The CodeTree

The 5 laws of entrepreneurs

Ryan Huff — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:18:41 +0000

The term ‘entrepreneur’ is enticing and to many people implies, ‘doer of anything that makes money’ and in a large sense is a correct implication. However, what is often missing from the general understanding of the term ‘entrepreneur’ is that each endeavor of an ‘entrepreneur’ requires continual focus, nothing is ever truly on ‘auto-pilot’. I have seen too many entrepreneurs fail because they tried to be everything to everyone; they tried blogging, then on to marketing, then on to affiliate sales .… all within a few months!

To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to apply laser focus to your venture to get it off the ground, then you have to continually apply oversight to keep it in the air. As you progress and advance inentrepreneurialism you can explore outsourcing and Virtual Assistant options to help you manage but in the early-stages of a venture, it is all about you and your personal drive.

We could spend hours upon hours of our time and pages upon pages of text that all talk about the do’s & dont’s of entrepreneurs and marketing. While all of that would be valuable information I think that being ‘straight and to the point’ is always an effective mean of communication. In my own career I have come to find that if I adhere to the 5 laws of entrepreneurs I can assure my venture the best possible chance of success.

5 Laws of Entrepreneurs:

Law of Focus: In the early-stage development of your venture, product or service you must remain focused and resist temptations to become distracted.
- Outline specific times during your day that you will dedicate to working on the venture and nothing else.
- During the times you are working with your venture, turn off your phones, email, Twitter … etc. This is quality time for you and your idea only.

Law of Goals: It is imperative that you document the goals and objectives of your venture. You have to have something to hold yourself accountable to.
- If you do not have highly specific goals and objectives you can easily become distracted and lose focus (a violation of the first law!).
- Having specific goals allows you to measure the progression of your venture; without achieving goals you have no way to determine if your venture is progressing.

Law of Motivation: In the early-stage of your venture it is easy to stay motivated because of excitement and novelty. You must keep that enthusiasm because you can’t expect customers to be excited about your venture if your not.

Law of Integrity: You must vow to never misrepresent or overstate your venture’s value or benefit. Nothing will sink a venture quicker than an overstatement or misrepresentation.
- Do not ‘make’ your venture fit into a market, find the market that fits your venture by conducting focus groups and product research.

Law of Perseverance: If success were easy then there wouldn’t be such a thing as failure. Success is the 100th attempt of 99 failures.
- You must commit to never giving up on your venture until you achieve your goals that you have outlined. YOU CAN NEVER GIVE UP!

Being an entrepreneur is not easy, nothing worth having ever is. The difference between your venture’s success and being the next idea tossed to the way-side is you! You are the only responsible for your own success, so go make it happen! Go be a success!

Securing WordPress is not mission impossible

Ryan Huff — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:07:29 +0000

I hate to be the one to burst your bubble but the, ‘how to make WordPress hack proof’ ebook that you just bought was a complete waste of money. Why do you ask — because you can’t make WordPress (or any other web application for that matter) literally ‘hack-proof’.

First, lets define the terms Hack and Hacker before we get started:

‘Hacker’ — while the more appropriate term in this context would be cracker, we’ll use hacker instead because it’s inferred meaning is more socially understood (albeit a misunderstanding). Regarding WordPress, a hacker would in simplest form, be someone who causes your blog to do something that it isn’t supposed to. Hackers may find a way to ‘spam’ your blog or cause your blog to make unintended posts/comments, they may find a way to overwrite important system files in your blog software that renders the blog unusable and many other nasty activities which can all be examples of hacks (actually the better term here would be cracks).
- Outside of a personal vendetta, one common reason for a hacker to attack your blog would be to spam it with the hackers own message (i.e. affiliate links … etc). By the time you realize the hack occurred, the hacker has already enjoyed some free click-thru traffic courtesy of you.

The World Wide Web is driven by web servers, every blog that we use physically resides somewhere in the world on a real server that is accessible to the Internet. If you have a blog, that blog sits on a server somewhere in the world and is probably shared by many other people, blogs and various Internet applications. The sad but true fact about web servers that you must embrace is, “the only 100% secure web server is the web server who’s power is turned off”. Unfortunately that isn’t very practical given that without power, your blogs couldn’t be found on the Internet.

