I pretend that I’m a doctor at cocktail parties — especially around the holidays.
That would have been unheard of years ago. Back then, medical professionals disguised their occupations so as not to be pestered by partygoers. “Can you take a look at this rash, Doc?” It’s not the kind of conversation you want to have around the spinach dip.
But that’s much better than what techies endure once the assembled throng learns you are a computer geek. Everyone, and I mean
everyone, has a technical issue that requires your expertise. I’ve spent countless “party” hours in the host’s home office working on his PC. What do you mean it’s 1 a.m.? I’ve been removing spyware from your computer and missed the New Year?
I don’t mind helping people when they really need it, but I balk when they are too lazy to solve problems on their own. Or won’t read the, uh, “friendly” manual. (If you are technically inclined, you know what I mean.)
A few techies came up with the site
LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com. (It’s not actually affiliated with Google.) “This is for all those people who find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than Google it for themselves,” according to the site.
It looks just like Google. You enter keywords and click on the Google Search button — just like on Google. Then the site creates a link you can share with the person who asked you the question.
When he clicks on the link, a Google-like page opens, and an animated arrow moves to the search box, where the keywords are displayed. A message asks, “Was that so hard?” and the Google results are then displayed.
In the first two and a half days, the Web site received more than 1.5 million page views. Brilliant.
But that site won’t be handy at a party. When people ask your opinion about the best product to buy, help them out with advice on a few things they should avoid:
• Any device that uses a USB 1.1 connection. That’s old, slow technology.
• Flash/thumb drives with less than 4GB. Spend the extra few dollars and make it useful.
• Hard drives of less than 250GB. Five hundred GB is a better minimum. Files are huge, and hardware is cheap. You can never have too much disk space.
• A new PC with less than 2GB RAM. I like 4GB and up.
• Media that is digital rights management (DRM) protected. You are honest and shouldn’t be treated like a thief.
• Digital cameras that don’t distinguish between optical and digital zoom. Optical zoom uses the lens, while digital is “simulated” zoom. If the ad just mentions a 3x zoom, find out what kind of zoom it is. Digital zoom is not bad, it's just not as good as optical.
• Camera docking stations and other expensive add-ons. It’s just as easy to plug the USB cable into a PC as it is to load the camera into a docking station and plug that in.
• Video cameras that use tape. I like hard drive cameras such as my JVC Everio, which has a 30GB hard drive for almost 40 hours of recording — yet weighs less than a pound.
• Photo printers. The paper, ink and hassle are not worth it. Online sites and local stores compete for this business, so you can have perfect 4-by-6 prints for 15 cents or less in an hour (or shipped to you). Results will not be as good or nearly as inexpensive if you print them yourself.
• Extended warranties. Some will argue this, but trust me, in two years you will want a new digital camera, not a repair to your old model.
Tips like this will increase your geek cred and your popularity. Here are a few freebies to get you on the A-list:
1. Dale Carnegie taught about the importance of a person’s name. We are all self-absorbed, so let technology assist. Set up a Google alert on your name, company name or any other words you want to follow.
You can get alerts when they appear, daily or weekly. Decide if you want all references or just when your precious moniker appears on Web pages, blogs, videos, news sites or groups. You will get e-mails with links to items that mention your keywords.
Sure, you can use it for narcissistic reasons, to track a sports team or stalk a former flame, but business applications are obvious. You can track the news on a competitor, vendor, supplier or entire industry without spending time searching.
If you are in the kind of business where Carl Monday might show up at your door, you can keep track of any bad press that may be out there — and react swiftly and appropriately.
2. Googling yourself is one thing, but too much “me, me, me” is a turnoff. Nobody except your mom wants to read a Web page that is essentially a valentine to you or your company.
There’s an easy way to see if your Web site or blog postings are too self-centered. Go to Wordle.net and enter your site’s URL or blog’s RSS feed. Within seconds, you will see a text cloud of the main words from the site. They will be displayed by size — the most frequent words will be much larger than some of the lesser phrases. It gives a nonbiased snapshot of the text on your site.
3. If you deal in the global economy, you need to visit ClustrMaps.com. It provides a widget that displays a world map showing where your Web site visitors are from. Besides being fun (we got a hit from Mongolia!), it’s a useful tool if you do business outside Northeast Ohio. You can also see what U.S. cities and states provide traffic.
4. Be a hero to a startup company (maybe your own) by turning it on to free Microsoft software. Microsoft has a new program called BizSpark that is designed to “remove barriers, including general accessibility, as well as costs,” for startups setting up infrastructure to run their businesses.
To participate in BizSpark, startups must be private companies that have been in business less than three years with annual revenues of less than $1 million. They get access to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscriptions, Visual Studio tools, Windows, SQL Server, SharePoint Server, Exchange Server, System Center and more. Go to
microsoft.com/bizspark.