Category: Knowledgebase

Follow A Blog using Flipboard

I’ve written about how to follow a blog on flipboard before but wanted to do a single post for the HBX Core Blog as I’ll soon be starting HBX Core May 2016 cohort.

You can follow the HBX Blog or any other blog on your Flipboard app by searching for a blog’s rss feed url.

To find a blog’s rss feel url, either click on the blog’s rss link or icon if listed on the footer. If an rss link is not provided, simply right click on the blog and select View Page Source and look for “rss”.

You can follow me on Flipboard at https://flipboard.com/@yesi79.

IMG_0840

Top 21 VC Blogs Every Investor & #Entrepreneur Should Follow on @Flipboard

vcBlogs

I ran into a great article on MostRead.In which provided a great list of must read vc blogs. However, with the article only supplying links to the blogs, I thought it would be great for Flipboard readers to have direct links to follow on Flipboard. Below are links to the blog’s hidden Feed URLs on Flipboard which I’ve created via the hidden trick to subscribe to a blog on Flipboad. Hope you enjoy!

  1. Fred Wilson – A VC
  2. Fred Destin: Open source venture capital
  3. David Skok – For entrepreneurs
  4. Jason Ball’s Techbytes
  5. Thomas Grota – A personal view on venture capital
  6. Jalak Jobanputra – The barefoot VC
  7. Chris Dixon – Cdixon.org
  8. Tomasz Tunguz – ex post facto
  9. Paul Jozefak – Babbling VC
  10. Ciaran O’Leary – Berlin VC
  11. Christoph Janz – The angel VC
  12. Paul Graham – Essays
  13. First Round Capital – The Review – NO FEED URL
  14. Charlie O’Donnell – This is Going to be Big – NO FEED URL
  15. Mark Suster – Both Sides of the Table
  16. Ben Horowitz – Ben’s Blog
  17. Martin Varsavsky
  18. Bill Gurley – Above the Crowd
  19. Brad Feld
  20. Dave McClure – 500 Hats
  21. Brett Hurt – lucky7 – NO FEED URL

Anyone else bothered by @LinkedIn’s poorly designed “Influencer” icon?

I noticed that LinkedIn began placing an “Influencer” icon/badge next to a person’s name on the news feed. I think it’s a great idea, but the design could use a little improvement–it looks like it was created using MS Paint. The icon/badge suffers from poor alignment and the use of a font that neither matches the icon nor the pages typography. Here’s my take on improving the icon/badge–below is a side-by-side composite showing current badge versus my design. Thoughts?

linkedIn_influencer

How to Subscribe to a Blog Feed using @Flipboard

I’ve never been much of a blog reader (or writer) but when I became inspired to read more business blogs by @ErikBison‘s post on business podcasts I decided to try and keep up with a few blogs. I wondered how best to “subscribe” to a blog from a central location. Being an avid Flipboard reader and curator I wondered if I could use Flipboad for gathering blog feeds. Turns out, there is an easy way but it appears to be a somewhat “secret” and behind the scenes.

Here are a few simple steps to follow and subscribe to a blog:

  • If you have a blog you’d like to subscribe to, simply grab it’s Blog Feed URL. You can get a blog’s feed url by simply tacking on a “/feed” to the blog ur, usually something like http://okdork.com/blog/feed/
  • Can’t find the feed url? It may also be under “wp-rss2.php” or “/?feed=rss2”
  • Once you have a blog’s url, simply copy-paste it onto the Flipboard App’s search texbox and hit search
  • The result should be the blog’s feed, simply tap “Follow” once you’ve opened it.



    • flipboadBlogFeed

    eMail Marketing Tools

    Quick Start Options

    constantContact

    I haven’t used this option yet, but starting a trial now. So far, it’s easy to start a free trial.

    mailChimp

    Great tool, excellent metrics, multiple list and campaigns BUT be careful sending out email with MailChimp as they are a little too strict. If you get too high of a bounce-back rate or if even a few users complain (user’s can unsubscribe and specify flag your email as spam), Mailchimp will close your account (you can try to appeal). Mailchimp does offer a great trail period to get started however. You can create emails from templates or paste in an entire HTML document.

    marketo

    With a limited trial period, Marketo is a pricey option. However, the sending capabilities are great. The UI for managing emails and templates is a bit confusing. You can create emails from templates or paste in an entire HTML document.

    For the tech savvy

    amazonAWS

    I haven’t tried this option but here’s some info from Amazon:

    The cloud based email service integrates with other AWS services, making it easy to send emails from applications being hosted on services such as Amazon EC2. With Amazon SES there is no long-term commitment, minimum spend or negotiation required – businesses can utilize a free usage tier and after that enjoy low fees for the number of emails sent plus data transfer fees.

    sendgrid

    Great app for sending emails within your application.

    sendy

    I haven’t tried this option but here’s some info from Sendy:

    Sendy is a self hosted email newsletter application that lets you send trackable emails via Amazon Simple Email Service (SES). This makes it possible for you to send authenticated bulk emails at an insanely low price without sacrificing deliverability.

    Email Utilities

    mail.tester.com

    VMWare Fusion 5 on a Mac with an Apple Thunderbolt Display (2560×1440)

    VMWARE_Fusion_5_ThunderboltDiplslayResolutionBugFix
    After installing Windows 7 via an ISO and then installing Windows 8 onto a MacBook Pro, I noticed that the resolution on the virtual instance of windows was not being set to the max resolution of my display. After several attempts in trying to fix, I noticed one small post on VMWare’s site about the issue. Turns out, it’s a quick fix. Simply launch your VMWare Fusion and resume your virtual windows instance. If your instance is running as a window, then simply go to the top VMWare menu under Virtual Machine > Install VMWare Tools. If you’re running your instance on full screen, scroll your mouse to the top of the screen and wait for the top Menu to show up (see attached screenshot above). Once you select “Install VMWare Tools” simply wait for the app to install on your windows instances. Before the installation is started you may get prompt asking what to do with the CD/ISO, simply click run/open to launch the installation.