Gratitude is an attitude that hooks us up to our source of supply.  And the more grateful you are, the closer you become to your maker, to the architect of the universe, to the spiritual core of your being.  It’s a phenomenal lesson.  Bob Proctor (The Secret, Law of Attraction)

I meant to post this last week but didn’t because of the latest car fender bender story that just had to be put up in its entirety.   As you’re about to see, I’m back to breaking things down into sub-headings this week.

Time Saving Blog Tips

Time Saving Tip #1:  Thanks to Wendy Piersall and Lorelle VanFossen, I was led to two excellent time-saving tools for this blog.  You may have noticed that at times I am hit with a nice handful of comments.  Since I enjoy giving personal attention to each and every one of them, when things get hectic, they tend pile up, turning this into a huge labor intensive task.  In order to respond individually, I have been forced to go back and forth between the WordPress Administration Panel and the comment section so that I could keep track of who I just responded to.  You can imagine how time consuming that can be.

Well, no more.  If you use Firefox as your browser and you have a WordPress blog, you’ll be able to download Comment Ninja which allows you to respond to each comment without ever leaving your blog administration page.  It is not a plug-in; rather, it’s a script that works with your Firefox browser.

Word of warning:  Do not go “experimenting” with other the scripts unless you’re absolutely 100 percent positive they are safe to install.  I trusted Wendy and Lorelle about Comment Ninja and Askimet Auntie Spam (below) and because of that, I fearlessly downloaded both scripts with fantastic results.

Time Saving Tip #2: While Askimet does a great job combating comment spam, I haven’t had much time to keep up with the task of wading through each of them to ensure legit comments were not snatched up by the jaws of Askimet.  I was spending several minutes a day on this task alone.

It got to the point where I began hitting the “Delete ALL” button, feeling guilty about possibly deleting some legitimate comments in there.

Once again, no more!  If you use Firefox and have a WordPress blog, you can download Akismet Auntie Spam.  This script compresses spam comments into one-liners, making it easier to see 15 to 20 spam comments per page rather than 3 to 5.  A tremendous time saver!

Thanks again Wendy and Lorelle.  You girls certainly know what you’re talking about!

Another Keynote Speaking Engagement

A few weeks ago, i announced in a gratitude post that Penn State booked me for 3 speaking events in the Fall (back-to-back talks over a 2 day period).

Not long after that, Frito-Lay, a division of Pepisco, hired me for a keynote engagement taking place a month following the Penn State gig.  (Photo/Image Credit:  nbrier)

Thank you God!  The universe continues to conspire to bless me in unexpected ways.  Sometimes speaking clients find me on the Internet.  Other times, a fan or a friend will send someone an email letting them know about me, which may or may not get passed around.  Other times people find out about me via word of mouth.  I am usually not aware of most of the activity taking place until I am in contact with a client who tells me about it.

Karen Putz, a long time fan and subscriber to Adversity University (not to mention a great friend – we got to know one another at SOBCon08 earlier this year), sent an email to someone at Pepisco.  After months of follow ups and not hearing back, we assumed this was not an open pathway for me at this time and forgot about it.

Practically the entire summer went by before I found this in my email box from a Frito-Lay meeting planner:

Several of us have seen your videos and we are very interested in having you come speak to us.  Would you be available on ……….?

At that moment, I smiled the ingenuity of the universe.  Its timing is always impeccable.  It is always “working behind the scenes” – which means NEVER EVER GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS EVEN IF NOTHING APPEARS TO BE HAPPENING ON THE SURFACE.

Theme Upgrade

Roughly 40% of you use Firefox when visiting Adversity University.  You may have noticed that the comment boxes were being cut off on the far right side.  The comment numbers were also being cut off once it went into the double digits (i.e. 10, 11, 12, etc).

Thanks to Lisa Sabin-Wilson, the theme for this blog recently underwent an overhaul and because of that, your comments have been restored to its pristine beauty.  (Note:  Apparently they were not behaving this way in Internet Explorer – go figure because I rarely use it because it became way too buggy with horribly slow load times).

First Akron/Cleveland/Canton Tweet-Up Meeting Next Week!

Are you using Twitter?  If you are, you can follow me here:  www.twitter.com/sjhopson     If you’re not familiar with it, Chris Brogan wrote an excellent Newbies Guide to Twitter.

