Anyway, for those of you in the same boat, I stumbled upon an article which details different reasons why SharePoint search might not be working. However, for me, it turned out that I needed to create a new DWORD value in the registry in order to disable the “loopback check.” I never would have figured that in a million years on my own but here it is in a seemingly-unrelated support document on Microsoft’s site. (It’s the 2nd “workaround” in that document and requires a restart of the server but I initiated a full crawl immediately afterwards and all was working as it should. No errors in the crawl logs.)

Here’s the steps should you choose not to click into that MS support doc:

Disable the loopback check

Follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
3. Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer.

Do you frequently use the same username and password when registering for new sites? (e.g., online banking, Facebook, etc.) Do you frequently use your birthdate or pet’s name as your password on these sites? I thought so.  Please stop doing that.

If your nefarious second-cousin, scheming ex-best-friend or diabolical canine companion were to uncover your password for just one site, he/she could potentially wreak havoc on your whole life if you happen to be one of the people I mentioned in that last paragraph. So, how can you keep your online life a bit more secure without losing your precious sanity? Well, there are a number of ways; none of which involve writing your passwords down on napkins, your hands (palm or back), post-it notes, etc.

One of the ways that you can ease your mind without losing it is to use a service like Passpack. (BTW, if the length of this blog posting has you cursing yourself for even clicking this way, at least check out the quick & thorough overview on Passpack’s site before you leave and ultimately decide never to return to JasonHeydasch.com.)

Let me first say that Passpack is an online service hosted on servers over which you have no control. That said, there is literally no other online service I would recommend for storing sensitive data. However, Passpack has implemented a wonderful set of security options. As an example, you use both a password AND what’s referred to as a “packing key.” Both of these can be whole sentences (as I’ve chosen) to further enhance your security.

So, let’s say you’ve chosen “You don’t win friends with salad.” as your pass-phrase and “I’d rather eat dirt than collard greens!” as your packing key. (Punctuation included for heightened security.) That’s just the beginning. Passpack offers the following additional items to keep your information safe:

• verification phrase of your choice that’s displayed before entering packing key (if you don’t recognize the phrase, don’t login!)
• shape recognition (click on the box that’s highlighted, this is displayed on the same page as the item above)
• throwaway logins (if you know you’ll be logging in to a public computer, create one or two throwaway logins to use in these instances. They only work once.)
• random password generator for new sites on which you register
• automatic locking (site locks up when you’re away from your PC for a while)
• always-on AES-256 encryption algorithm (US government approved, Passpack employees can’t even see your stuff) and an EV-SSL certificate

That’s not even all. For more info on how they keep your stuff safe, you can read their page on security & privacy or just g’head onto passpack.com and create an account. It’s free.

When I say “my argument,” I very much mean that. These aren’t necessarily re-hashed thoughts from the pages of Wired on why social networking is the greatest thing since sliced bread. That said, I’m 100% certain that the following material isn’t even remotely original. Instead, they’re opinions I personally have developed after spending the last 3 to 4 years on social networks that have both prospered (Facebook) and failed (Google Lively, Pownce).

I want to begin by laying out the basics. For example, why social networks even exist. (This is for those of you who who have finally been brought to your breaking point and are forcing yourself to learn about them.) Then, I want to highlight a few random associations that are using these networks and how they’re doing so… just so that, perhaps, you might be able to take some of the examples here and be able to apply them to your own business.

Facebook’s a pretty good example of the average social network so I’ll start there.

So, what is the deal with Facebook? Well, you can “poke” people and send virtual gifts of stuffed animals. I mean, if that doesn’t just scream “profit margins” and “member/customer retention” then, honestly, I don’t even know how to talk to you.

I jest, I jest. Facebook can be an amazingly wonderous way to waste hours-on-end… there’s no doubt about that. It was originally designed for students of universities to not only keep tabs on each other while not in class but to help organize campus meetings and events. While FB was originally designed to be used on one campus (Harvard), it eventually expanded to colleges and universities nationwide (at which point I discovered it) and then, in 2006, it opened itself up to anybody and everybody. To this day, it remains a well-designed tool for keeping up with friends, colleagues, etc. as well as to keep them apprised as to what exactly is happening in your own life.

That concept, if you think about it, can easily be applied to your association. Many of your members, readers, customers and clients are actually pretty interested in what your association is up to. For some of you non-profit associations out there, many of these individuals are so dedicated to your cause, they actually dedicate time out of their ridiculously busy lives to volunteering for you. These people want to hear from you. However, you may not have every one of these individuals’ email addresses and, more importantly, not everything needs to be communicated by email. So, use a tool like Facebook or Twitter (or both, it’s not that difficult) to keep these people up to speed as to what’s going on in your association.

