There is a fine line between sending out a targeted cold email and sending out a never-ending deluge of spam messages to every email address that you collect. I’m sure that we have all encountered some less than pleasant spam messages that automatically hit the trash can. If you are the person sending out these messages, it’s clear that the conversion rate is nowhere near where you want it to be.

Unsolicited emails can be a very touchy subject, because many of us don’t appreciate getting email messages from people that we don’t expect. For this reason, if you are going to make use of a cold email strategy, you’ll want to tread carefully.

First, make sure that each and every message is highly personalized. Instead of addressing it with “To Whom It May Concern”, have the salutation actually read with the name of the recipient. Any other personalized information or targeting can come in very handy as well. If you know that the company recently made a major announcement and you have a service that can aid them in getting the product into the hands of customers, then mention this. This helps to show that you are not just spamming them; you are genuinely interested in what they are doing and how you can help them.

Second, keep the message brief and to the point. We’re all busy and we simply do not have the time to read through a novel each time a message appears in an email inbox. State who you are and what you can do for them. Be detailed without being too wordy. If your message sparks their interest, they’ll follow up with you.

Third, make sure that you are easy to contact. Even though your email address may be in the header, be sure to also include your contact information in your signature. This includes your name, title, company, email, phone number, and website. Highlighting the company website can go a long way in getting the potential customer to read further about what you can offer.

Due to the poor battery life on the iPhone I have been testing various settings and hardware to see what will work well for my needs.

Brightness
The iPhone by default uses an Auto-Brightness. I am not sure how it works but the iPhone is bright enough to light a movie theater with the default settings. Turn it off in your Settings > Brightness area of your iPhone. Also setting down the brightness to the mini increased my battery life by about an hour.

Car Charger
If you have a car I suggest you purchase the Car Charger for the iPhone. You can plug your iPhone in to charger and your battery will charge as you drive.

Solar Panel Charger
I am outside usually a few hours a day. A good way to charge the iPhone while outside is to use a Solar Panel Charger. The little panel costs less then $30 and keeps your iPhone battery charging while you have fun in the sun.

Emergency Charger
If you need to extend the battery life in an emergency you can get a USB remote charger for your iPhone. I like that you can slip in some AA batteries (available almost everywhere in the world) and have your phone back online. If your a power user then this little device might be a life saver some day.

Hand-Crank Charger
The eco-friendly alternative to charge your iPhone would be to use a USB hand-crank charger. You would need to crank it for several minutes and then could charge your phone. I would personally prefer the Solar Panel charger but this one might be good if it is raining.

What have you found helps with extending your iPhone battery life?

Last week we asked what future event would work well in the Fraser Valley and 76% said you thought a PHP even would work well. This weeks question is…

You may have noticed that many WordPress themes automatically come with a navigation bar either near the top of theme or in the sidebar. By default, most of themes will automatically list all the WordPress pages that you have in alphabetical order. This seems like it could be very convenient, but what if you have pages that you don’t want to have featured near the top of your blog.

Earlier this year, Google announced that all AdSense publishers are required to have a privacy policy on their sites. More likely than not, you would want to use a WordPress page on your blog for your privacy policy, but at the same time, you may not want to have it featured at the top of the site. How can you exclude that page.

It’s actually quite a simple process, actually. Go into the header.php (or sidebar.php) file in your WordPress theme and look for this string:

<?php wp_list_pages(‘title_li=&depth=2′);?>

You may or may not have the “depth=2″ portion. Don’t worry about that part.

To exclude a specific page that you have created, first find out what is the page ID. You can do this through the “Manage” part of the WordPress dashboard. Find the page that you would like to see excluded and hover over its title. You will see that the URL for editing that post ends in something similar to “?action=edit&post=300″. It is the “300″ that you are interested in. After finding out this number, go back to the previously discussed string in header.php (or sidebar.php) and edit it to look like this.

<?php wp_list_pages(‘title_li=&depth=2&exclude=300′);?>

Of course, you’ll want to replace the “300″ with whatever post/page number is associated with the page that you would like to see excluded. Thanks to Matt for the info.

BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

All attendees are encouraged to give a demo, a session, a presentation, or help with one. All attendees are expected to be participants. All presentations are scheduled the day they happen. Prepare in advance, but come early to get a slot on the wall.

When is the event happening?
Saturday, September 27, 2008

Where is it happening?
Location to be released later - Vancouver

Registration
To register for the free event you need to RSVP here.

Last week I purchased the new 3G iPhone and thought I would share my review of the phone. I was not caught up in the hype of owning an iPhone and had no intention of getting one until my HipTop 2 died. I hopped on twitter and asked others about their experience with various phones and the only one that fit my requirements that was available is the iPhone.

The Good
This has to be one of the best phones I have ever owned. The various applications you can add and that are included make the phone useful beyond any standard phone…

• SMS – although it is just SMS the iPhone allows you to track a conversation easily between your SMS friends. I have used SMS before and sometimes I forget the conversation if there is a large gap between. The iPhone makes that problem obsolete.
• Contacts - finally a contacts area that integrates all the other applications on the phone. You can text, phone, email or visit a site all from one contact. You can even add a picture and set custom ring tones for each contact.
• Maps – Do you get lost? With an iPhone that won’t ever be a problem again. The map works with the built in GPS that shows you where you are. If your in need of a coffee just fire up the map and enter Tim Hortons and all the local coffee places will be shown around you and you can find directions to them in seconds.
• Weather – have to hunt for the local weather? The iPhone keeps the current temperature and weather conditions available and 7 day forecast.
• Email - With many different options to setup emails the tool is easy to use and intuitive.
• Safari – Surfing with the iPhone is in full colour and works with almost every site. The zoom feature means you can focus in on smaller type. You can open multiple sites in various windows and flip between windows.
• WiFi - You can hook up to wifi and not use as much of your phone transfer.

The Bad
Even though it is a great phone there are some bad things with this phone…

• Rogers/Fido coverage is not the greatest. I have noticed dropped coverage in Surrey for Internet. As more people come on I am worried that this problem will only get worse.
• The keyboard is easy to use and you do get use to it. With only a few days under my belt I can type about 10 words per minute. With my old QWERTY phone keyboard I could type around 30 to 40 words per minute.
• The Internet browser will reload randomly. I am surfing a site and go to the next page and the browser just reloaded. If it is a forum it can be annoying because whatever you had typed is now gone.
• The email needs a select all button. If you have 50 or more emails in the inbox and want to just clear them out you need to select each one individually and the delete them all. I would prefer a select all and delete button.
• 3rd party applications stop loading in the background. So if your listening to music through last.fm and want to read an email. The music will stop as soon as you leave that application.

The Ugly
These things are horrible about the phone…

• You have to sign-up for a 3 year contract or no iPhone for you.
• iTunes Canada does not have all the applications that the US iTunes does.
• If you wish to develop for the iPhone you need to do so on an Apple computer.
• Power Users will be unhappy with the 4 to 5 hour battery life.

Do you have an iPhone? If so what is your favorite applications?