After seeing hundreds of Tweet-ups taking place across the country this summer (Twitter networking events) , I thought to myself one day, “Hey, why not create one for Akron, OH?”  With that thought in mind, I immediately contacted Corey Hammond (a.k.a. CoreyHammond on Twitter) and asked if he’d be interested in co-hosting a Tweet-up with me.  His response was swift and enthusiastic.  We got together earlier this week for the first time and planned what we were going to say and do.  We’re both very excited about it!

Thanks goes to Corey for creating an RSVP page on Facebook for next week’s event.  All the information you need to know is there.  If you don’t have a Facebook account and you want to come, you can either sign up for Facebook and RSVP on that page or contact me directly for further details.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to connect with even more people and potentially increase the number of new friends.   It is a very exciting time for me.

Blackberry Debacle

Two nights ago, I was happily using my “Crackberry” when suddenly the trackball refused to scroll down.  I couldn’t believe it.  Confusion turned to anger and frustration.   How could a brand new Blackberry break down so quickly?  It was only two months old!

I got on the phone and tried to track down someone at Sprint to help me.  I told Twitter about it and many of them were sympathetic but invariably told me, “Yeah, good luck,” or “I wanted to tell you this might happen but……”

“Just *&^%$ wonderful,” I thought.

I also emailed a Sprint specialist who helped me get started with my first Blackberry.  He told me to contact someone in insurance, so I did (since I am covered).  But the phone number turned out to be a recording which made things way more impersonal than I wanted.  For crying out loud, I wanted a live human being to help me get through this little crisis!

To make matters worse, this recording cut off every time I failed to enter data in a timely manner (remember, I was using the relay operator to assist me with this call).  After being cut off three times, I hung up in exasperation,  feeling rather hot and bothered.

When someone messes up my ability to communicate with the rest of the world, I instantly transform into a warrior and go into battle.  Twitterverse stood by while I ranted and raved.

After a few hours of this, I realized how ridiculous I was behaving and noticed that I wasn’t exactly following my own advice of taking control of my emotions, especially in the heat of the moment.  I stepped outside, took a deep breath and told myself, “Alright, with the way things have been going lately, this, too, shall pass and I might even experience a wonderful outcome.”

In a direct message, Twitterer Ruth Marie Sylte (a.k.a. rmsylte) wrote:  “Oh dear Stephen — despite what you are experiencing now, it is STILL a day of incredible possibilities ahead!  Rejoice in that!  ”

I took her advice (and my self-talk) to heart.  I actually believed that there was the possibility of things turning around – it wasn’t some empty, happy-lucky-go affirmation.

And you know what?

It did turn around – rather dramatically, I might add!

A manager up the rungs at Sprint advised me to visit a local Sprint store and tell them I wanted a new one.  That’s exactly what I did but I have to admit that I went in there with a bit of trepidation after reading about horrible customer service stories that seem to be so prevalent these days.

The universe must have aligned all the stars for me the moment I walked in because not only did I get the nicest, most cheerful customer service rep, but I was also given a receipt to come back in a few days to pick up my brand new Blackberry!  The extra $7 a month for insurance turned out to be well worth the investment.  Update:  I picked up the new unit yesterday (Friday) – back to normal again!

WOOT!

In retrospect, I may have been a bit too harsh on Sprint/Blackberry when I first ranted and raved about them on Twitter.  Sorry about that guys.  I’m at peace now and hope you are too.  Wink, wink.

*red faced*

Food for thought:  Cultivating the attitude of gratitude does what for you?

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This is a quick update to alert everyone at the Adversity University community that if you left a comment (to which I responded) over the last few days, it may no longer be here because I was in the midst of a transition to a new hosting server (THC).

If you have a website of any kind and you’ve made at least one transition to a new server, then you probably know how technical glitches have a tendency to appear along the way. That’s normal these days because of the multitude of different platforms, servers and programs out there. While I was aware of this, I still had to force myself to remain calm and detached throughout the process (“Let Go and Let God”), trusting that the dedicated professionals at the new server would do their job and work diligently through whatever problems came up.

And that’s exactly what they did.

After the transition first went through, I noticed that some of my posts were cut off. Of course, I was alarmed and informed them of this right away. Their response was they would get on the problem immediately – not tomorrow, not next week, not 48 hours but right NOW. Their immediate decision was to try and re-import the database to see if that worked.

It did.

But because they had to use a backup file that did not include some comments, it’s possible your comments (and my responses) were not included in the re-import. If that’s the case, I apologize. It could not be avoided. So if you don’t mind, please go back and re-write your comment(s) and I promise to respond as quickly as I can. Okay?

