December, 2008 | Ask Dave Taylor

Fatal1ty on The Future of Gaming

I recently had an opportunity to interview well-known video game expert and celebrity Fatal1ty, mostly asking him about the current state of the art with computer gaming and what he sees coming in the future. Oh, and why he’s called “Fatal1ty”, for that matter. I hope you enjoy this interview, which – as you’ll see – is, uh, powered by Creative Labs, makers of the Fatal1ty line of computer gaming gear…
Q: What do you think is the best all-around PC game of 2008?
Call of Duty: World at War.
Q: Are games getting better, or has the industry passed its prime, just coming out with sequels and such?

December 24, 2008

Digital Photography: How to Conceptualize Your “People” Pictures

This is a contributed article written by my friends and pro photographers Brad & Jeanine Crooks.
Have you ever wondered why some “people” pictures grab your attention a little more than others? It’s probably because the image is conceptual – it tells a story.
BPSI – these are 4 simple letters to keep in mind while photographing people. These letters are an acronym for Background, People (or Person), Symbol, and Involvement. Keeping this formula in mind will help you to conceptualize your people pictures, making them much more interesting and definitely more saleable. This formula was taught to me years ago by Rohn Engh, author of “Sell and Re-Sell Your Photos”?

December 23, 2008

Why Advertising On LinkedIn Isn’t Always Effective

Social Media Networks like Facebook and LinkedIn offer businesses new channels through which to conduct marketing and advertising. But how effective are these, really? Ask any SEO or online marketing expert and they will tell you that it’s an organic process and it takes time to develop real results. The key is to have good content that turns people into repeat visitors to your website – eventually they will buy.
Really? “If you build it they will come?”

December 23, 2008

How do I fix an all upper-case blog comment?

I like to keep my blog readable and neat, so I fix typos and grammatical errors in comments. Recently I have had a couple of people leave these long comments in all upper-case, which just rubs me the wrong way. Is there some easy way to fix this?

December 22, 2008

Five Things You can do NOW to Reduce Expenses AND Grow Your Business.

“The Great Depression.” “The Worst Recession in our Lifetime!” It’s hopeless – what can you do?
As a business owner or manager, it really depends on where you place your focus, because it turns out there is a lot you can do. Here are five things you can do right now to start to change things for your company.

#1 – “Give better Service – and remember the ‘little things’.”

The little things aren’t so little – especially when customers are looking for reasons to cut back on doing business with you. What can you do to distinguish your business from your competition? Start with the easiest ones – get creative!
One restaurant owner changed how she presented receipts to her customers. Instead of those old, dirty black plastic folders or trays, she gave presented the bill in an ornamental box, or sometimes in a music box. This set her apart in her customers’ eyes and made them feel special.

December 19, 2008

How do I evaluate a LinkedIn invitation to connect?

I’ve been getting the hang of LinkedIn as a more professional alternative to Facebook and am a bit baffled: is there some sort of best practice to quickly evaluate a potential link when I don’t recognize their name?

December 19, 2008

How Do I Get Noticed Online?

We’re living in a noisy world. There a millions of blogs, and photos and radio shows and podcasts and websites, and… whew! There’s a lot of stuff out there. So if you’re just starting out, or even if you’ve been doing it for awhile, you probably wonder how you’re going to get noticed.
The bad news is if it was easy, you’d be noticed already. The good news is that there’s never been a greater time in the history of the world, than right now, to effectively get noticed without having to spend millions on advertising.

December 18, 2008

How do I get the best deals on eBay auctions?

I’m a big fan of eBay and am convinced that with some work, attention to detail and a bit of luck, I can create a profitable home business buying and selling on eBay. My question: what are your best tips for getting good deals on eBay?

December 18, 2008

Is Television Turning Into the Web?

Only a few years ago this question might have not been so clear. But here we are today wondering where this is going to go. Lots of questions to ponder. Is television turning into the Web?
Will we be watching former television shows online in the future? If so, how soon? Will our televisions become obsolete eventually because everyone will be focused on their computer screens? Do we even want to watch television programming online?
And… will the government stand in our way or not?

December 17, 2008

How do I remove misspelled words from my Microsoft Word custom dictionary?

My kids think it’s quite a lark to add goofy words to the spelling dictionary in Microsoft Word on my MacBook Pro, which I don’t mind except now I find that some of the words that I commonly misspell aren’t be flagged as misspelled either. Not good. How can I clean up Microsoft Word on my Mac so that it doesn’t have bogus words?