Keep in mind, this information isn’t just going to benefit your current followers. Every bit of public information you invest (that’s today’s magic word… and an important way of looking at this process) into your online profile is going to be accessible to *potential* followers as well. Potential devotees out there currently in search of information you have to offer will increasingly be led, via referring blogs and search engines, to social networks. That means you need to get some relevant information on those networks now, not later.

Either right now or in the past, you might have thought to yourself: “Keeping up with all of this seems like it’s going to require lots of my time or lots of my employees’ time… and we’re fresh out, friend.”

One of the great things about companies like Facebook and Twitter is that they see the benefit to opening up their platform. This basically means that they’re taking the technology required to run their network and they open up access to it so that 3rd-party software developers can develop entire software applications based on interacting with that network in a user’s favored virtual environment… be it on the PC/Mac desktop, on a mobile device… whatever they prefer. It’s these tools to which I’m referring that enable you to manage your presence on social networks with absolute ease.

Digsby is my personal favorite desktop utility right now. Digsby allows you to both monitor and update the following types of information: IM (Google, AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.), email (POP3 & IMAP via Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) and social networks (Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn and that other one… MySpace). So, one tool to not only rule them all but to save yourself a lot of effort. (As an aside, if you decide to give Digsby a try, just be mindful of the installer. It’s a freeware application so they stay in business by tossing up “offers” to you during the install. If you’re not careful, you can wind up with some useless crap – that’s a technical term – installed on your system. Some of it, however, you might find useful. Just pay attention.)

There are an abundance of other Heydasch-recommended (that’s a technical term) tools that also enable you to manage your presence on a variety of different social networks:

- AlertThingy: can be used with quite a few different networks like Basecamp, Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Yammer (Yammer is, essentially, Twitter for the enterprise – I highly recommend it) and others.

- Posty: specializes in micro-blogging networks including Twitter, Google’s Jaiku, Tumblr and Indenti.ca.

- Feedalizr: a lot like AlertThingy (and also runs on Adobe AIR – meaning it can run on Windows, Linux and Mac), but has a slightly better interface… in my opinion.

- FBLook and OutTwit: these two apps allow you to manage both Facebook and Twitter accounts, respectively, right within Microsoft Outlook. (The maker of both of these applications, TechHit, will soon be launching OpenLook which will allow you to update your presence on many of the major social networks out there. Useful for those enterprise folk currently using Microsoft’s enterprise email client on a daily basis.)

There are options for you mobile users, as well. iPhone owners need go no further than the App store to find dozens of useful applications with which you can manage your presence on a number of different social networks. For those of you currently using Windows Mobile-based phones, I take pity on you I recommend FriendMobilizer to manage your Facebook account(s) as well as Tiny Twitter.

Now, I’ve detailed why it’s beneficial to participate in social networking while providing examples of different tools you can use to make the process a bit easier. What might be helpful for you now is to examine certain associations that are already doing so. For instance, the Salvation Army uses Twitter to spread the word about new events and fundraisers while using Facebook technology to both gather donations and enable FB users to share information about the movement.

In addition, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) uses Twitter to gather feedback while the Women’s Museum uses both Twitter and Facebook to share information/receive feedback and Flickr to offer up virtual tours of the museum as well as share photos from various events. To examine how other companies might be using social networking, look for their profile on Twitter and then study the kind of messages they’re sending and receiving. I heartily-recommend twibs.com to find examples of businesses currently using Twitter. (There are plenty of other companies, associations, non-profits that have used social networking tools with great success and I may try and update this article as I think of them.)

So, I’ve gone ahead and covered the basics for you. Some of you might find yourself gaining some useful knowledge from this article. Others, however, now wish that you never would have stumbled upon my site.

For those of you whose time I’ve wasted with a relatively-elementary article on social networking, just keep in mind that I live in Knoxville, TN. We’re not exactly trend-setters by any means. Adoption of new technology, the InterWebs in regards to business purposes being a prime example, comes very slowly here. So, I wanted to give local association executives/employees a little bit of potentially useful information amidst all of this talk of social networking on the Intertubes.

Sincerely,
twitter.com/jheydasch

I, along with many others, began using Gmail as soon as it debuted in April of 2004. (Gmail will be 5 years old in about a month. Crazy.) However, I’ve since kept Gmail.com as a backup email client and I’ve continued to use Outlook as my primary. Why? The main reason is because I like having all of my email locally accessible in case of a Comcast outage. (Which used to be much more frequent.)

Having said that, if you have to choose between desktop email clients for the PC, Outlook is, by far, superior to any other. The new Postbox is okay but lacks key functionality (like, for instance, a calendar). Mozilla’s Thunderbird is okay but there’s so much configuration required to get it to act the way I want it to… and I reformat my PC about every 5-6 months. Just too much work.