Having said that, I’m happy to announce that both my speaking website and Adversity University are both running smoothly with Top Hosting Center as the server.

The only thing left for THC is to help me resolve the email spam challenges. In fact, we are very close to resolving that issue as of this writing. I expect my email to be running normally very shortly.

Apparently, after I transferred to THC, my email address somehow fell into the hands of spammers who took my address and began using it as spam. That generated hundreds of bounced emails. It was disconcerting to say at the least!

Instead of telling me “There’s nothing I can do about it,” they dedicated themselves to helping me, a non-technical person, resolve the spam issue. My current server did not respond the same way – in fact, they said to me: “Sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

There are a few more reasons why I transferred to THC – let me outline them for you:

Reason #1

Top Hosting Center first came to my attention because they are one of the sponsors of the upcoming SOBCon08 event taking place this weekend in Chicago. More specifically, not only are they offering conference participants a special one-time $99 hosting-for-life deal, but they are also sponsoring the cost of having interpreters for hearing impaired bloggers (WHO?? Wink, wink) at the conference. Ever so grateful for that and since I was looking around for a new hosting server anyway, I decided to move my sites to them.

I’m very glad I did.

Reason #2

I can say that I personally experienced what it was like to deal with THC during the transition.

Despite the technical glitches along the way (which, once again is common), when everything was said and done, it actually went very well. THC took each challenge without complaint and dedicated themselves to resolving them on my behalf.

They held my hand saying, “Don’t be discouraged, we’ll find a solution.” They treated me with respect and care despite knowing I was not a technical person. Isn’t that what everyone wants? A little bit of love and respect?

A lot of servers won’t do that. You’re on your own with making the transition. Either you have to do it yourself or hire a company to make the transition for you. Not THC. They’ll work closely with you from start to finish. With a smile. With a sense of humor.

My attitude is if a server wants my business, I want them to help me make the transition. Period. That’s what THC will do for you.

Reason #3

My current hosting server told me the problems I had with email spam was something they couldn’t do anything about. I found that hard to believe but stayed with them because I was concerned about moving to another hosting server that might give me the same attitude.

Remember, as a non-technical person, I tend to be a little more nervous about moving my sites around. We all know how customer service is in dire need of improvement these days, especially hosting servers. So I stayed put until I discovered THC.

When some of my posts got cut off, I told them about that right away. They jumped on the problem and took care of it.

When my email began experiencing spam problems, once again, they took immediate action. As I mentioned earlier, we are very close to resolving this challenge.  My previous server did nothing about it, forcing me to alternate between my “regular” email and yahoo.   Not acceptable – at all.

Reason #4

THC has a 24/7 chat line. While most hosting servers have that nowadays, not many of them can say their CEO is involved on the support side.  The CEO of THC, Eric Vanier, jumps in whenever his very qualified and dedicated professionals cannot solve a problem. How many servers out there can give you that kind of support?

Not too many, I would venture to say!

Conclusion

I was so satisfied with THC that I plan to promote them via a permanent afflilate link on the home page of this blog, the first of its kind here. You all know I have no advertisement oncesoever at Adversity University but that will slowly change. Only those companies I’ve personally dealt with and have had a satisfactory experience will be displayed here.

Because I’m very conscious of my reputation, I will not promote or recommend anything I am not 100 percent comfortable with. I can say with 100 percent confidence that THC will give you the same treatment and care that they gave me.

Therefore, if you are actively looking for a new hosting server, please go to Top Hosting Center for more information. Once I get the affiliate link set up here, you’ll be able to sign up with them through Adversity University but until that happens, please go to their home page and take a look around.

Any questions? Comments? Thoughts? Let me know. Meanwhile, I have another post coming up shortly so stay tuned!

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If you’re thinking about placing an ad but it doesn’t display the subscriber count, you might want some reliable way of finding out on your own.  In this case, you might care. 

Let’s say you’re someone who has more than a passing interest with traffic stats and you’re curious to find out how your favorite blogger is doing with respect to the subscriber count - you might be curious enough to want to know.

While I’m no psychologist, in theory I think the presence of a blogger’s feed chicklet, especially if it has an attractive subscriber count, has some measure of influence over whether or not someone places an ad or becomes a new subscriber.  

I’ve always been curious about those who don’t show off their subscriber count.  Having done that early in my blogging career, I know of at least 2 reasons why someone might not choose to display the feed chicklet:       

• The blogger wants people to sign up on the basis of content quality.  He feels good about this because people are signing up without being unduly influenced by the ”crowd factor.”      
• The blogger is waiting for the subscriber count to hit a certain “magic number” before finally adding the feed chicklet.   This could range anywhere from 100 to a thousand or somewhere in between.  It’s totally subjective. 

