’t do anything different than the company’s website, what is the incentive for me (the iPhone user) to access it when I can just as easily (and probably just as quickly) use the Safari browser and go to the main website?

C.) Am I the only person who thinks this is a waste of time, money, and valuable business resources?

I later found out that several of the decision makers for this particular brain child don’t even have iPhones, nor do they know much about them. So this faux-iPhone app will be created and will be unsuccessful because the project isn’t being thought through.

If your company is creating, beginning to create, or potentially will create an iPhone application—for all things sacred PUT SOMEONE ON THE PROJECT WHO KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT iPHONES. Approach the project from the iPhone user’s point of view. Create something engaging that either a.) does something different, or b.) presents the information differently than your company website. Otherwise, you’ll be spending money to develop something that the user can certainly live without, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do.

Think about it for a minute. How many pieces of technology (no matter how archaic they may seem) do you use every single day? Just thinking about my day today I’ve used a hair dryer, drove my car, worked on my computer, checked emails, played with my iPhone, made updates to some websites, watched my favorite shows online, called my husband on the phone, surfed the internet, and the list goes on and on.

My friend may think she’s “not that connected” but I have news for her and everyone else—technology is here and we’re ALL connected.  We may all be at different levels, but we’re connected just the same.

I say we give in, embrace the new and exciting, and don’t look back! Jump on the technology bandwagon or you’re sure to be left behind.