So if we can’t secure the web server 100%, that means we cannot secure the contents of the web server 100%. The only option left is to realize that the web server and the contents will be a target of attack on the Internet and the best most practical way to security is to mitigate threats and make the exposed areas (to the Internet) of the server as invaluable as possible. In most cases, there will be little that you can do for server-level security because in most cases you are not going to be the administrator of the server (third party hosting situations). In third-party hosting situations, the best you can usually do is exercise caution when selecting a server provider for your blog. At any rate you can always contact your server provider and ask them about their security procedures and what security measures are in place on the web server.

You can however take substantial security measures on the blog software level that can dramatically improve security on your blog. In particular I am talking about self-hosted blogs;‘free blog services’ like blogger.com or wordpress.com won’t leave many options for security to the blogger individually and you will have to rely on the organization’s administration for security.

If you host your own blog you can employ plugins that may help secure your blog. Bellow, I have listed some of my favorite plugin’s for various blog software:

b2Evolution | Plugin Site: http://plugins.b2evolution.net/

Turing Test (e.g. CAPTCHA)

Akismet

Comment Moderation

TextPattern | Plugin Site: http://textpattern.org/plugins

YAB_Email

MEM_Akismet

NKO_SpameURL_Blocker

RAH_Comment_Spam

Movable Type | Plugin Site: http://plugins.movabletype.org/

TypePad

CAPTCHA

MT Protect

MT Akismet

Approval

Wordpress | Plugin Site: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

AskApache Password Protect

Login LockDown

Chap Secure Login

SI Security CAPTCHA

Akismet

No matter what software you choose as your blogging platform, no amount of plugins can match the effectiveness of common sense and practicality. This is a list of ‘good rules of thumb’ that extend beyond the use of plugins and when used in conjunction with plugins can prove to be very effective.

Less code = more security. The less code lying about on your blog the less potential there is for code to be exploited. If your not using a plugin/theme/widget on your blog, deactivate it and then remove it. Do not leave it lying about waiting to be exploited. As plugin versions change and updates are published you may forget to update the ones your not using.
Keep the core blog software updated. I am not a fan of the ‘bleeding-edge’ so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend being on the latest version as soon as it is released. New releases can always have unforeseen flaws. I recommend staying 1 full version behind the latest stable version. Upgrade only when security patches are released or when a new stable version is released and it makes your blog 2 full versions behind the latest stable version.
Take advantage of the built-in moderation controls of the software. Don’t allow public commenting without some type of control (i.e all comments are held for approval, only commenters that have been approved can comment … etc)
Log into your blog at least once per day just to give everything a glance, quickly scan new comments, look at the file-size of the blog on your server and note any changes, look at your post count and note any changes … etc

Happy Blogging!

Ryan Huff, C.E.O & Founder

RTH Consultants

Apple’s iPhoto Makes It Way Too Easy To Delete Your Entire Flickr Library

Ryan Huff — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:54:55 +0000

Apple has long been associated with the saying “it just works”. Well, sometimes it apparently works a little too well, to the point of allowing users to delete their entire Flickr libraries in one fell swoop without really meaning to. Oops.

The problem stems from the way Apple’s popular iPhoto software is integrated with Flickr. Recent versions of iPhoto allow users to sync specified albums with Flickr, which means they can automatically upload new photos as soon as they import them into iPhoto from their cameras, and change their captions for both at once. The problem is that iPhoto treats this syncing very literally: if you delete a photo from from of these synced albums on iPhoto, it doesn’t just remove it from the Set on Flickr — it actually deletes the photo from your Flickr account entirely.

iPhoto apparently informs users that when they stop sharing a photo album between iPhoto and Flickr, “The album no longer appears on Flickr, but the photos remain in your [iPhoto] library.” The wording is both ambiguous (Apple could just mean it’s deleting the photos from the Flickr set) and not nearly strong enough to suggest that it’s actually deleting data. And plenty of people have made that mistake.