I know a few who have over a thousand subscribers yet they haven’t put up a feed chicklet.  Why?  I don’t know.  Maybe they’re never going to do it or they’re waiting for an even higher number.  Who knows?  In fact, let me ask you…..are you a blogger with thousands of subscribers but you don’t have the chicklet up?  Perhaps you could tell us the answer to this mysterious question in the comment section.

So, does it really matter whether a blog shows its feed circulation?  

Again, I think it does. 

Serious bloggers are social creatures and most of them care a whole lot how many people are congregating at their blogs.  They aren’t exactly writing for themselves!  And if they are fortunate to have a sizable community, they’re going to want to show it off to the world.  Find me a blogger who hates having 5,000 subscribers and I’ll pay you a million dollars a month for the rest of your life.  Fat chance!

While mulling over the possibility of signing up I always ask myself:

• “Was I inspired?”
• “Was the writing good?”
• “Do people leave a respectable amount of comments?”
• “Was the design attractive?”
• “Was the material relevant to my needs?”
• “Did I feel compelled to roam around the blog, checking out other articles?”
• “Was the author authentic, personable and friendly?”

While asking myself these questions, I’ll subconsciously look for the feed circulation box.  Does the blog have at least 100 subscribers or more?

If the answer to these questions were more than favorable, I would sign up or place an ad right away. 

Having said that, there are exceptions to this.  I wouldn’t care if a gardening blog had a million subscribers for I have zero interest in that area!  

Readers are social animals and if they see a lot of people gathered in a particular spot, it’s going to make them think something important is going on.  How did you react the last time you were at the mall and you saw a group people clustered around the entrance to your favorite store?  Did it at least pique your interest to check it out?  You probably did because subconsciously you didn’t want to be left out.  It’s no different in the blogosphere.  

Getting back to the topic at hand, how do you find out the number of subscribers a blog has?  Here’s how:     

• First, you need to know if the blogger is using Feedburner.
• To find out, go to that person’s blog and click on the orange RSS icon at the bottom of your browser – you’ll be taken to the RSS feed page. (Alternatively, you can click on the RSS icon at the blog itself – it should lead you to the same page).
• Look at the address in your browser – if it has “feedburner” in there, you’re in luck.
• At the very end of that address, you’ll find the name of its feed - copy that to your clipboard - you’ll be needing this.
• Paste the feedname at the end of:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/feedname

And viola!  You have your answer.

Take Adversity University as an example.  Click on the orange RSS icon at the bottom of your browser for this blog and you’ll be taken to a page with an address that looks like this:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AdversityUniversityBlog 

See where it says AdversityUniversityBlog?  That’s my feedname.  Simply copy that and put it in place of feedname:        

• http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/feedname

Go ahead and click this:    

• http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/AdversityUniversityBlog

See what I mean?  It’s pretty easy to find out if you’re curious enough.  If a blogger tells you he has X amount of subscribers, this is how you can verify it.  However, if you find that a blogger does not use feedburner, then I’m truly at loss of words.  I have no idea what to do in this case.  Anyone out there know?

Credit goes to Enhance Life for this information.  And now I’ve passed it on to you.   Have fun playing detective! 

P.S.  I’m still planning to bring you new video posts in the very near future so hang around for that.  You’ll have an opportunity to hear me speak directly to you for the first time, which I hope will make this an even more interesting place for you to gather.   Wink, wink.

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Go here to use the free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl.  I just submitted this blog on that page and was informed that it would take up to an hour to get screenshots showing me what Adversity University looks like on 18 different browsers.  Instructions were provided to bookmark that page and check back later, which I plan to do later on tonight.

It’s a really cool tool!  Try it.  And then let me know how it worked for you. 

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How about switching blogging platforms?  If I told you it’s almost exactly like moving from one house to another, what would you think? 

While there is no physical movement involved (except when you are banging your head against the desk in sheer frustration!), there’s a lot of emotional and intellectual activity taking place inside you, similiar to what happens when you move into a new home.   

You have in front of you a billion decisions that need to be made.  You’re faced with getting a new domain name (i.e. new address) , a new feed (i.e. instructing the ”internet post office” where to deliver email/RSS subscriptions), finding a new theme (i.e. interior designer), and importing articles then manually updating the links inside each and every one them (i.e. packing boxes and loading them onto the truck) plus so many other tasks.  

