One night I happened to catch a news clip about our online identities and what happens after someone passed away. Not something you ever really think about, but you can imagine what families might have to endure if they were denied access to important personal accounts simply because they didn’t have the passwords. Such was the case with Jeremy Toeman, who wanted to get access to his grandmother’s accounts after she passed but couldn’t. He recognized that if something were to happen to him that his family would have the same problem.

This inspired Jeremy to build a program called Legacy Locker, a safe and convenient way to pass along logins to loved ones. On Legacy Locker you can not only store your digital assets but also copy documents such as deeds, stock certificates, contracts and even write a letter to a loved one or create a video document. The site also allows you to setup different beneficiaries for different assets and you can easily change them.

As our lives become more and more tied to digital data, services such as Legacy Locker will become increasingly necessary to manage that data.

What’s the difference between a vector and raster file?
A vector graphic is an image that is not made up of a specific number of dots, it can be scaled to a larger size and will not lose any image quality. If you blow up a raster graphic, it will look blocky, or “pixelated.” When you blow up a vector graphic, the edges of each object within the graphic stay smooth and clean. This makes vector graphics ideal for logos, which can be small enough to appear on a business card, but can also be scaled to fill a billboard. Common types of vector graphics include Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand and EPS files.

.ai – Adobe Illustrator Vector Drawing
Fully scalable, composed of paths or lines connected by points, instead of bitmap data.

.bmp – Bitmap
Raster image format used to store display images, suitable for photos. Made up of a rectangular grid of pixels, each pixel is a different color which together form an image.

.eps – Encapsulated PostScript
A platform independent format used for vector or raster information. Fully scalable when it is saved from Illustrator.

.gif – Graphics Interchange Format
Compressed image file used for screen presentation only. Used on the Internet for images with 256 colors or less. Can also make transparent gifs for web and animated gifs.

.jpeg or .jpg – Joint Photographic Experts Group
Compressed image file format. JPEG images are not limited to a certain amount of color, like GIF images are. They are used on the Internet, and for decreasing file size for larger images.

.pdf – Portable Document Format
Enables files to be viewed cross-platform and without the original program that created them. Acrobat Reader is required to view pdf file. Since PDFs contain color-accurate information, they should also print the same way they look on your screen. Many printers can print from high-resolution print-ready PDFs with crops and bleeds.

.pict or .pct – Picture File
Mainly for Mac applications, counterpart of the Windows Metafile (WMF) format. The PICT format has largely been replaced by PDF format.

.ps – Postscript
A page description language for both PC and Mac platforms, primarily used for printing documents on laser printers. The evolution of PostScript led to the development of Adobe Acrobat, which creates a PDF.

.psd – Photoshop Document
May include image layers, adjustment layers, layer masks, annotation notes, file information, keywords and other Photoshop-specific elements. Documents support RGB, CMYK, grayscale, monochrome, duotone, indexed color, Lab color, and multichannel color modes; the color mode can be changed within the Image.

.png – Portable Network Graphic
Image format that uses indexed colors. Also include an 8-bit transparency channel, which allows the colors in the image to fade from opaque to transparent. GIF images only support fully opaque or fully transparent pixels. PNG images are now supported by most Web browsers.

.tiff or .tif – Tag Image File
High-quality raster graphic format often used for storing images with many colors, such as digital photo, includes support for layers and multiple pages. Can be saved in a uncompressed format. Supported in almost all software.

We all use email in our daily lives to do business but are you making the most of it?

Get to the point

Most professionals are busy and receive many emails a day. The reader needs to know the action requested of them right away. Be clear with the purpose of your email. Remember these questions when composing your email:

• Why are you emailing this person?
• What do you want them to do next?
• Why should they care?
• What’s in it for them?

Put the “call to action” near the top and don’t bury it below a paragraph or two of introduction. (e.g. “This project needs approval from you by Thursday” or “Can you call Joe and handle the details of this project?”) Don’t let the reader skim and lose the important purpose of the email.

Don’t neglect the subject line

Write concise descriptive subjects. Make it easy on the reader to gather a good idea of the content before even opening the email. Include a point of action if you can. (e.g. “Decision needed on proposal by Monday.”)
If you change topics in a reply, change the header subject. Reading an email with the subject “Re: Re: D.C. Trip” a month later on something completely unrelated because the sender replied to an old email is not productive and may get lost.

Keep your subject lines short but not too short. Most email clients cut off the subject line after 40-50 characters anyway. Be concise but not vague. Good subject: “Your October Website Stats”; Bad subject: “Here you go.”

Be concise

Have a clear goal for the email. Don’t ask too many questions at once. The responder won’t know where to start and what is most important for them to decide on now.

When forwarding an email state why you forwarded it instead of leaving it blank or saying, “See below”. E.g. “I thought you might be interested in what Mary has to say about the purchase.”

When adding a link or URL for someone to go to be descriptive on what it is. If the link is really long then use the hyperlink button that is built into most email clients to add a descriptive sentence instead.

Name your file attachments. Just because you like to name your file “JIMMY’S NoTeS (1) (2) ver3-2 edited by Mike and then Carol on tuesday.docx” doesn’t mean your recipient needs that. Attachments will download as they were named. Try instead to rename your files to something more useful for the recipient that will be saved on their computer.

Proofread

Take twenty seconds to read your email aloud in your head. I know that’s contradictory but even mouthing it to your self will catch something poorly written.

Shorter is better

After writing your email look over it and see if you can cut down the length. Just include important points and cut out unnecessary wording. Simplify sentences and don’t run on too long. Try using bullet points but don’t go overboard. Bold important words or phrases but not too much. People skim online, they don’t read. Make it easy for them.

