Here are 3 ways to transfer data from your desktop computer to your Android device without using cables.
1) Google Chrome to Phone Extension
According to Google, "This extension adds a button to Chrome that lets you seamlessly pushes links, maps, and currently selected text and phone numbers to your Android device."
2) Awesome Drop
This app lets you copy files via a browser from your desktop to your Android device. For example, you could quickly copy a PDF or any other file from your desktop to your device. Much faster than hooking up a cable.
3) Webpage QR Code Generators
Mobile Barcoder for Firefox
QR-Code Tag Extension for Chrome
Firefox and Chrome offer QR code extensions that generate a QR code for any webpage you visit from your desktop. So how is this useful? Let's say you plan to attend a meeting whose agenda is on a website. And let's say you don't want to print the agenda, but instead have access to it from your Android device. Simply go to the webpage on your desktop, access the QR code for that page, and scan the code with your device's barcode scanner. Now you can save the link as a bookmark on your device's browser.
3 ways to copy data from desktop to Android without a cable
Flight cancelled? 3 tactics for getting airborne fast
Airfare search site Hipmunk shares these 3 tactics for finding the next flight out should yours be cancelled:
- Call the airline. If your flight is cancelled after you’ve already gotten on the plane—for example, because of a mechanical problem—call the airline right away! You’ll be on the phone with them minutes before everyone else leaves the plane and starts to line up, so you’ll have first dibs on being rebooked onto a convenient flight.
- Go to the next flight’s gate. If there’s a flight leaving for the same place you’re going, go to that gate and see if there’s space for you. If the flight is full, ask to be put on the “standby” list.
- Find a different line to wait in. If all the lines are full, and there are no flights going where you want for a couple hours, exit security. Ask for help at the check-in desks—they’re often better staffed and less harried than the customer service lines past security.
How to download all files from a web page with one click
With the Firefox addon DownThemAll, you can download multiple files from a web page all at the same time. For example, I downloaded 96 PDF files with one click for a conference I'll be attending.
Metrics for web and social media
According to the article Web Metrics That Matter, effective metrics for website and social media can be segmented into three categories: outreach, engagement, and conversion. Check out the example categories from the article to pick and choose what works best for your situation.
Strategies for difficult questions from reporters
Ready Georgia's Media Training Manual suggests these strategies for difficult questions during media interviews.
Hypothetical questions.
"What if?" questions ask you to speculate about the future or possible events. Refuse to answer them.
Response: "I can't speculate any better than the next person about hypotheticals--let me tell you what actually happened in a related instance."
Putting words in your mouth.
"Would you say that...?" or "would you agree that...?" questions are often loaded questions. You run the risk of having the reporter's language attributed to you. If a question contains negative language or words you don't like, don't repeat them.
Response: "No, let me put it this way..."
Direct question.
Very direct questions deserve direct answers. Answer the question, then bridge to a key message.
Reporter: "How many jobs will be lost in the merger?"
Response: About 300, but we are doing everything we can to soften the blow..."
Questions you didn't anticipate.
Know how to stall for time. Even a few seconds can help you gather your thoughts.
- Pause for a moment before answering.
- Comment on the question. "That's an interesting question. I'm glad you asked it because there are a lot of misperceptions about..."
- Restate the question. "Let me make sure I understand. You're asking me how we came to discover the employee fraud."
The question may be irrelevant, or answering truthfully may be damaging to the organization. Bridge to what you really want to talk about.
Response: "That's a complex issue that we'd need a whole panel of experts to untangle. What I think the people really want to know is..."
If the question delves into proprietary information:
Response: "I would like to answer that, but it would be too helpful to our competitors."
If the question is too personal, try broadening it.
Reporter: "How do you balance career and family?"
Response: "That question illustrates the growing awareness of the challenges facing working women..."
Decision chart on how to handle online comments
The Air Force Public Affairs Agency created a decision chart to determine if and how to respond to online comments about the Air Force. The chart can be adapted to any industry and can serve as a company standard operating procedure for those who interact in online conversations. (Thanks to Lindy Dreyer of SocialFish for directing us to this!)
A free and easy first step toward mobile marketing
QR codes, or "quick response" codes, are two-dimensional bar codes that can contain contact information, website addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, text, geo locations, and more.
Here's how they work: when a person scans the barcode with their mobile phone, the encoded information appears on the screen. For example, the QR barcode on this page contains the URL to this website: www.officeherohq.com. So after a person scans this, they can go straight to the website on their mobile device without having to type in the website address.
So what are some of the ways you can use QR codes for your marketing efforts? (More ideas here.)