Over the last several weeks this has led to a number of threads in Flickr’s help forum where some users are up in arms after accidentally deleting hundreds of photos at once.

Full story at: http://www.techcrunch.com/

About That Chrome OS Event

Ryan Huff — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:52:22 +0000

We’ve been reporting a lot about Chrome OS the past few days. Possible features, screenshots, early builds — lots of good stuff. And tomorrow was promising to bring even more as yes, there’s an event partially dealing with Chrome OS scheduled to take place on Google’s Mountain View campus. But sadly, we’ve been banned from the event.

Truth be told, all press is now banned from the event, we were told this evening. And that sucks because just yesterday we were confirmed as attendees and had planned to report on what we saw and heard. But then PC World and The Next Web spilled the beans on the event, and Google decided to ban the press.

However, before they banned us and closed down registrations, we did manage to get the confirmation email about the event.

Full Story at: http://www.techcrunch.com/

The life of a programmer

Ryan Huff — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:23:10 +0000

A programmer was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess.” He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week.”

The programmer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll stay with you and do anything you want.” Again the programmer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess that I’ll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won’t you kiss me?” The programmer said, “Look, I’m a programmer. I don’t have time for a girlfriend — but a talking frog, now that’s cool.”

Applause For Finland: First Country To Make Broadband Access A Legal Right

Ryan Huff — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:22:08 +0000

Kudos to the Finnish government, which has just introduced laws guaranteeing broadband access to every person living in Finland (5.5 million people, give or take).

This is reportedly a first worldwide.

Starting July 2010, every person in Finland will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection as an intermediate step, says the Ministry of Transport and Communications. By the end of 2015, the legal right will be extended to an impressive 100 Mb broadband connection for everyone.

According to Wikipedia, approximately 79 percent of the Finnish population use the Internet. Finland had around 1.52 million broadband Internet connections by the end of June 2007 or around 287 per 1,000 inhabitants.

Full story at: http://www.techcrunch.com/

PHP smtp authentication mail script using the PEAR Mail package

Ryan Huff — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:04:48 +0000

require_once "Mail.php";

$from = "Sandra Sender ";
$to = "Ramona Recipient ";
$subject = "Hi!";
$body = "Hi,\n\nHow are you?";

$host = "mail.example.com";
$username = "smtp_username";
$password = "smtp_password";

$headers = array ('From' => $from,
  'To' => $to,
  'Subject' => $subject);
$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
  array ('host' => $host,
    'auth' => true,
    'username' => $username,
    'password' => $password));

$mail = $smtp->send($to, $headers, $body);

if (PEAR::isError($mail)) {
  echo("

" . $mail->getMessage() . "

");
 } else {
  echo("

Message successfully sent!

");
 }

Review: Best New iPod and iPhone AppStore Games

Ryan Huff — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:01:56 +0000

With the recent iPod Touch update Apple has positioned and marketed the device as a new type of mobile gaming platform. Games have always been some of the best selling applications in the AppStore for both the iPod Touch and the iPhone. A recent advertisement for the iPod Touch carries the slogan “The Funnest iPod Ever” and features a number of games.We decided to try out and review each of the games featured in the ad and rate the ‘fun factor’ ourselves. […]

The Apple mobile devices have become decent gaming machines, with some of the newer games providing in-depth 3D environments and absorbing gameplay. We found a number of games that were extremely well developed and addictive, as good and better than most of the dedicated mobile gaming devices available on the market today.

We previously reviewed the best iPhone Apps so far this year. The following is our review of 12 of the new iPod Touch and iPhone games featured and highlighted in the recent Apple campaign.

Full Story at http://www.techcrunch.com/

PHP — Basic parser function that supports multiple deliminators

Ryan Huff — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:37:52 +0000


function parseIT($file, $delim = "	", $encapsulator = array("\"", "'")) {

	$parsed = array();

	$lines = file($file);

	foreach ($lines as $key => $line) {

		$columns = explode($delim, $line);

		foreach ($columns as $k => $column) {

			$column = str_replace($encapsulator, "", $column);

			$parsed[$key] = array($k => $column);
		}
	}

	return $parsed;

}
//USAGE
parseIT('myfile.csv');

Business Survival — 101 Featuring Kristen Eckstein

Ryan Huff — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:52:47 +0000

The CodeTree has always been committed to being an invaluable resource for new and seasoned online entrepreneurs. We constantly strive to provide compelling, relevant content as well as practical,‘how-to’ information.

