johnpiro.com

COMMUNICATION

First, we need to be able to communicate with one another… 

I use 4 tools to communicate with those interested in working with me. Create your account on each of the following now. Otherwise you will find it difficult to communicate with me. Getting your accounts established with these platforms will make it much easier for you to learn.

Skype:

Skype is a free communication VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) platform which extremely functional which will enable us to communicate over the internet much easier than sending each other emails. I refer to e-mail as the new “Snail-Mail”. Skype did to email what email did to the United States Postal System (USPS). SKype allows us to go direct to each other’s desktop. If I send you a message when you are offline, Skype will store my message and deliver it to you the next time we are online at the same time. My suggestion is to leave skype open at all times.

[A word of caution: Under no circumstances do you open a file that is sent to you other than someone you know AND only open it when the person sends you a file when you are both online. Further, you want to insure you KNOW you are communicating with the person you think you are communicating with. If you are unsure, ask a pertinent current question that only you and your friend share.]

Facebook (FB)

I like to use FB these days because it is where everyone is hanging out socializing. You can text message me when you see me online or if I am offline you can send me a message through FB and FB will send an alert to the email account I have registered in its system alerting me to the fact you sent me a message. I will also be alerted on my Blackberry you are trying to communicate a message to me.

Crossloop

Crossloop is a D2D (Desktop to Desktop) conferencing tool which enables us to come on to each other’s desktop upon permission of one another. We will communicate over the telephone while we navigate on each others desktop. This facilitates the ability to demonstrate how to do whatever it is we are trying to verbally explain to one another rather than just verbally trying to explaining something. “A picture is worth a Thousand words!” Crossloop is my choice of D2D conferencing tools.

There are many others free D2D’s: Teamviewer, Yuugu, Yugma, Skype’s Mikogo, Vyew, ShowMyPC, Glance (cross platform- PC/Mac) and many more. I happen to choose Crossloop.

And there are Paid D2D’s as well: Go2Meeting, WebEX & others.

Telephone

A cell phone or a landline will be used if the conferencing tool we are using does not offer an audio feature. If you use your cell phone make sure you know your plan. I personally ran up a very large invoice on my cell phone bill because I thought I was on the unlimited plan. Even if I was on the unlimited plan, the international calls I was making to a Canadian telephone number was not included. Further I was unaware I was calling Canada!