In the process of moving, I learned A LOT  – here’s a short (and I’m sure expandable) list:       

The power of making a firm decision- For months, I dilly-dallied over whether or not to move to WordPress.  I was worried about having to start over especially since the old blog was just beginning to get good traffic and experience a surge of new subscribers.   I knew that if I moved, I would have to rebuild and start from scratch all over again.  But once I saw the big picture and made a firm decision (LET’S DO IT!), everything magically fell into place.  If I was stuck on an answer to something, the universe always led me to the solution(s) easily and effortlessly.  The fact that I had no experience with WordPress made no difference!  One of my favorite quotes from ”Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch sums it up perfectly:      

When you “make up your mind” about something, you set the universe into motion.  Forces beyond your ability to comprehend–far more subtle and complex than you could imagine–are engaged in a process, the intriciate dynamics of which you are only just now beginning to understand. 

Tackle One Thing at a Time-  How does one start when there’s a laundry list of things to accomplish?  I wrote a “To-Do” list and simply tackled them one at a time.  If there was something that I thought was ”high priority,” it would be encircled with a bright red marker and taken care of first thing the following morning.  This lesson can be applied to every day life.  Looking for multiple streams of income?  Try one at a time until you find one that works.  Trying to find a job?  Focus on one interview at a time.   Need to buy a car?  Visit one dealership at a time.  You get the picture.

Think Long Term-  This actually goes hand in hand with making a firm decision.  If you are inclined to focus on short term profits/goals, you’re less likely to move forward because you’ll be worried about short-term losses and end up second guessing yourself.  But here’s the deal.  I figured I would be blogging for at least another 20 years, so what’s another year to start over?  On top of that, I realized that in the year and a half that I’ve been blogging, I developed wonderful relationships with people from all over the world, many of whom have already come forward to help me promote the new site, not because they have to but because they feel inspired to do so.  Here’s a sampling of them: 

• An article about Adversity University came out yesterday in the “Positive Sharing” blog authored by Chief Happiness Officer Alexander Kjerulf from Denmark.   Alex is one of the most successful bloggers in Europe with a huge community of positive-thinking readers – a perfect match for me since I am a positive thinker!   I can’t think of a nicer blogwarming gift than that!
• Phil, the famous self proclaimed relationship geek from “Make it Great!”, recently interviewed me and posted Part I this morning with the second part going up next week.  Today’s interview will be seen by almost a thousand people from around the globe.  You can’t beat that kind of exposure!   
• In addition to the interview at “Make it Great!”, Phil personally asked me to guest blog for him until the end October, giving me another opportunity to personally interact with his readers.  What a divine gift!
• Corrine Edwards from “Personal Growth with Corrine Edwards” recently asked if she could use my article “10 Magical Ways to Feel More Abundant” for her readers.  She is a former TV show host where she interviewed many very famous best-selling authors.  You never know who could be reading that article – we all know how God acts in mysterious ways.  

Stay Focused – Become obsessed with your goal.  Keep working at it until you achieve it.  This might be a little extreme for some of you but I actually cut my cable TV service a couple months ago.  Not only did this force me to do more productive things, but it also ended up saving me $60 a month!   Hey, I could buy more cigars with that money!

Do Research- Do your homework before making the move.  Are you picking the right neighborhood (ie. WordPress platform)?  Is the neighborhood compatible with your values and beliefs (i.e. does the blog theme work with the latest version of WordPress and does it match your personality)?  Will you get adequate community support after moving into the new home (i.e. does the theme designer make herself available to answer questions long after you’ve adopted the theme)?

Is the move a win-win?  Will this move benefit your readers?  Will it benefit the blogger too?  It has to be a win-win situation – otherwise why move?

Be Willing to Learn- You’re bound to encounter situations during the move that you’ve never dealt with before (i.e. WordPress is very different from Blogger).  The key is to be willing to climb the learning curve and know that you will be learning something new almost everyday.

Go Past Limiting Beliefs- Sometimes during the move, you might have doubts and wonder if you’re capable of going through with the monumental tasks in front of you.  Many of us have been shackled with limiting beliefs from past conditioning that could hinder our ability to make bold decisions.  Chris Melton from soupornuts.com wrote about this in a great article entitled, “Three Little Lies That are Limiting Your Potential.”

Food for Thought:  What will you do today that will enable you to move forward?