Shrink your signature

Your signature doesn’t need to be ten times longer than your message. Don’t clutter the bottom of every email message. Don’t double-space every line. Be careful with using an image in your signature. Keep it as small as possible and link it via HTML. Sometimes copy and pasting it in will send an attachment of your logo jpeg to everyone you email.  Remember, people are going to have to scroll by your mammoth signature in a long thread of email replies so make it easier on everyone.

Be wary of tone

If your email may be misinterpreted or construed as negative, it will. Emails almost always come across with a bit of an attitude since you don’t have tone of voice. Jokes barely work either. Keep that in mind.

Pick up the phone

More amicable business gets done over the phone anyway.

When we turn on our computers most of us go straight to the browser and on to the internet. We can now do more than ever without installing any software at all. Web apps have become more sophisticated and are being used by people on their personal computers and in businesses. Nowadays applications ranging from business level SAP® and Microsoft®, to music services, to personal email are being run on shared servers over the internet (“the cloud”). Cost reduction and increased scalability are reasons companies are adopting it. Ease and reliability are reasons many people are using it at home. The data and software are not stored physically on your computer but rather in the cloud.

Here are some interesting (and mostly free) personal uses of cloud computing you should check out:

Spotify

Imagine if the entire iTunes store was your library and you could listen to any song you want, whenever you want, and create playlists from them. This is what Spotify does, and it’s free. It’s a new service where all the content comes from the cloud so you can access your music anywhere. It’s currently not available in the US, but where there’s a will there’s a way around it. This could be the next big thing. Spotify is currently in Europe and Sony BMG Sweden says, “Spotify is a success. Not just in terms of users but also with regard to revenues for music companies. Spotify is now bigger than iTunes in terms of our monthly revenue in Sweden.” The basic plan is free but ad supported. You can purchase premium plans for higher quality streaming with no ads. Expect Spotify in the U.S. soon.

DropBox

Who needs a thumb drive to move files from one computer to another? This dead simple service gives you two GBs of storage free and lets you sync files anywhere you want. It acts just as another folder on your computer where you can copy and paste files into it. Take work home, bring it back. Copy your iTunes library there and sync your iPod on multiple computers. Also share files with whomever you want.

Xmarks

Sync your bookmarks and passwords across multiple computers and browsers securely. Right now it works in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari with Chrome coming soon. You can also set up separate profiles on one account.

Gmail and Google Apps

You should be using Gmail. It blows away all other email services. I never see a spam email because of its powerful spam filter, which uses user input to weed stuff out. They also give you more storage than you’ll ever need. I’ve been using my account for three years and have only filled up 15% of the almost eight GBs they give me. I figure as long as Google’s around I’ll never have to delete another email.

Google apps is a great way to save and store documents for access anywhere. It’s loaded with tons of user submitted templates to get a quick document started. In response, Microsoft is launching its own free online version of Office.

Google’s Chrome OS

Now here’s a great example of cloud computing. Google is launching an OS, like Windows and Mac OS, that will run almost entirely in the clouds. Rather than be a competitor it will first be installed on netbooks with internet-only in mind. This will aim to be an ultra-portable and super fast system. Expect this on a tiny laptop sometime next year.

Photoshop.com

Uploading and sharing photos for free is no new idea but adding in editing tools that come with Photoshop Elements and you’ve got a pretty nice web app. Get your yourname.photoshop.com domain name and send your photos out to anybody you want.

Mint

Mint is a free service for tracking all your money in one place. It will do it all automatically including downloading bank transactions. You can track credit cards, bank accounts, mortgages, loans, investments and more. You can also keep track of spending trends and budgets. Definitely check this one out.

Mozy

Why don’t you backup your whole computer to the cloud? Mozy is offering $4.95/month for unlimited backup. I don’t know how “unlimited” that really is, but it would be nice to have peace of mind that you won’t lose everything.

Evernote

Evernote is a free service for your computer and phone that lets you track notes on anything and everything. It indexes them so you can always find them later. You can even take photos on your phone to send to it. It can also search text in images. Take a picture of someone’s business card and then search for it on your computer or your phone. Clip stuff off the web and save it forever. Evernote is very advanced and has tons of features.

A big issue with cloud computing is privacy and data security. Just be smart about it and use personal responsibility. These decisions are up to you whether to do it or not. Most of these companies usually keep backups of backups of backups so losing data should not be a problem. For putting personal info online, I could see an issue. Companies like Mint have a strict approach to security as well as others. And finally, don’t use the same password for everything!

I got it…this thing is amazing! There are so many uses for this incredible little machine: phone, email, web surfing, digital camera with video, iPod and endless apps that go along with it.

The apps have opened up a whole new world to me. I now can track my hikes with iMapMyHike and find out how far I am really going. I can find music on Pandora – internet radio which is great for working out. All I have to do is type in a genre or artist and it starts streaming music tailored just for me. I’m also addicted to the app Who Wants to be a Millionaire. It is just like the real show (minus Regis Philbin, the cameras and the big payout). I can phone-a-friend, ask the audience or ask the expert. The pressure feels real since you have to be quick; the countdown clock only gives you seconds to answer. If I’m ever picked for the show, I think I’ll have a great shot at the big bucks.

I must admit I was a little worried at first about somehow dropping or injuring my iPhone. After all, this was my new baby and I had already bonded with it. I thought it might be time to take some precautionary measures to protect things. After trying out a couple of different cases, I finally found one that protects against all the bumps, drops and scratches. The Otter Box does it all. One of the features I like is the swivel belt clip that easily converts to a display stand. The case may not be as cool looking as all the others out there but it will definitely protect my baby the best.

I have happily joined the masses and become an iPhone believer. I recommend taking it for a spin if you haven’t already!