GOOGLE APPS & G-MAIL

(not exciting, but important)

Okay, there's this edgy little start-up company… They go by the name of Google. I know it sounds funny, but they do some cool stuff. In fact, they have a really good e-mail program.

What? You already know this? Well, I'll share my experiences anyway, just in case…

Here's where I'm coming from… Outlook served me pretty well for a while. I mean, it was just the easiest thing to use for e-mail. The default. But there were some annoyances.

Old e-mails would get archived somewhere where I couldn't seem to access them. I could not easily check all of my e-mail accounts (I have several) easily without having my computer with me. And the camel that broke the straw's back? The ridiculous and depressing amount of SPAM that I had to delete.

I flirted with a G-mail account, just like I had with a Yahoo account. Never really used it for anything but storage though. But like $4 gas, the pain of deleting SPAM was enough for me to change my behavior.

I signed up for a Google Premier account for $50 a year. I now receive all my e-mails to one central G-mail account. I get maybe one SPAM message in my inbox a day. And best of all, I can access my e-mail from whatever computer I'm using — Mac or PC, mine or a friend's.

Plus with Google Doc (like Microsoft Word), I can keep all my writings in an online, decentralized location for easy access and no fear of hard drive failure.

What makes this cool? The FREEDOM it allows me.

If you've got one e-mail address and nothing terribly important comes into your life via e-mail (like money!), you're probably fine with Outlook or whatever if you can handle the SPAM.

But if you want to upgrade, and simplify your life, I recommend the Google Apps package.

Google Apps

Also, I am a big fan of Google Desktop. This program has saved my ass many, many times. Let me briefly elaborate… Google Desktop is a search engine for everything on your computer. Believe it or don't, I am not the most organized guy with my computer files. Google Desktop allows me to find anything I misplace — documents, photos, e-mails, websites I've visited — instantly (none of that chug, chug, chugging with an Outlook search or an XP search).

Finally, Google Desktop makes a cache of your files. Why is this important? Everyone has had the experience of losing an important document just as you are a few keystrokes away from being done. Many, many times, Google Desktop has saved me from saying bad words at a loud volume by having a copy of my file.

Check it out. Again, I know this isn't the most exciting topic — but infrastructure is important and paying attention to it has the power to improve the quality of your life. Plus, I needed to post something…

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Heard about this video, then read this piece in The New York Times and then found it on YouTube. My favorite quote in the article is where Matt talks about his simple inspiration to travel ("It's the one thing I'm really good at.")

The video expresses more than my words can, so I'll just invite you to enjoy it.

It certainly fits my definition of cool — full of freedom, ease, and connection.

Well done, Matt. Well done indeed. His site is worth a visit as well!

Been waiting to see this article appear on Esquire.com since it showed up in my July issue. I loved it, Karin loved, I wanted to share it.

In "The Conversion of an Apathetic Driver", Benjamin Alsup does a brilliant, funny job describing the awakening of a desire he did not even know he had.

The subtitle, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Audi A6" says it all.

When I talk to people about their desires, it never fails to surprise me just how difficult it is for people to dream. Somehow, instead of natural, fun, and yes, pragmatic (thoughts become things, remember?) place to put your awareness, dreaming became folly - an impractical waste of time - as in "it's never going to happen anyway, so why fool myself?" Or dreaming became dangerous, in conflict with what the "good" people do (which is suffer and take their medicine, dammit).

I'd ask an old friend about his dreams. He would skirt the question, saying he had all he wanted. In fact, he had strong beliefs that wanting more, especially in a material sense, was wrong. I think he used the word "evil" a few times.

He drove a piece-of-shit Geo and in one breath would argue the merits of his cheap, no-frills ride, while in the next, complaining about the cost of the constant stream of repair bills it generated. Wouldn't he prefer a nicer car - a more comfortable, reliable mode of transportation, I'd ask?

Oh, no. For him, there was a nobility in the suffering. He might have to hitch a ride every once in a while, but at least he wasn't one of those a-holes in a fancy car that actually works well.

Certainly, cars may not have been his thing (but then again, how would he know as his beliefs about nice cars/money/people-who-drive-nice-cars/ never allowed him to even explore this territory?). But this was never really about cars, anyway. It was about the conditioning that teaches us to suppress our desires.

We are built to expand, to want more, to grow, to experience, to evolve. This does not mean that we need to gather more stuff, to find our identities in the labels (or lack thereof) on our clothing. It just means that it's cooler to be open to what feels good rather than clinging to your ideas (or ideals) of what's supposed to be good.

You might surprise yourself.

Who knows, maybe you'd drive an S6…

And here's another link to Mr. Alsup's great piece of writing… Check it out!

Living on a hillside, in a bit of a valley, we get a primo seat when a weather front arrives. Looking out my window, I can usually see where the dark meets the light.

