Your Nerdy Best Friend

Are you one of those people who just has to keep your password written down? PasswordCard can take that scrap of paper to a whole other level of security with a super secret password system.

Both the site and the mobile apps (Android and iOS) generate a complex card with random password characters. To create a password, you simply choose a row then a column to start, and then count the number of characters you need.

Let’s say I needed a 10-character password for Facebook. I’d make up some kind of mnemonic phrase such as, “Facebook says it’s gonna rain March 3″ so I can remember to look in the umbrella column and the third row. Then I’d count 10 characters over, and there’s my password, accessible from the printed card or electronically via the app or website.

To get the true picture of PasswordCard, simply watch this short video.

Once a year I offer on this site the super-fresh, super-awesome, super-updated Quick Reference Guide that attendees in my sessions receive as a handout.

This document has the top 75 tech tools that I love, PLUS some completely awesome discounts from some of the tool providers.

Enjoy… and share!

I have been so excited to be able to try out Windows 8, the new operating system from Microsoft. I was fully prepared to pay full price. I was even considering buying a Microsoft Surface tablet just so I could work with it. I just knew that I had to get my hands on it to be able to share my opinion.

To my surprise, I was able to score it for almost nothing because they offered $40 upgrades to those of us who had downloaded the free beta, and a weird loophole let me reduce the cost to $15.

Before I begin my review, I should add that perhaps my version of Windows 8 doesn’t act like yours because I’m using a Mac that has the capability of also running a PC platform. That being said, I think what I experienced may be the same for many Windows 8 users.

Here’s my quick review…

A 2-minute review of Windows 8 from Your Nerdy Best Friend

Years ago when I was single, I was corresponding with a guy from an internet dating site. Though we hadn’t met, he decided I was worth pursing and declared me “the sexiest woman on the planet.” I wrote a post about it, using that phrase as much as I could, pretending that Google would notice and validate me by ranking the post high in their search engine.

Boy was I shocked when it worked! For more than a year, I showed up on the first page of search results when you Googled “the sexiest woman on the planet” (with the quotation marks). For a while, I was #2 just after Scarlett Johansson — here’s the screenshot I captured as proof.

And when I checked again today, even when I turn off my customized results, Google still has me listed on page three. Still sexy after all these years, I guess!

The point of this post is not to brag (although I want as many people in the world to know as possible that I’m still ranked as “the sexiest woman on the planet”) — it’s to talk about the importance of web analytics in keeping your website strong in the rankings and helpful for your visitors.

I will never claim to be an expert in web analytics, but I can say without hesitation that Google Analytics is one of the best tools in the universe to help you figure out what you need to know about your website. Use your Google account to generate code for each site, and within minutes, you’ll be receiving more information about your site and visitors than you ever thought possible.

They’re always adding new functionality, and each time I check my stats, I’m amazed even more at the new features. My favorite improvement is the ability to see visitors on your site in real time. You see them arrive, switch pages, click around then take off. A little creepy, I know, but it’s vital information to see how people use your site.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll see:

• How people find your site
• How often they visit
• Where they hang out
• What page they leave from
• Where your visitors come from, and so much more

Another cool thing about Google Analytics these days is that many tools link into the statistics to give you even more information. For example, I can include Google Analytics links in my NerdWords newsletter through MailChimp to track clicks and activities generated from newsletter recipients.

And, of course, Google Analytics gives you the critical information you need to see how your site ranks with the keywords — thus I’m able to see that 880 people have visited my site in search of “the sexiest woman on the planet” since the post first appeared in 2008.

You can check your stats on the go with Google’s free mobile app for Android, but if you’re on an Apple product, you can find many third-party access apps. I could write a whole chapter on their statistics. In fact, a search on Amazon.com turned up almost 200 books that include info about Google Analytics, several of them dedicated to just that topic!

Bottom line: If you have a website, you should have Google Analytics.

Another free chapter from Your Nerdy Best Friend!

Another free chapter from Upgrade to Free: The Best Free and Low-Cost Online Tools and Apps.