Business cards
Flyers
Posters
Signs
How to create a custom QR code
There are many websites where you can generate custom QR codes for free. Here are some:
Where to find barcode scanners for mobile devices
Barcode scanners--also known as "QR code readers"--often come installed on newer phones. If not, or if you want to experiment with other scanners, here is where you can find them:
- Barcode Scanner for Android devices
- iPhone scanners
- Scanners for other types of mobile phones
5 characteristics of high achievers
The article Why did so many successful entrepreneurs and startups come out of PayPal? highlights the characteristics of the Paypal culture and the high achievers who worked there. Some of the ex-employees moved on and made their marks in companies such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Slide, and Yelp.
Here are 5 characteristics of high achievers:
- Extreme bias towards action
- Data-driven decision maker
- Driven problem solver, rather than a subject matter expert
- Self-sufficient--able to achieve complex objectives on their own
- Able to articulate and defend a strategy or product in a succinct, compelling manner with empirical analysis and withstand a withering critique
17 cognitive distortions and 4 tactics for dealing with them
Here are 17 cognitive distortions that result from erroneous assumptions and dysfunctional thinking:
- Mind reading: You assume that you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts. "He thinks I'm a loser."
- Fortune telling: You predict the future--that things will get worse or that there is danger ahead. "I'll fail that exam" and "I won't get the job."
- Catastrophizing: You believe that what has happened or will happen will be so awful and unbearable that you won't be able to stand it. "It would be terrible if I failed."
- Labeling: You assign global negative traits to yourself and others. "I'm undesirable" or "He's a rotten person."
- Discounting positives: You claim that the positives that you or others attain are trivial."That's what wives are supposed to do--so it doesn't count when she's nice to me." "Those successes were easy, so they don't matter."
- Negative filter: You focus almost exclusively on the negatives and seldom notice the positives. "Look at all of the people who don't like me."
- Overgeneralizing: You perceive a global pattern of negatives on the basis of a single incident. "This generally happens to me. I seem to fail at a lot of things."
- Dichotomous thinking: You view events, or people, in all-or-nothing terms. "I get rejected by everyone" or "It was a waste of time."
- Shoulds: You interpret events in terms of how things should be rather than simply focusing on what is. "I should do well. If I don't, then I'm a failure."
- Personalizing: You attribute a disproportionate amount of the blame to yourself for negative events and fail to see that certain events are also caused by others. "The marriage ended because I failed"
- Blaming: You focus on the other person as the source of your negative feelings and you refuse to take responsibility for changing yourself. "She's to blame for the way I feel now" or "My parents caused all my problems."
- Unfair comparisons: You interpret events in terms of standards that are unrealistic--for example, you focus primarily on others who do better than you and find yourself inferior in the comparison. "She's more successful than I am" or "Others did better than I did on the test."
- Regret orientation: You focus on the idea that you could have done better in the past, rather on what you can do better now. "I could have had a better job if I had tried" or "I shouldn't have said that".
- What if?: You keep asking a series of questions about "What if" something happens and fail to be satisfied with any of the answers. "Yeah, but what if I get anxious? Or what if I can't catch my breath?"
- Emotional reasoning: You let your feelings guide your interpretation of reality--for example, "I feel depressed, therefore my marriage is not working out."
- Inability to disconfirm: You reject any evidence or arguments that might contradict your negative thoughts. For example, when you have the thought "I'm unlovable", you reject as irrelevant any evidence that people like you. Consequently, your thought cannot be refuted. "That's not the real issue. There are deeper problems. There are other factors."
- Judgment Focus: You view yourself, others and events in terms of evaluations of good-bad or superior-inferior, rather than simply describing, accepting, or understanding. You are continually measuring yourself and others according to arbitrary standards, finding that you and others fall short. You are focused on the judgments of others as well as your own judgments of yourself. "I didn't perform well in college" or "If I take up tennis, I won't do well" or "Look how successful she is. I'm not successful".
- Realize that thoughts and facts are not the same. Just because you think something is true does not necessarily mean that it is true. I can think that I am a zebra--but my thought does not mean I am a zebra.
- Are there times when you believe this thought with less conviction? What is going on when you believe the negative thought less? If your thought were entirely true, then how could you believe it to be less true at other times?
- Would you apply the same standard to others? Why or why not? For example, if you felt inferior, should your best friend or relative feel inferior too? If so, why? If not, then why does feeling inferior only apply to you?
- What are the advantages of continuing to reinforce negative feelings, thoughts, or behaviors? What do you gain from this? What are the disadvantages and do they outweigh the advantages?
