Aug 23

Importing csv, LDIF, tab-delimited files into Mac Address Book

Mac, Tips, Tools, software No Comments »

As an entrepreneur on a Mac I recently received over 700 contacts to add to my contact database in Address Book, but they were not in the usual vCard format that it likes to take natively. So, I had to see what it takes to get it done.

After reading a few sites I found that Address Book takes csv (comma-separated value), LDIF (LDAP Data Interchange Format), and tab-delimited files under the File > Import menu function.

However, there are some steps that need to be done before you embark on a one step process.

  1. Ensure your data is up-to-date. Make sure that the data you’re exporting to Address Book is up-to-date.
  2. Export the contact data. From the File > Save As… function of a spreadsheet  or File > Export  in most database programs, export the data into a file. Export the contact names into one of the three formats that Address Book takes: csv (comma separated value), tab-delimited, or LDIF.
  3. Verify the contact data. When you get an exported file you need to check the field names in the headers against the ones Address Book uses. Address Book has the names of the fields, such as “work address” or “cell phone,” that might be different from the exported file headers (a spreadsheet row) where it might say “business address” or “mobile phone.” Whatever the case, open the file in a spreadsheet and make the necessary changes in the header row to reflect what Address Book has. Otherwise, your data will not import completely or correctly. Also, delete all other rows or data records that are not needed.
  4. Add a Note for Address  Book now. When importing a number of contacts it is best to add a note in the Notes section for Address Book and you to remember, such as where and when you got the data from. Add a column in the spreadsheet titles “Note” and add the short note such as “Joe’s data, 08/15/10″ and repeat it for all of the rows.
  5. Save the file as csv or tab-delimited. Once you have checked your data and added a note you can save the file.
  6. Open Address Book and import. Now you need to open Address Book and go to File > Import and select the file to import.
  7. Check field names. Here is where you line up Address Book’s field names with the header of the file to ensure that they are the same. The address field is the only field that has multiple fields of “street,” “State,” and “Zip” for “home” or “work” address. If your fields do not show up correctly, repeat step 3 above. Also go through some of your records to double check your work.
  8. Click OK. Clicking on the OK button will now import your contacts.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions you’d like to have answered.

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Aug 09

iWork magazine templates: either time or money

1 Business Idea, 5 Marketing, 7 Sales, Creativity, Startups, Tips, Tools, ideas No Comments »

As an entrepreneur you either have time or have money, but usually not both. Later on you’ll trade time for money by allowing others to do things they are better at than you are to free you up to do what you do best. But in the beginning if you don’t have the money then you have to do things yourself. But how can you save yourself time and money? Let’s take a look.

First, in creating marketing materials such as a newsletter for your clients or customers you can use Apple’s iWork to create some good looking documents. However, sometimes you need some fresh ideas.

You can take a look at Brad Gosse’s magazine templates and purchase them and make the adjustments you need and then create the documents. He has some great ideas and flair for this thing called marketing. Getting his templates will save you time, especially as low the price is for them.

But if you’re low on the ol’ mulla, then do what I do on occasion. I look at what Brad or any other magazine have done and try and recreate it the best I can and then add some of my own flair in it. It might take longer to do it, but I’ll learn how it’s done and get ideas for later.

If you are a true entrepreneur at first you can’t help by keeping your costs low and get ideas from others. Later on as you begin to make money you’ll save yourself time by hiring others to save you and your time.

So:

  • Get idea from others to keep your costs down
  • Hire others when you have the money so you can concentrate on your business

Now get going and create.

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Jul 17

IONFreshStart Guest Blog Post by Kevin Cullis

2 Business Planning, Business, Entrepreneur, Mac, Startups, Tools, software 1 Comment »

Hi all,

I’ve done a guest blog post on ION Fresh Start’s web site.

Click on the icon and you go to their web site, click here To Business Plan or not, that is the question to read my article.

Tell me what you think.

Jun 23

iWork Templates: Inkd and Stocklayouts web sites

5 Marketing, Business, Tips, Tools, ideas, software No Comments »

As an entrepreneur and startup there is one thing that you work on: if you can’t do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you. Creating new documents can take time, but designing templates, or finding someone else’s designed templates, can save you time in the many tasks that

Inkd is just one such company the designs iWork templates, including a number of sections of free templates, both free to download and upload your own designs.

StockLayouts is another iWork Pages template web site with nicely designed templates for business use.

Check out both sites and see if you can reduce the amount of time it takes you to get your marketing up and out the door.