In that spirit we decided to produce a segment that deals with the issues you face everyday as entrepreneurs and business owners. In this segment you’ll hear from successful entrepreneurs explaining how they achieve success and what they do to, ‘keep the boat afloat’ in the current economy.

How Kristen Eckstein Does It …

Kristen Eckstein

Kristen Eckstein, Executive Producer of Imagine! Studios (an arts and media production company) is a self-made success in the offline and online world. Kristen’s story started in 2004 when she had the foresight and wherewithal to recognize an opportunity to succeed and the potential to capitalize that opportunity. Like many entrepreneurs, Kristen found a need in an industry that she is well versed in and then created products and services to address that need.

When questioned how a small business owner from North Carolina achieves success in a saturated and cut-throat arts & media industry she simply responds, “we create great art and entertainment that fires the imagination and makes a significant positive influence in the lives of people”.

Kristen describes her daily business activities as; “a whirlwind of activity” between balancing jobs, invoicing, customer service, meetings, product development and many other business tasks Kristen finds herself wearing several different hats. Today, Kristen remains involved with corporate-style graphic design, book design and book coaching as a self-employer with three independent contractors.

Surviving economic challenges …

We wanted to know if and how the current US/World economy has presented any obstacles for Kristen and her business . She responds by stating, “It has done nothing but make us more profitable. Not only are we in a business that others need to compete and stay in business, but we believe that though we live in this world, we have the ability to tap into God’s economy, and it is a lot more secure!”.

Every business owner is faced with the challenge of cutting costs and expense wherever possible; Kristen found that joining America’s Best Companies proved to be a great cost-saver for legal and professional services. Additionally, Kristen remains committed that her company only spend money in areas that will help grow the business or enrich the lives of others.

Objectives …

Call them goals, objectives, milestones … whatever you call them, every business and business owner needs them. As a successful entrepreneur, you must be committed to expanding your business. A business is designed to grow, if the business does not grow the business will wither. Among many ways to grow business, Kristen chooses to grow her business by continually adding new products and services that are inline with her industry such as her recently released Platinum Publishing Program for book authors.

Customer service should be a primary objective for every entrepreneur; great customer service equals a great customer. Kristen is very passionate about customer service, here is what Kristen had to say when asked to weigh in her opinion on customer service :

“My customer may not always be right (they may ask the impossible), but we take the time to explain everything thoroughly. We have found that even if the customer isn’t right, good customer service takes time out to give the customer attention, make them feel valued (as they should be), and explain situations to them. Communication is key! Especially if we cannot meet a deadline, I will contact the customer and let them know right away. We have found that if we communicate clearly, they are a lot more understanding than we may give them credit for.”

Some sage advice …

In order to be a successful entrepreneur you must be vigilant, triumphant determined and willing to do anything required in order to achieve your dream, including personal sacrifice.

Kristen Eckstein leaves us with some of her expert advice:

Are business ethics important? “Yes, if you have strong values and put your customers first, they will notice and you will reap the reward of their continued patronage. If you always do things cheaply and do not take responsibility when something goes wrong, your business will suffer immediately”.
What is the ‘first step’ that new entrepreneurs should take? “Come up with a name! Your business name will identify you, clarify your vision, and give you focus”.
What are the ingredients to a good ‘success recipe’? “Equal parts Communication, Respect, and Honesty”.

Contacting Kristen Eckstein:

Kristen Eckstein, Executive Producer
Imagine! Studios www.artsimagine.com
I am Published! Program www.iampublished.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/imaginestudios

The CodeTree is proud to feature expert advice from seasoned professionals like Kristen Eckstein. To submit your advice for possible inclusion on The CodeTree please download the interview questionnaire and return it to submissions@mycodetree.com.