And often, when these two forces take a dance together, they give birth to a brilliant offspring — a rainbow!

Shucks, who doesn't like rainbows, right? I mean, I love me some rainbows, don't you? Hell, even the big burly guy with the massive diesel pick-up truck stopped right in the road in front of my house to snap off a few photos of this one the other day.

this rainbow landed right on that house. no gold found.

So, I've been thinking about rainbows and wanting to say something about them for a few days now. At the very least, I wanted to share a couple photos and get an update on the blog, y'know?

And today, I went to the gym to play some basketball. And today, playing basketball, I was a bit of an asshole. I argued some calls. I pushed a dude after I felt he pushed me. I rolled my eyes when a teammate made a mistake.

In the scheme of things, nothing too major. I've seen much worse and done much worse. But as I headed to the showers, I could not shake the feeling that I did not like that person, that man who was just on the court. I do not really know who he is, or where he came from, but he makes enough appearances that I am well-acquainted with him. Though I wish he would leave and never come back, sometimes he just shows up. Uninvited.

He shows up off the court as well. He can be highly critical, condescending, and will fight to be right. Again, I think this dude is a tool and when I focus on him, my thoughts cascade in a downward spiral and I play the same tape over and over in my head.

It ain't pretty.

But it ain't true, either. Not the greater truth, anyhow. I am not as "bad" as my worst thoughts about myself. Nor am I as "good" as my best thoughts or outcomes. In fact, I am not any of my thoughts or experiences.

Though those things certainly touch my life, but I am not them. I need not mistake myself for them.

My essential natures lies beyond the darkness or the light. And for me, in this moment anyhow, its comforting and helpful to think of myself as that brilliance that exists between the darkness and light.

In the meantime, I'll keep my eye toward the sky…

Here are some from the recent past…

a double! no gold found.

a rare January rainbow. perhaps this explains why there is no snow, either? no gold found.

ah, an oldie but a goodie… this shot came out well. kudos to my wife…

I got an e-mail from my brother this morning.

Dude, I want to move my website to a new server off the schools domain and rebuilt it in a diff no frontpage format. Any suggestions?

First, I chastised him for not studying the offer in my last newsletter. But then I told him he was in luck. I spent yesterday creating the step-by-step solution for him (LOTS of people ask me this question. When I see a trend, I create a product…)

So, here she be…

Learn the step-by-step way to create websites and blogs using Wordpress… In one hour! *

Lots of people ask me how to create a website or a blog. You used to have to be a technical whiz to do this stuff, but now it's easier than ever. So, if you're inclined to send a bigger signal out to the world, I want to help you get the basics down.

In less than one hour, you can have your website, blog (or your website with a blog, like this drewrozell.com) up and running with Wordpress. If you're not familiar with Wordpress, it's a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.

WordPress is free, open source (means it's always getting better) software. In my opinion, if you're going to have a website and/or blog, the future is Wordpress. (Note: Microsoft no longer makes or supports Front Page!)

In this course, I will show you step by step how to get your website at "yourdomainname.com" fully hosted, up and running with ease.

Again, your total time getting things up and running should be less than an hour. And your total cost for this course is $49.00.

Keep in mind, you can learn all of this is free online, but in my experience, it will take you much more time and you'll end up paying more than you have to — much more than 50 bucks.

In addition, through this course, I have a special offer with my hosting company that will give you $50 off your first year of hosting and a free domain name registration. Can't beat that!

So, to learn how to set up as many websites and blogs that you can think of on the most powerful, flexible web publishing software in less than one hour, with your domain name (yourname.com, NOT yourname.wordpress.org), and one year's worth of web hosting from the top company (with outstanding customer support) is $49 (for the course) + $67 for the domain name/ 1year hosting = $116.

Trust me, that's a pretty sweet deal. In truth, you're really only paying for the webhosting, because you will save $50 on your first year by using my preferred webhost (Dreamhost).

The course is delivered immediately via e-mail, so you can jump in at any time.

Everything you need to know and do will arrive to you via e-mail in simple, step-by-step instructions. Of course you are free to ask me any questions as well.

What the hell, I'll even guarantee (full money back, no strings) that you'll have a good experience and a working site!

<<Register here now>>

Call or e-mail with questions.

But if you're ready to get out there, get to it, dude or dudette…

hey look! A testimonial!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that we indeed set up my new website in less then an hour (www.diamondconsultinginc.com) using your process. It is still very much a work in process but the basic site was up and running very quickly and painlessly. $50 for the course is a steal vs. the time it would have taken me to figure all that stuff out myself.  — Warren

* May take way longer than one hour. Seriously, to get things set up should not take you more than one hour. But, like any software, you'll have to invest some time getting comfortable with the program.