If anything, you can get some great ideas from them to try out yourself. It may take longer, but you’ll increase your Mac and iWork skill set and get things done yourself.

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Jun 01

Apple iWork Pages: Create a Table of Contents for a book or paper

Mac, Tips, Tools, Writing, software No Comments »

As a budding author, entrepreneur, and startup business owner I have had the opportunity of learning how to create a Table of Contents in Apple’s iWork Pages. It’s not that difficult at all. Here’s the steps.

  1. Size your document/book. This means that you need to select a size of your document or book to the dimensions that you want. If it’s a school paper, then its 8.5″x11″ and you need to do nothing. If it’s a 6″x9″ Trade sized book you need to go to Inspector > Document > Document tab > Page Setup and then select Custom and create the correct size document.
  2. Insert text and header text. Type in or cut and paste some text and header text into your new document.
  3. Paragraph styles of headers. Using paragraph styles select the type of header text style sheets you need to use them as the focus of your Table of Contents. If the TOC does not show up, here’s the step that needs to done.
  4. Create your Table of Contents. You need to insert a page break at the beginning of your document so that your Table of Contents is at the front. Place the cursor at the front of your document. Next, go to the menu Insert > Table of Contents and it will insert the TOC in your document.
  5. Refine your Table of Contents. Go to Inspector > Document > TOC and begin to decide on what you want to show in your TOC by clicking on the boxes of each paragraph style sheet you want to show up.

There you have it. That was easy.

Now be aware that you TOC will only change when you change the header text in your document AND then click on the TOC and both the pages and header text will change.

In addition, the TOC can be changed fontwise compared with the rest of your document so it can be unique.

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May 21

Mac/iPhone/iPad Business app: Soulver, making calculations easy

8 Operations, 9 Finance, Apple, Business, Mac, Tools, iPhone, software No Comments »

As a entrepreneur and startup business I’m always looking for things to be easier to use, to make getting answers quicker and more efficient. Well, I came across an application today that I think makes a HUGH difference for businesses. It’s called Soulver by Acqualia.

Here’s what the screen looks like, but don’t take my word for it, go to the web site and see for yourself.

Interest Rate Calculations

What better way of getting a math answer without having to know the formula to find it. Where can an entrepreneur use this? How about calculating:

  1. How much you earned last week/month/year?
  2. How much gross margin your product is earning?
  3. How much  taxes you’re paying?
  4. How much income you’re making?
  5. How much you’ll make after all of your expenses are paid?

The list is endless and the potential to save frequently used calculations is a big plus.

It takes those ugly math word problems and makes it easy to work with. Are you mathphobic? Then this is your answer to getting answers without the mathphobia.

Great application for your Mac and the iPhone/iPad.

I give it two thumbs up.

Great going guys.

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Apr 10

10th Annual Univ of CO Denver Business Plan competition, June 10th.

Business, Planning, Tips, Tools No Comments »

Here’s a link to the 10th Annual Business plan competition.

More than $100,000 in cash and in-kind awards will be provided to help the top 6 companies launch or grow their businesses.

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Apr 08

Top 100 fonts of all time

Startups, Tips, Tools, software No Comments »

Here’s another list of fonts, this time a list of the top 100 fonts. You can’t  beat the info.

Top 100 Fonts Of All Time.

Check out the year each was created, fascinating. Here’s the list that comes with your Snow Leopard Mac.

1. Helvetica [1957 - Max Miedinger]

2. Garamond [1530 - Claude Garamond]

4. Bodoni [1790 - Giambattista Bodoni]

5. Futura [1927 - Paul Renner]

6. Times [1931 - Stanley Morison]

9. Gill Sans [1930 - Eric Gill]

11. Optima [1954 - Hermann Zapf]

16. Rockwell [1934 - Frank H. Pierpont]

24. Lucida [1985 - Chris Holmes / Charles Bigelow]

26. Zapfino [1998 - Hermann Zapf]

33. Eurostile [1962 - Aldo Novarese]

38. Palatino [1950 - Hermann Zapf]

39. Baskerville [1754 - John Baskerville]

48. Cooper Black [1920 - Oswald B. Cooper]

60. Copperplate Gothic [1901 - Frederic W. Goudy]

64. News Gothic [1908 - Morris Fuller Benton]

66. Bernhard Modern [1937 - Lucian Bernhard]

100. Mistral [1953 - Roger Excoffon]

Would you agree?

