Shaine Mata Blog

How Did People Approach Writing When It Was Scarce?

I've been semi-playing Empire Avenue . I say semi-playing because it's supposed to be a social media game; but, I've only been doing the value investing . Rather than creating "wealth" by hyping up my stock, I've been value investing in stocks that provide good income. As a result, I have a rather affordable share price ; but, my portfolio value has been increasing steadily. Today, I maxed out the number of shares I can own by purchasing an upgrade that raises the limit to 400 shares per stock. This was my intent from the start. As I go down the line of income-producing stocks, I can start diversifying a bit more. The top dividend providers are consistent earners; but, they offer little in terms of growth. Once I max out 400 shares in the top earners, I can start investing in up and coming stocks that also provide decent dividends. Fun game. Related articles Top 5 Ways to Increase Share Price in Empire Avenue (chris.pirillo.com) What is Empire Avenue?

This is a straight calculation post without fluff on how to schedule your freelance work time. In this instance, we will assume you have a part-time job. The calculations are based on Working Money by Chris Brogan . First off, set your earnings goal for the year. What do you want your income to be? Let's say that you want to earn $80K per year. Subtract your income from your part-time job. Let's say at a rate of $1,500 per month, your deduction is $18,000. That leaves $62,000 to earn in your freelance work. That's $5167 to earn per month, $1,240 per week, $207 per day. Assuming you work 40 hours in your freelance work on top of your 20 hours at a job, that means you have: 13 hours to prospect per week, 2 hours per day 13 hours to deliver and execute on your sales, 2 hours of work per day 13 hours to provide support, or do administrative work per week, 2 hours per day. Since you are doing actual work that pays you for only 13 hours per week, your hourly r

I finally got fed up with having papers everywhere. I bought a scanner so I can digitize all our documents at home. I'm dumping things into Evernote for now. However, I am thinking that many of these files are not ones that I would need to use frequently, or perhaps at all. There may be no value in being able to search for those documents. If I upload them onto Google Docs , I'd much more easily be able to share folders with my family. Evernote has sharing; but, there is no way of transferring ownership, as far as I know. I'll think about it more later. For now, the objective is to get rid of papers. I have binders full awaiting their fate.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"] [/caption] As a "knowledge worker", much of my day is spent producing and consuming information. Fortunately, much of that information is available from the Internet, and stays on the Internet. However, there are other types of information that come to me in paper format, like account statements, estimates, invoices, and so on. Much of this paper information piles up; my desk is swimming in papers. Why is it so difficult to go entirely paperless? Tactile Preference One of the biggest complaints about using ebook readers is that many people prefer the feel of books. The tactile experience adds to the enjoyment; however, I think it goes beyond that. I think the problem is more than a sensory preference; it is a mental separation of concepts. This book is 2001; it is science fiction; it is written by Arthur C. Clark. There are discreet attributes that

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"] [/caption] When you hear business reports in the news, you often hear about how a company has higher or lower earnings than projected. A business can operate forever so long as it earns enough money to cover expenses every month. Whatever extra money the business earns can be stashed away for rainy days or to invest in expanding the business. People who operate their personal finances in the same way are just fine so long as their monthly income is greater than their expenses. Where businesses and people fall into trouble is when they spend more money than they earn. They are easily seduced by finance; low monthly payments can let you enjoy this product right now. Government also depends largely on cashflow , which depends on citizen cashflow. As citizens earn more money, they pay more taxes. During the economic downturn of recent years, people have lost j

A few days ago, I wrote a post about Google +1 . I think it's a good concept. I had an exchange earlier this morning on a Buzz by Darren Rowse . It's tough to know what will come of Google +1. Without a button for people to put on their websites, it really doesn't do much. It's difficult to +1 something you haven't seen yet. So, you'd have to click on the link, read the content, go back to the search result, and then +1. Not too efficient. After doing this a few times, I remembered that Google has a setting on your search page that lets you open links in a new window. This makes clicking +1 much easier. I've been searching for things I think people would prefer to see for search terms involved in what I do; then I +1 them. When the service rolls out completely, I'd like my friends to have my recommendations waiting for them. I've run into the occasional +1 from other people. It will take some time before I start to see my searches coincide wi

I am publishing my diet and exercise logs on my blogs. You can view them at  http://shainemata.blogspot.com/p/logs.html Why do it? It is partially to show others how easy it is to do what I do. Mainly, however, it is to keep me accountable. It's win-win. My calorie counts are approximate based on what I can gather from food labels or from Wolfram Alpha. I experimented with Smartsheet and Google Spreadsheet . Smartsheet is very easy to use on a mobile phone. However, I am going with Google Spreadsheet because I need to be able to create multiple sheets in the embed so I can archive stuff monthly. Long lists are troublesome on a mobile phone; Smartsheet put the "Add Row" button at the bottom, which results in lots of scrolling. All this done from my Android phone. Related articles Why Small Businesses Are Going "All In" On the Cloud (businessinsider.com) Manage Projects From Your iPad with Smartsheet (readwriteweb.com) Smartsheet: Online Spreadsheets

