This week I received 2 invitations to MindManager Connect Beta.  I was pretty jazzed about the idea, but the first invitation came when I was in the middle of wrapping up my taxes and working on a major customer project. 

The next day, I received an email from MindMeister also talking about their MindMeister 2.0 version.  Kind of ironic as MindManager is playing catch up with MindMeister on collaboration, while MindMeister plays catch up with MindManager on look and feel and interface.

Friday, I received the ominous message in the form of a second invitation that I shouldn’t miss the opportunity to try it so I clicked on the button.

That all sounded fantastic!

Well unfortunately, my luck didn’t hold up.  The button with an encrypted hyperlink in it, did not get me into MindManager Connect but did kick me off on the process of having a nice live chat with someone that wasn’t able to get me in either.

Now, I’m feeling a bit like a kid that is promised Santa Clause in July only to be told that Santa won’t be coming until December after all. 

Hopefully, I’ll get a call soon.  I want to open my presents!

Note, I’m not a big fan of Live Chat help these days.  It seems like more an more live chat support workers are unable to actually get anything done.

Customer Service Agent5: Hello, Brett Bumeter. Thank you for contacting Mindjet.
Brett Bumeter: Hi, I can’t seem to login. Probably don’t have a password maybe not a user name. But I received an invitation so I’m a little confused.
Customer Service Agent5: What did you receive?
Brett Bumeter: Mindjet is offering an exclusive first look at Mindjet Connect – a powerful way for teams to collaborate and build communities.
Find out more
With Mindjet Connect, now you can:
Co-edit and share maps simultaneously with MindManager Pro 7
Capture, organize and share maps and files through secure workspaces
Conduct web conferences with integrated desktop sharing, chat and whiteboarding
Start collaborating with Mindjet Connect today and – for a limited time – invite your colleagues and create your MindManager community now!
You will have the opportunity to contribute to Mindjet’s product development efforts by sharing your valuable feedback with us
Brett Bumeter: It also says “Please note – community members need not be existing MindManager users.” which I am, also a trainer.
Brett Bumeter: And this is also my second invitation.
Customer Service Agent5: There should be a link in the email.
Brett Bumeter: Yup, it took me to the login page
Brett Bumeter: http://encryptedlinkremoved.com
Brett Bumeter: sorry, took a while to extract it from the graphic button
Customer Service Agent5: Can you sign in to the login page?
Brett Bumeter: no and when I tried forgot password, it told me my email wasn’t in the system.
Brett Bumeter: I used the email address that the offer had been delivered to.
Customer Service Agent5: You will need to reset your password.
Brett Bumeter: yeah, but how do I reset by username?
Brett Bumeter: It doesn’t even have my email in the system for the username.
Customer Service Agent5: May I have a contact number to call you back Brett?
Brett Bumeter: sure xxx.xxx.xxxx
Customer Service Agent5: We will follow up with you soon Brett.
Customer Service Agent5: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Brett Bumeter: nope, any idea when? I have a meeting soon.
Customer Service Agent5: Hopefully by the end of the day.
Brett Bumeter: OK, I’ll answer if I can. Thanks.

Maybe I’m getting old, but live chat help just seems to take my blood pressure up, I’d rather replace all of the CAT5e cables on my home theater yet again just for the heck of it.

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I received this email the other day from Mindjet that said that 91% of MindManager users were satisfied with the upgrade to version 7.

Now, when I first read that, I actually misread it.  It was about 2 am and I had been working late on a Sunday night preparing for Monday morning.

I inaccurately thought that it stated that 91% of MindManager Users had already upgraded.

So I thought to myself, why are they sending out this email?  I upgraded a year ago, and it looks like everyone else upgraded too.  At 91% there aren’t going to be any users left to upgrade.

Of course that was fuzzy sleep deprived logic based on a mis read.

When I came back and read it again (after a full night of sleep, the first in 4 nights), it made a lot more sense and was actually a a good number to throw around.

5 MindManager 6 Licenses Available at a Steal

Now, you will notice that it only costs $174 for an upgrade to version 7.

