As I recently upgraded to a new notebook, it is time to find a new home for a perfectly good workhorse, my Sony VAIO V505EX Notebook PC, which is up for auction on eBay through next Sunday, October 18. The notebook is pictured below.

This PC was a workhorse for me, as I ran my little Internet consulting firm off it for the first several years. You can view the V505EX specs in PDF format here, and full support information is available here on Sony’s Web site. In addition to the specs I upgraded the memory to 2 GB and the hard drive to 100 GB. It also includes a port replicator/docking station and the restore CDs.

Bidding starts at a penny for this great buy in a notebook PC.

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Imagine a journal where for an entire year where each day is chronicled by somebody different. If you can envision it, or even if you can’t, you can follow it starting in January, 2010 with the3six5 project.

The idea for the3six5 came from Daniel Honigman and Len Kendall, 2 fellow Chicagoans who come up with a lot of great ideas. When I heard they came up with this, I had to get in on it.

In their own words, this is what the3six5 is all about:

Everyday for 365 days, a different person will write an entry about their experience that day. It doesn't have to be about a specific topic, the key is that it somehow relates to what is happening in the world that day and how it relates to them. By doing so, starting from January 1 to December 31 of 2010, we will have a snapshot of the entire year, told from the perspective of 365 individual voices. 365 days will be made available and volunteers from across the country will be able to pick a date of their choice. There is no guarantee that any day will be better than others, because no one can predict the future. Regardless if the selected day in 2010 brings something newsworthy, everyone has a short story to tell that will help create the experience of living through a year in this country.

Each author will write a 250 word reflection which will be posted to "lifestreaming" site Posterous. Posterous.com was selected over a typical blog or website because of its simplicity and its ability to distribute content across all the major social networks. You can access this page by simply going to www.the3six5.com. If all goes well, my dream would be to publish the posterous stream as a book. I suppose you could call it a crowdsourced journal of 2010.

Where it’s first-come, first-serve for dates, each day of the year means something different to different people. By people, located in all parts of the world, writing a short reflection after that day happens, in the end there will be a unique journal for the year.

I will be writing an entry for August 19, 2010. I have also made a contribution – US$5.00 – to the fundraising to make a book of all the entries. I will not receive any compensation for this project, which is fine as money is not why I am involved in this. Being one of 365 people contributing to this body of work is thrill enough. There are still dates available, and details on the project and information to signup is available on the site.

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Over the years I have built the first Web sites for many individuals and businesses of all sizes, and have taken over the on-going development of others. Where I am proud of the work my firm Dunkirk Systems, LLC has done, in some cases I am disappointed, and that comes from the fact that a lot of the features and functionalities of these Web sites are not being used to their fullest.

Trust me, I am not on an ego trip here. I state this in general as I want my clients to fully exploit all of the tools they have in their Internet toolbox! I also fully understand, as a business owner myself that the continuous changing of hats and roles in a business causes for priorities to change and something inevitably falls on the list.

Know What You Own

There’s no time like a slowing economy to revisit what you have to see how it can help you. Here’s a list of some suggestions I have made to my own clients recently, most of which apply to anyone who owns a Web site.

• Review your Web Analytics – Whether it’s Google Analytics or the reporting from your Web host, gain an understanding of the traffic to your Web site. Where are Web visitors coming from, what are they going to, how long are they there, and what are they doing while they are there? This will tell you how effective your Web site is itself, its search ranking and will identify potential “opportunities” to improve your Web site.

  If you are not aware of how to do this or don’t have Google Analytics on your site, this is a worthy, yet affordable, enhancement for your Web site.

• Review the Web Site Itself – When is the last time you actually looked at your Web site? Sure, you may be familiar with the home page. But when is the last time you fully walked through every page of the site, reading it in detail? You may be surprised to see what you are reading! Not only is this important to know what is out there from a branding and accuracy standpoint, but it is good to know what your customers are reading.

  Identify any important content changes, and make those changes yourself if you have a content management system (CMS) on your Web site. If you don’t have one, having your Web developer execute on even the smallest changes may make a big difference.

• Buy Something From Your Web Site – If you have an eCommerce Web site, buy something. This will allow you to re-visit the user experience of shopping on your Web site, both to see what others see and compare it to other shopping carts you have used on other Web sites.

  Many eCommerce platforms have a robust set of tools, most of which may not always be utilized. These include volume discounts, coupon codes and affiliate marketing management. It may be as straightforward as activating one of these features and setting up coupon codes to send to customers to drive sales. If you can, why not do?

• Ask Your Customers About Your Web Site – No matter the economy, I always ask my clients to query their customers at some point in the sales process. Simple questions such as, “have you been to our Web site?” or “did our Web site help you in doing business with us?” can give you real insight and feedback on the effectiveness of using your Web site.

  But don’t just ask, write it down! Logging and reviewing this feedback can provide areas of improvement, not to mention a reinforcement of how awesome your Web site may be.

• Build Your House List – If you don’t have one already, start compiling the address – both postal and email – of your customers. You don’t even have to be currently sending any mailings to your customers, but it is important to have an accurate “house list” of your customers and strong prospects to market to. If and when you decide to start a newsletter or other correspondences, you can then focus on the campaign itself and not on the mundane of compiling information.

Share Your Wish List

As you have read, going thru what you own may identify areas of change for your Web site. Write them down and review them. You may decide to wait on these until sales and revenue increase, or you may deem them vital now to increase sales and revenue. In either case, share them with your Web developer so you will both be on the same page of the importance of your Web site.

Are you doing any of these? Is there something else you’re doing that could make the list? If so, please post a comment to join in the conversation.

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Have you ever seen a blog post with comments and next to some of them are photos of people, presumably whoever posted the comment? But when you go ahead and post your own comments your picture or logo doesn’t appear? If you’ve wondered how to do this, you need to setup an account with Gravatar.

Gravatar is a portmanteau for “Globally Recognized Avatar” and is tied to an email address or account you use for posting comments or logging into a Web service. Where some blogs and services are closed systems and require you to set up your own profile and avatar, Gravatar allows you to set it up in one central place, and based on your email address or login, it will display the corresponding avatar. This allows you to manage your avatar in one place, which simplifies the process if you ever want to change it.

I setup Gravatar on The Hot Iron some time ago, but never promoted the fact I did so. I would say based on experience close to half of those who leave comments have established a Gravatar account. If someone posts a comment and does not have a Gravatar account, a default avatar is displayed. In the case of The Hot Iron, it is New Hampshire’s legendary Old Man of the Mountain.

When I originally created my Gravatar account, I used the Dunkirk Systems, LLC logo. However the more and more I observed Gravatars, I decided to use my new headshot photo, as shown in this screen grab from a comment on the blog Upgrade: Travel Better:

Gravatar is a free service I have no direct connection with and they did not ask me to write about them. There is no charge for either creating an account or implementing their display on your blog or Web service, though for the latter you will likely need to develop code or use a plugin. I have simply been a happy user of the service, and once you try it you probably will be too.

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I heard form the folks over at Connect and Conserve which is run by Adobe and the U.S. Green Building Council. If you sign up for a free trial of Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro, which is their Web-based collaboration service, $25 goes to a local school to help it go green. If you sign up for it through The Hot Iron, and as I am in Chicago, it will help a Chicago school.

I’ve used Connect Pro before, as well as its predecessor Macromedia Breeze. It has a robust yet easy to use interface, and I would consider it one of the best services in its class. So give Connect Pro a try, and by greening a Chicago school it will mean I pay less taxes. Right?

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