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Now that I’m a new blog homeowner here, I’ve been busy painting, adding, deleting, tweaking and otherwise fixing the place up. I want it to not only reflect my personality but also transform it into a pleasant environment for those who have become part of the Adversity University community as well as for visitors who might stop in for coffee and browse around.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the goal was to find a place that gave me at least 5 things:

1. Prime real estate screen space (i.e. from 2 to 3 columns, without the clutter)
2. Intuitive navigation capabilities
3. Easy to read text with clean white background
4. The ability to create new pages with tabs on top for future material
5. A theme that was compatible with WordPress 2.3 version

When I first started looking, I found 20 potential themes. Each designer was sent an email with questions to gauge how responsive and friendly they would be. While waiting to hear back from them, I browsed through their blogs to ascertain whether or not they were keeping up with regular postings.

If the designer got back to me within a reasonable period of time, appeared to be friendly and maintained a current blog, that meant I would probably get a fair amount of support throughout the installation/tweaking process. Keep in mind that while I’ve learned a lot about blogging in the last year and a half, I’m still learning my way around, especially now that I’m in a new environment with a learning curve to content with. It helps to have some kind of live support on the way, you know what I mean?

After hearing back from some but not others, the list was slashed to 5 potential themes. All of them were well designed and compatible with WordPress 2.3. The clincher was when I learned one of designers was commissioned to write a book by a well known publisher, which I think will turn into a mega-bestseller. That meant this designer probably knew what she was doing when creating the theme I had my heart set on. In addition, it helps that she was hired by some well known bloggers to redesign their sites. Last but not least, she has a bunch of documentation at her site about how to tweak the theme to each individual blogger’s liking – a huge bonus.

So that’s why I’ve chosen this theme.  If you’re a blogger yourself and you like the theme, go to the very bottom of the page and you’ll see a link to the theme designer’s page.  She’s very sweet, responsive and truly cares about her work.

As you can imagine, there’s a lot of work ahead. Over 150 posts from this blog are being exported to the new location. In order for that to happen seamlessly, I might be forced to upgrade to Blogger’s new template. If that happens, a lot of stuff you now see on the sidebar will be forever gone (which is one of the reasons I’m moving in the first place). In addition, I will be focused on transferring email and RSS subscribers, adding/moving around furniture (i.e. sidebars and plug-ins), plus a host of other things like inserting a notification in each and every post at this location telling visitors where to go.

After we are settled in, I want to throw a blogwarming party!! Any ideas how I can do that? Go ahead and use the comment feature to let me know your ideas or if you prefer, send me a private email at stephen(at)sjhopson(dot)com

Have a great rest of the weekend! Stay tuned for more updates……

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Consider this: Have you ever tried to send a large photo or video file via email attachment only to have it bounce back to you with a message saying that it was “too large for the other person’s server to handle” (thus clogging up your email server in the process)? That would cause a great deal of consternation, a.k.a. “adversity,” wouldn’t it?

A few days ago, I was trying in vain to send a HUGE AVI video file to my website designer so that she could put it up on the testimonial page of my professional speaking website. Much to my chagrin, it bounced right back to me becuase it was way too large for an email attachment (17.8 MB). As a result, my email server was severely clogged up for a long time until I finally got rid of it. Believe me, it was NOT a pleasant experience.

Thanks to Pando, they make this annoying little problem go away. It’s a free software program that allows you to download and send media files fast and easy via your choice of email, the Web or even IM. The free version allows you to attach up to 1GB worth of files, which for most people, is more than adequate.

Because of special Pando attachments, you’re able to bypass email server limitations. After installing Pando to your hard drive (takes seconds), they make it super easy to select whatever media files you want to send and viola, you’re done!

A couple of things you need to be aware of:

1. If the intended receiver does not have Pando, they will be required to download the program to open the file(s). TIP: Send them an email ahead of time letting them know you want to send a large media file via Pando and ask them to look at the benefits of installing the program beforehand. That way there are no surprises.

2. If you sign up for a free Pando account, the files you send are stored on Pando’s servers for between 7 to 30 days, depending on the how it was sent (email, Web, IM). That means the intended receiver needs to open it sometime during that time period. If they don’t, then it “expires.” This is explained in great detail on their FAQ page.

Bottom line? It worked GREAT! I was able to send the above mentioned video file to my website designer in less than a minute without clogging up her email server. Now my mind is running amok with different possibilities – I am now thinking of sending media files to prospective and existing clients, family and friends! It’s way cool!

Check them out at: http://www.pando.com/

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