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image by shainelee via Flickr"] [/caption] The simplest plans can be the most difficult to follow. They are so simple that it is easy to go off track because you could not simply get lost. Thus, it is likely you'll go off track often. I have a simple plan; which may be too simple. In its purest form, my plan is: Diet Exercise These are a bit broad. Let's look at each one. Diet I have two goals when it comes to eating. The first goal is to eat foods that are low on the glycemic index . The second goal is to reduce the overall number of calories consumed. With low glycemic index foods , the diet is simple. This cuts out most carbohydrates. I still eat wheat and multigrain products. However, for the most part, my diet will consist of fruits and vegetables with a serving of protein. Lean meats are in order. In terms of calories, I don't exactly count calories; b

My 30 minutes of walking is included. I'm experimenting with Smartsheet embeds, which I can update through my mobile phone. Turns out Google Spreadsheets can also be edited via mobile.

I spend so much time driving to and fro. I could recoup a lot of time if I hire a driver.  If ever I win the lottery, I'll splurge on hiring a chauffeur.  Oh, and an iPad.

Sometimes you are just hungry and need to eat something. By keeping fruit in the car you can ensure that you always have a snack and avoid buying fast food. This gives you time to get home to make a healthy meal. It might be attempting to go hungry; but it's always a bad idea. Going hungry usually results in eating more when you sit down to eat later. By keeping fruit in the car I am able to eat every couple of hours and still lose weight. When you add it up at the end of the day you end up eating less than if you eat big meals.

Event logs do not show any problems. Virus scan comes out clean. Drivers are up to date. Problem cannot be replicated. All I can think of doing is installing system updates and software upgrades.  Maybe that will fix it. Then, wait for the problem to recur, or not.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="188" caption="Image via CrunchBase"] [/caption] Google recently announced the expansion of  Check-in deals for people using  Google Maps with Latitude and Places. The program initially launched in  Austin, Tx during  SXSW . Check-in is now open to the rest of the country. Google Check-in does not make a game out of your location status like other services; instead, you get rewards purely based on the number of check-ins you have at a location. As you achieve different levels, the rewards get better. Google is starting out with discounts from  American Eagle Outfitters ,  Quiznos ,  Arby's , Macy's,  Radio Shack , Finish Line,  Famous Footwear , Great Clips, Naturalizer ,  Tasti D-Lite , Wireless Zone, Cellairis, and  PostNet . Google has a competitive advantage over some of the other services in that the app needed to check in is native to Android phones. Whether you are a fan of G

Instead of waiting for my number to be called (87, serving number 20), I went for a bite to eat and a coffee. Came back to a more favorable number.

Doing my part to keep the roads paved.  I appreciate Texas roads; they get me where I'm going.

I may very well have to pitch in my very own will to wake up. The wee lassie is having a tough time too. Coffee is brewing. That's a start.

Spent the day catching up on work, reading, and driving people around. Then I get home to more work. Oh, well.

This isn't exactly a walk in the park for me. The main problem I realize that I have is making decisions. However, it seems like a chicken and egg thing. I have a hard time deciding what to do because I don't know where I'm headed, ultimately; yet, I can't exactly decide where I want to end up, either. Dammit.

I signed up for Quora because many geeks won't shut up about it. Blah blah blah algorithms, blah blah blah game changing, blah blah blah powerful search engine ranking. Whatever. Naturally, I had to check it out. My experience thus far has been underwhelming. When you are searching for answers, you just need a quick answer, not a dissertation or thirty. Most answers to questions I've seen are long essays full of personal opinions, anecdotes, and discussions. Who has time for that? The main problem is that many of the questions are statements in question form. In addition, questions aren't really single questions, they are multiple questions with only one question mark at the end. To get anything out of it, you have to read a series of answers that may or may not even attempt to answer the question(s), or go off on an entirely different direction.  I read the guides on how to use Quora. Nobody follows the guide; nor do I. If everybody used the service as it was inte

My family is a great example of what I teach business owners regarding social media , everybody hangs out at different places. While Facebook is very popular, it's not necessarily the place where people want to hang out all day. My daughter, for example, says Facebook is stupid; there are smarter, more interesting people on Tumblr . She has a FB account because her family and friends use it; but, she mainly uses text messaging and Tumblr. My wife likes to hang out at Cafe Mom. She likes the games and apparently enjoys hanging out with other moms. Like my daughter, I check my Facebook account, and pages (yes, plural). But, for the most part, I watch my Google Buzz stream and Twitter streams. If you want to reach me, those are the places to do it. There are people who hang out on Youtube . There are people who really like photography; they hang out at Flickr. My point is, as a marketer, you should know where your customers hang out. For this, you need to profile your