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Apr 05

iWork Pages: Initial cap, drop cap, and raised cap

Mac, Tips, Tools, Writing, software 1 Comment »

As an entrepreneur and a startup that used iWord Pages exclusively to do his business, especially writing a book, it’s a matter of getting the most out of what Pages can do. In novels, you have initial caps that begin each new chapter, but there are variations called drop caps (see steps below), raised caps (just larger font size on the same line), and adjacent caps (midway between raised and drop). No matter which one you prefer, here’s a few suggestions on how to do a drop cap. However, I have found an easier way of doing drop caps in Pages.

First things, you need to know the accurate spacing and font size of your text. For instance:

  • First line = 12 point font Garamond.
  • Line spacing = 14 point (called “Exactly” by page under Inspector > Text > Line > Exactly)
  • Second line = 12 point
  • Line spacing = 14 point
  • Third line = 12 point

The total points of the lines and spacing equals 64 points (12+14+12+14+12). This will be the figure to work with to do a drop cap.

  1. Create a text box and the initial cap letter, such as a “D” and make the letter a 50 point font.
  2. Adjust the text box dimensions. Make the text box boundaries so that the letter and your text and close to touching.
  3. Place text box in first paragraph. Click on the text box and go to Inspector > Wrap > Object Placement > Inline and ensure that you have Inline selected. You’ll next need to cut and paste the text box insertion point into the first line of your paragraph, i.e. click on the text box, cut the text box, insert your cursor into the first space and line of your paragraph and then paste it there.
  4. Object Wrap. Ensure you have Inspector > Wrap > Object causes wrap at left alignment.
  5. Text fit. Make sure your text fit is at zero (“0″).
  6. Line spacing. Go to Line spacing and make it 36 point “Exactly.”
  7. Baseline shift. Go to Inspector > Text > More > Baseline shift and make the number -14 (50+14=64, the total number above).

You’re done. A well done drop cap, but you can also adjust the figures to do adjacent or raised caps too.

You can also find out other ways of doing drop caps at the iWork forum.

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Mar 04

Mac 19 font combinations: text and header

Book, Mac, Planning, Tips, Tools, Writing, software 5 Comments »

As an entrepreneur and business start-up we all begin somewhere.

I am finishing up my first book and am in the editing stages now and I am starting to consider how my book will look to others, and in this case, how my fonts will look in the book’s interior. A readability issue. How does my text look to the reader.

I found a quick link to a quick article that as a novice to fonts it broke fonts down so even I can choose between a few choices. The article 19 top fonts in 19 top combinations is a first start for those that need to buy a clue from their local graphic artist. But better yet, I’m a better informed customer to a future graphic artist now.

Here’s his list with headline first and text being second and I have indicated which ones are default loaded on the Mac (bold is a Y/Y, italic has at least one loaded font, so you can figure out which extra ones you need to buy):

  1. Helvetica / Garamond   Y/Y
  2. Caslon / Univers  N/N
  3. Frutiger / Minion   N/N
  4. Futura / Bodoni   Y/Y
  5. Garamond / Futura   Y/Y
  6. Gill Sans / Caslon Y/N
  7. Minion / Gill Sans   N/Y
  8. Univers / Caslon   N/N
  9. Bodoni / Futura   Y/Y
  10. Myriad / Minion   N/N
  11. Avenir / Warnock   N/N
  12. Caslon / Franklin Gothic   N/N
  13. FF Din / Baskerville   N/Y
  14. Trade Gothic / Clarendon   N/N
  15. Baskerville / Univers Y/N
  16. Akzidenz Grotesk / Garamond   N/Y
  17. Clarendon / Trade Gothic   N/N
  18. Franklin Gothic / Baskerville   N/Y
  19. Warnock / Univers   N/N

As I was going over my book I actually chose #1 above without realizing it, but I see what he means now.

But the one thing that would be helpful is if Doug actually took his comment “I could have picked Baskerville, Caslon, Garamond, or Minion, etc. (all serif typefaces) to go with Futura (a sans serif typeface)” and for us newbies he could have expanded upon this some more. Note to Doug, we just don’t have the “eye” for this stuff! If you do add to this, I’ll put your name in my upcoming book as helping me out. :-)

Looking at my Snow Leopard fonts loaded on my Mac I see that I have 203 fonts in Font Book, where do we buy a clue how to use these?

Anyone with any different ideas or comments?

Update 3/10/2010: Here are some sites to find fonts:

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