Over the last six months, however, I’ve come to look past the offline advantage given the number of additional, invaluable features that have sprung up in Gmail Labs. (Labs, in case you’re unaware or have never been interested enough to read more about them, are Google Engineer-designed bits of functionality designed to interact with Gmail.com.) Labs have now made Gmail so easy-to-use that I’ve found myself unwilling to open the comparatively-archaic Outlook. (And I’m actually a pretty big fan of Outlook. For the most part, it’s a well-oiled machine.)

One of the more recent features to be introduced to Gmail is the new “Move to” and “Label as” drop-down menus. Combined with the ever-popular keyboard shortcuts, these menus have made message filing brilliantly simple and something I’ve been unable to live without given the ever-increasing amount of messages with which I’m presented on any given day.

As an example, let’s say you’re reading a message in Gmail and you know A) that you no longer want to keep this in your inbox and B) which labels (i.e., keywords) you want to assign to this message. You can now do all of the above without ever touching the mouse. Just hit “L” to bring up the Labels drop-down menu, start typing until the label you want to apply is highlighted (it’s find-as-you-type; the best type of search), hit enter and the label is assigned for future reference/searching. Repeat the process for multiple labels. Then, when you’re ready to move it from your inbox to a separate “folder,” hit “V” and start typing the location name until it’s higlighted; then hit enter. Alternatively, once you’ve entered the appropriate labels, you can just hit “E” to archive the message.

Comparatively speaking, moving messages in Outlook, if you’ve got a rather lengthy folder list like myself, is a painfully-laborious process. Thus, my messages in Outlook never got filed because it took far too long and I’ve got better things to do with my time. (Hulu, anyone?) Outlook forces the drag-and-drop process… even in versions as late as Outlook 2007. So, the moving process for, say, 10 different messages that would have taken upwards of a minute or more in Outlook now takes about 8 seconds in Gmail.

Additionally, you can now replace pretty much any time-saving technique that once was offered in Outlook with some of the new Gmail Labs features. For instance, Gmail Offline (using Google Gears) replaces my need to have a desktop email client in case of a “tubes” outage. “Quick Links” takes the place of “Favorite Folders” in Outlook. “Superstars” takes the place of Outlook’s enhanced item flagging. “Canned Responses” can now, for the most part, substitute for the increasingly-popular “Quick Parts” in Outlook 2007.

Then, of course, there are the Labs features for which Outlook doesn’t even have comparable features… things like embedded chat (it’s 2009, Microsoft – put a friggin’ multi-protocol IM client in Outlook already), “Location in Signature,” “Forgotten Attachment Detector,” “Custom Keyboard Shortcuts,” “Mouse Gestures,” “Random Signature,” among others. In addition, you can use the “Right-Side Labels” and “Navbar Drag-and-Drop” options to just about completely arrange your workspace. It’s not nearly as easy (or comprehensive) to do so in Microsoft’s client.

So, I stand before you as a user now unwilling to open Outlook (at home) more than once per week as well as someone who’s becoming increasingly-unwilling to convince other users, both business and personal, that they need to shell out money for Microsoft Outlook.

Just as an aside, I’ve always loved Gmail and, ever since day one – literally, I’ve always admired how easy it was to manage messages within… I’ve just always placed guaranteed offline access at the top of the totem pole of necessary features when it comes to my email. Gmail has finally managed to outweigh that perk.
I honestly think Microsoft can, among users like myself, emerge the victor if the next version of Outlook, currently dubbed Outlook 14 – a beta of which we should most likely see within a few months, catches up with the times and enables us to easily deal with the abundance of email that we all have while simultaneously allowing us to manage other necessary forms of electronic communication. (Think instant messaging, Twitter, etc.)

So, I figured I’d save a few bucks (vs. Amazon) and order the electronic version from CourseSmart. This was a mistake and I’m about to detail why.

Let me first say that, when dealing with education, technology should act as a helper, not a hindrance. It’s difficult enough to learn what needs to be, um, learneded without having to worry about/deal with technological annoyances.
With that in mind, let me take you through the voyage of ordering and using a digital textbook from CourseSmart.

Problem #1: I can’t even begin to tell you how long it took me to find an electronic version of the required text on the InterWebs. Yes, fortunately, there was one and I wasn’t left up the creek without a paddle. But, seriously, it’s 2009… is it wrong of me to EXPECT digital versions of college (or even high school) textbooks? I honestly don’t think so… and I’ve even attempted to look at this situation objectively. McGraw-Hill, et al., I’m speaking to you: embrace technology and, for the love of all that is good and pure in the world, advertise the product you’re trying to sell. Advertise on Google/Yahoo!/MSN. Partner with campuses nationwide and get the word out that a student has another option when it comes to getting his/her textbook(s).