This morning I was leaving an appointment when I noticed a very professional “Like us on Facebook” page in the office window. The receptionist said she generated it from the web — for free!

The trick to using these generators to create a sign is to make sure your FB page has a vanity URL. Click here for step-by-step instructions to create your own vanity URL.

Now for the generators!

This one comes from WhatCounts.com, although it’s a little hard to find on their site. But don’t worry, I found it for you here.  I like that this one includes a way to like a page via a text message, but Facebook may make it a little tricky. The person has to have connected his mobile device with his Facebook account, and he may want to send back “unsubscribe” as a message to avoid getting texts for every update on the Facebook page.

Another instant generator site is Spotlike. I turned this one into a tabletop retractable banner stand that I bring with me to all my sessions. This one generates a QR code automatically.

Do you know of any other Facebook Like page generators? Please share!

Ooohhh but do I feel sorry for myself this week. After an awesome presentation at the American Society of Association Executives Annual Conference, I collected 250+ business cards of people who wanted to receive NerdWords.

Awesome, right? Until a few days ago, I’d happily use my Shoeboxed Business Card app to snap photos of the cards, which were then sent off to North Carolina or somewhere to be verified by a real person, then sent back to my phone and the web so I could download them in a spreadsheet and upload to my database. For free! It was almost too good to be true!

Well, I guess it was too good to be sustainable. Shoeboxed, my absolute favorite receipt management tool, just announced that this service was going the way of the cassette tape. So I re-downloaded WorldCard Mobile, a highly rated app that scans cards and captures the info for you. But I quickly discovered that it was taking me longer to verify and correct the scanned data than it would to enter everything by hand.

I had to get everyone into the database for this Friday’s newsletter, so I spent much of two plane rides and the wee hours of Thursday morning entering info into a spreadsheet. Hours. Poor, poor me.

So, I’m in search of a powerhouse tool that will let me snap one picture after another without having to stop and verify — preferrably with someone human at the other end who can do the fine tuning.

But in the meantime, I gave CardMunch another look. CardMunch used to be my favorite, favorite tool. It also lets you snap photos from your device, and it gives you a super easy way to connect with contacts via LinkedIn, which makes sense because LinkedIn bought them! The reason I stopped using CardMunch is that the service no longer allows you to download the contacts into a spreadsheet, which means I either have to add them to my phone address book or, well, enter them myself.

So for a while, I stopped recommending CardMunch and started loving Shoeboxed Business Card, but it’s time to take another look. For folks who simply need to keep track of their contacts and not download them, CardMunch is perfect! They’re fast, easy and oh, so free. And it’s a great way to grow your LinkedIn network.

So, I’m still on the hunt for a volume processor/exporter of cards, but for less-intense networking opportunities, CardMunch is da bomb!

Anyone know other great scanners? I’m even willing to pay a per-card cost.

Ok, it’s time to have a serious conversation about your computer security. When 6.5 million passwords were hacked at LinkedIn, we all had a wake up call about our passwords and web habits. One of the most common mistakes we make, besides picking passwords that are too easy, is that we use the same password for multiple sites. And if a bad guy has our username and password from one site, he could try the password out on other sites and eventually get to some pretty valuable information.

YUCK!

It’s time to truly take charge of your password and internet security issues. LastPass is a free, cloud-based tool that allows you to create one master password to gain access to all your sites. Further, I love that as soon as you install it, it scrapes all the sites in your browser history to show you just how many you have and how insecure you really are.

I am registered on 121 sites right now, and 81 of those had the same password. Bad, bad nerd! I downloaded LastPass, and I’m slowly working my way through all the sites, changing the passwords and storing them in LastPass, which is accessible in any browser.

It’s a little disconcerting to put everything in LastPass’ hands, but cnet, PCWorld and lifehacker all give it a thumbs up.

My advice: Computer security can’t wait until you have a free afternoon to spare. Make time to make these changes this week so you can rest assured that you’re a little safer online.

Here’s a video overview of LastPass:

LastPass – Password Manager, Form Filler, Password Management.