I point that out, because I have a good friend that has 5 unopened boxes with Version 6 inside (never registered or used -license, CD and everything).  If you would like to purchase these  (in the continental US) feel free to make me an offer.  I’m just trying to help a friend unload extra copies.  (they’ve upgraded their copies in use to 7 already too!)

Here’s the Company Pitch on Why You Should Upgrade

1. New! Fewer steps to create, format and save custom topic styles for reuse during brainstorming and project planning.
2. New! Topic Sorting prioritizes, highlights and organizes topics by alphanumeric order, alphabetical only, task completion percentage or task priority.
3. New! Saving of map views plus more control over manipulating and viewing large maps eliminates time-consuming content searches.
4. New! Easy-to-use, Microsoft-inspired ribbon interface simplifies map creation and access to advanced MindManager functions.
5. New! Better Microsoft Office integration.
6. Only $174**—50% off $349 price new users pay.
7. Bonus! Free tools and resources (valued at more than $250), including productivity packs and real-world tips to optimize MindManager Pro 7.

I would simply add to that, that this version is more stable and reliable for the most part.

So if you have to tap one of your savings accounts to try MindManager or upgrade to version 7, what are you waiting for?  If someone asked you if you wanted to be smarter and more efficient today, would you decline and ask for more time?

No thanks, I’ll wait to get smarter, improve my communications skills, and become more efficient at work next week, next month or next year.

There’s not time like the present. 

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Today, I was all set to produce a Dictation tutorial video showing people how to use Dragon Naturally Speaking 9  with  Excel.  Murphy’s law came into play and Dragon Naturally Speaking refused to work with Excel.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the dictation or voice recognition to work at all.

I did some searching, going through help and my Dragon Naturally Speaking manuals and books.  Ultimately, I found the answer on a thread talking about the problem at SpeechComputing.com.  A former DNS programmer offered up what seemed to be a good description of the problem and the technical fix.

As regards why you could not dictate into an Excel spreadsheet, the Dragon log indicates that DNS attempted to load the Excel ActiveX control, but Windows fail to load it. Loading ActiveX controls is called a “Remote Procedure Call.” You have seen this in other posts as “RPC_Server Unavailable.” What happens is that the RPC server either has not been started or is inaccessible because Windoze burped and failed to launch it or cannot access it. This server controls the loading of ActiveX controls. If you’re running Windows XP Professional or Windows Vista, you can go always go to the Administrative Tools and look under local services for the RPC server. There are 2 entries. All you have to do is stop them and restart them. However, if you do this be sure to restart them in automatic mode vs. manual mode. Otherwise, they may fail to start the next time around. Regardless, if the RPC server stops functioning or is inaccessible for any reason, you will not be able to load ActiveX controls that load on-the-fly as they do in DNS. On the other side of the coin, don’t go looking for the path that is specified in the error (Exception thrown entries). This is a temporary folder and you will not find it because it is emptied (cleared) once the error reporting is completed. The results are stored in the temporary files folder, but they are stored in a manner that is not viewable. 

How do you enter text into Excel 2003 on XP SP2 using DNS Pro 9?

Too Technical of a Fix for Me - Here’s the Low Tech Fix!

Well, I tried that using my own system which runs on XP Media Center and I couldn’t get this to work.  I did find an alternative workaround.

Reboot your PC!

Yeah, it sucks that you have to revert to this step, but if all else fails this did work for me.

The problem seems to be intrinsic to Windows and Excel, but the reality is that this is the program that many people work in and DNS either will work or it will not.  Fortunately if it does not or stops working, then a reboot, should que things up to work once again. 

Dragon Naturally Speaking Articles on Maven Mapper’s Information

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I’m watching from the sidelines this war developing between Yahoo! and Microsoft and Yahoo!’s recent move to test the waters with Google seems to be very stupid.

It is a bit of a slap in the face for Microsoft and sure to drive Microsoft to stop being friendly and commence with a hostile takeover of Yahoo!.

It could even border on anti-competitive behavior or even collusion. Who ever heard of a rival company working with a monopoly that it should compete with to raise its price during a takeover process?

Source Article Link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/…339864.stm

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