Problem #2: The etextbook is nearly 200mb and the site from which you download this monstrosity is as slow as molasses. I’ve never actually had use that euphemism, either. Molasses, when "flowing" downward is pretty slow and I never once thought I’d ever encounter anything quite as slow. This was. I was even using a campus Internet connection… on which I can pretty much get any information I need at a remarkable speed (CNN video, torrents, last night’s episode of 30 Rock from Hulu, torrents, etc.)

Problem #3: So, I’ve paid almost $100 for something that’s 100% intangible. (BTW, according to Windows Live Writer, “untangible” isn’t a word. Scoff.) What now? Well, before I can read the first word of the first chapter, I have to install a 3rd-party application: the CourseSmart software. "So, you mean to say that you couldn’t just double-click on that 200mb file you just downloaded and read it with a standard app that you might already have installed?" No. No, you can’t.

I can’t open it with Adobe Reader. (Which I could with iChapters’ files. They were just secured PDFs.) I can’t open it with FoxIt. I can’t open it with Microsoft Word. I’m absolutely forced to install yet another piece of software – just to read some words and see some pictures.

If you’re even still reading this, you might be thinking: "well, if this etextbook requires it’s OWN piece of software in order to view it, there has to be a bunch of interesting/unique features included… right?" As much as I’d like to say that you’d be correct with that assumption, you wouldn’t. You’d be dead wrong. Here are the types of features you can expect to find in the CourseSmart software: Highlighting! Text search! Bookmarks! Might one find all of these features in Adobe Reader/Acrobat? Yes… and about a thousand more features.

Okay, so, I’ve got this huge, 200mb etextbook that takes forever to load in this bloated, featureless software. It’s a bad experience thus far but I’ll just forget all my troubles and print the sucker off. That takes me to

Problem #4: Printing. I’m pretty sure the license varies depending on which textbook you purchase but, with the gem that I was able to acquire, I can only print 10 pages at a time. 10. pages. at. a. time.

An average chapter, friend, is between 25-30 pages. That means that even if I did want to print off one chapter of a digital book I paid seventy-five clams for, and, perhaps, take that someplace quiet like the library man’s ultimate thinking room (read: the can), I’d have to sit there and hit print three separate times. I’m inclined to say that this is to prevent me from printing the whole thing to a PDF and sharing it with my classmates… classmates that, perhaps, didn’t pay money for this digital product (as if I’d even want to go to that trouble). Well, they already answered their own question to that little dilemma by ensuring that pages being printed are sent through some kind of funky distiller and that the output (one page, in this instance) is actually just one large image. It’s not even text. So, even if was able to print off the entire thing in one shot to a PDF, it would be pretty much useless as I wouldn’t be able to highlight, search, copy/paste (into OneNote, EverNote for instance), etc.

To summarize…

I didn’t like the fact iChapters prevented me from loading their PDFs on any computer I wanted to (I work on four different computers on any given day) but, compared to CourseSmart, iChapters is the educational software equivalent of Google, circa 1995 and, for now, if you need a digital textbook (hopefully you can tell by now that they don’t carry McGraw-Hill titles), I’d highly recommend that you check them out.

So, allow me to reiterate what I said a few paragraphs back: "…when dealing with education, technology should act as a helper, not a hindrance. It’s difficult enough to learn what [you need to] without having to worry about/deal with technological annoyances."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

One additional thought…

In addition to being a rather shabby educational information provider (my humble opinion), CourseSmart appears to also be a censor. I made a comment on the official CourseSmart blog a couple of weeks ago. Once posted, I was notified that my comment was "awaiting approval." If you’ve ever commented on a blog posting, that’s a pretty standard procedure and comments on other blogs usually show up in about a day or so if the blog is regularly maintained… and it appears as though the CourseSmart blog is. My comment, like the preceding text, wasn’t flattering but it wasn’t hateful or beligerant, either… it was an honest opinion… and it has yet to be approved.

Anyways, I was trying to set up WLW when I kept getting the following error:

“An error occurs while attempting to connect to your weblog:

Invalid Server Response – The response to the blogger.getUsersBlogs method received from the weblog server was invalid:

Invalid response document returned from XmlRpc server

You must correct this error before proceeding.”

I found a fix here (and here) but neither of them worked.  I then realized that my domain was no longer pointing to my Web host.  So, for all of you Googling for possible ways to fix this WLW error, make sure that everything is cool with your domain/host.

If everything is fine in the domain/host department, you might try these fixes:

1: Grab the xmlrpc.php file from your WordPress install and, after the first “<?php” line, paste the following:

$HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA = file_get_contents("php://input");

2: With your FTP client (I use FileZilla – just make sure hidden files are viewable: View > Show Hidden Files,) grab the .htaccess file from your WordPress install, open it with an HTML editor – NOT NOTEPAD - and add the following code:

<Files xmlrpc.php>SecFilterInheritance Off</Files>

If neither of these work, I guess it’s back to Google for you!

If any of this worked, drop me a line!

- JH